She has not been too much on the big screen lately. Yet, Bollywood’s glam girl Priyanka Chopra has been rocking as never before. From acting to singing solo in well-received international albums, from tending to her father, to taking care of her mother and brother after his death, this ‘Daddy’s lil girl’ has emerged as one of the best reworked personalities from an otherwise stereotyped Bollywood. Now ready with Zanjeer, Piggy Chops insists that her journey has just begun. ‘Marriage can wait as I am not done with acting and singing yet’, she tells DEEBASHREE MOHANTY in a full-length interview
From Bareilly to Bollywood, from Filmfare Awards to a Grammy nomination, from being ‘Daddy’s lil girl’ to becoming mama’s caretaker, from being just a glamdoll in the film industry to emerging as a meaningful actress, Priyanka Chopra has been busy, and quite differently at that.
Talk to her at length, and a strange mix of bindaas means business kind of a purposeful personality emerges unannounced. And just as you think that the actor in her is at its best, you grudgingly concede that the life Priyanka has stitched up around herself is not all make-believe. There are reality bytes, there is raw emotion, there are regrets and yet there is no shame around the searing ambition that she courts openly.
It is refreshing to know that the 31-year-old actress who is exactly a decade old in the rough and tumble of Bollywood, prefers not to be just any PR-tutored star on a media campaign before a movie release. She talks and talks well about herself, her journey and the self-made track she has taken all through the ladder climbing years of her modeling, acting, endorsing, social work and now singing career.
“Really, Mr Amitabh Bachchan should make me his brand ambassador,” she says laughingly about the sheer number of his films’ remakes she has starred in. There have been three so far — Don, Agneepath and the upcoming Zanjeer.
It will be exactly a year after Priyanka Chopra tugged at your heartstrings with a stellar performance in Barfi, that she would be returning to the big screen in a big way — in Apoorva lakhia’s remake of the iconic Zanjeer.
“Mala (her character in Zanjeer) and I have a lot in common — we both talk as if tomorrow is the last day on Earth. She is smart, modern and a very today’s girl. I don’t know why people think I am nakcharhi types. I am a very people’s person, well-grounded. It comes from being a small town girl,” she says. From being a doctor couple’s daughter studying in Bareilly to living out of a suitcase for most part of this year, having already toured nine cities worldwide in the last two months, Priyanka sounds strangely un-tired! “Promotions, promotions and more promotions,” she explains but not before complaining about the relentless media scrutiny she has to live under.
“Everyone has an off day at work. Even you journalists must not be able to churn out great articles every day of your life. No one points a finger at other professionals. Once you become an actor, everything changes. You are expected to be perfect in every single shot. Nahin to people will be like — yahan theek se hasee nahin, yeh ronewala scene theek nahin tha, she has put an inch on her waist, her fashion sense sucks, she has no chemistry, she can’t dance, yada yada yada... I am here to change such stereotypes,” she declares. Otherwise, Piggy Chops is in a ‘happy space’. After all, everything has always fallen in place for her in Bollywood and beyond.
Ask her about the competition within the industry and she turns from being playful to being brutally honest. “I am a very good actress. I will not be modest about that. There are places in which I have to work harder but I’ve earned my daily bread. I am not one to get complacent. All this appreciation only makes me more determined to give my best. I am aware of the cut-throat competition, but with 10 years behind me, I can handle Bolly pressure,” she tells you, adding that she has “well defined” friends in the industry and out of it.
So, she has tea waley friends, go-to-friend-at-any-given-point-at-night, friends for shopping, phone-a-friend, movie waley friends, lunch friends and even some vela friends she loves to hang out with every once in a while. “But, this list is only in the mind. I make it a point to find time for family and friends. They are the most important people for me. Work comes second and the rest can take a walk,” she says.
At present though, Priyanka is dying to take a break at some exotic beach. “Zanjeer was fun but tiring too. With the shooting mostly in Mumbai and some part in Hyderabad, I was lucky to be nearer home but that also meant 14-16 hours of work a day. We wrapped up the Telugu and Hindi versions simultaneously in just 75 days. For me, that is record timing. I am glad Apoorva lakhia shot the two simultaneously,” Priyanka says, all praise for lakhia, her director friend with whom Zanjeer is her first film.
“He is a serious filmmaker, very cut and dry about work. But once we pack up, he is a different person. He wants to party, do long drives, he loves to enjoy life. No amount of pranks irritate him. He has no temper,” PeeCee says. Not even when she and Ram Charan, her lead actor in Zanjeer, texted lakhia’s friends inviting them to his secret wedding, did the director get angry.
“The entire day, he was on phone explaining it was just a prank by his stars,” Prankster Chopra as she is called by Krrish co-star Hrithik Roshan, tells you. Krrish’s trailer is out and PeeCee is glad it is well received because “the designers worked very hard on it.” But for now, it’s Mala she wants to talk about.
“let’s talk about Mala. Krrish can wait for another couple of weeks. Mala is not the 70s ki chaaku churiya tej kara lo girl but a london-based professional who is in India to attend a wedding. That is where she witnesses a murder and things start happening. The feel of this one and also the storyline is different from the original Zanjeer. Apoorva has weaved in the twists and turns beautifully,” the bubbly actress says, taking a break to sip water in between, a regimen that is second nature to her.
“My yoga tutor tells me it is good to keep having sips of water,” she explains, playing down the work she puts into sporting the finely sculpted body that she has. Known to never lower her guard before good food and being completely gym-oriented, she says “sipping water every five to 10 minutes” has been quite a help in keeping up with a punishing fitness regime.
One look at the bikini clad chiselled diva seen grooving to peppy music in her latest album Exotic and you wonder how she can sounding so casual about such stressful workouts. But for now, she is not going into that. “Remember, this is about Zanjeer,” she reminds you. The film, she reveals, she may not be playing the small town girl Jaya Bachchan played in the original, “but in my own way, I have tried to pay her a tribute through one scene. When Ram Charan comes into my hotel room, I show him a butter knife and tell him to keep away ‘nahin to chaku chhuriya chala dungi’. It is just a small scene but it means a lot. I have a lot of respect for Jayaji as an actress and I hope she notices it,” she says.
As for Big B himself, “as I can’t be the hero of a film, hain (her hain is as good as Big B’s), I should be made his ambassador. It is a coincidence that I am a part of three of his remade films. I adore him as an actor and hoping he likes Zanjeer,” she says. Incidentally, Priyanka has seen neither of the originals but feels that acts as a plus. “That way, I get no pre-conceived notions. I go into the film fresh. My directors appreciate this,” she says.
Although PeeCee was lakhia’s first and only choice to play Mala, she was initially not convinced about the script. “I had my hands full and was not sure if I could fit in my dates for this remake. But Apoorva told me this would be a bi-lingual film so I would have double dhamaal. I couldn’t refuse. I hadn’t done a Telugu film for a while and I didn’t want to let go of the opportunity,” she says. Besides, all cast and crew were paid double the amount for shooting the film in Hindi and Telugu.
For all the money, mugging up three pages of Telugu script daily and getting the intonation right was no easy work but Ram Charan helped her master the lingo.
“He made it easier. He is so popular down south that wherever we shot in Hyderabad, there would be tons of people to just get a glimpse of him. They were not bothered who the heroine or the director were. I was stunned to see such a reaction,” she says. It was a 14-hour schedule with no breathers.
“The only free time we got was during lunch sessions when Ram’s wife Upasana would bring us awesome home-cooked Andhra food,” PeeCee tells you. Her favourite cuisine may be Italian, but in Hyderabad, she developed quite an appetite for Andhra food.
Working through Zanjeer, Priyanka was also fighting through a difficult time with her father battling for life. He passed away in May this year, but it is only now that she is able to talk about her trauma. A complete daddy’s girl, Priyanka Chopra is at present bonding with her mother. They sleep, eat and travel together — mostly because neither wants to be alone after PeeCee’s father passed away due to cancer in May 2013.
“Everyone deals with their sorrows their way. Mine is to ignore it and get immersed in work. Now, I can talk about him and refer to him as in the past. But at that moment, I wanted to talk about other things such as my music or my work. Thankfully, people who know me, understood and did not bother me too much with condolences. like any other normal person, I too, believe in listening to music and composing songs when I am sad. I write a few lines for my next single only days after my father died,” she reveals, not willing to give away anything more.
After her father’s death, PeeCee didn’t want to leave her mother alone even for a minute. “So we travel together. That way, we spend quality time with each other. It curbs our depression. My mother is also my best critic who points out what’s good and what could have been better,” she says.
Earlier, PeeCee’s father was her closest companion accompanying her. “Now, my mother and I spend a lot of time together and I am getting to see a side of her that I had missed out on. I am making up for all the missed pampering by her till now,” she says, suddenly getting emotional. That, PeeCee says, is one negative she would like to change about herself. “I get too emotional, too quickly. That is not good,” she reminds herself aloud.
But her latest album Exotic was born out of a happy mood. “I must have been in heaven when I composed that one. It was too much fun. Actually, each time I compose something and make it into an album, I forget the history behind it. Guess I will start taking notes once I have become a little more popular on the music scene,” she tells you. Exotic has sold more than a million copies worldwide, a record in itself. It even bettered her previous single In the City. Ask her about her jugalbandi with western artists Pitt Bull and Will.i.am and she breaks into a giggle.
“I have a contract with a record company which does all the negotiations. They match my voice with other performers and do the needful. It was their brilliant idea to have Pitt Bull in Exotic and they were bang on,” Chopra tells you.
Her taste in music eclectic and she is open to learning new forms but it is the desipun that she brings into her albums that makes PeeCee a true rockstar. “I will always bring out the Indian in my songs. That’s what defines me. Pitt Bull loved the idea of bringing these elements into the song. I am now working on another single to be released later this year if everything goes as per plans,” she reveals.
And, she can’t stop talking of Zanjeer’s music, a heady mix of folk, fusion, rock and soulful filmi numbers. A Pakistani band will be performing in a Bollywood film for the first time. But it is the introductory song (Pinki hai dilwalon ki) picturised on Priyanka that’s a chartbuster. “It is a shaadi sangeet song so very colourful and high on energy. The beat is newage. Agar gaana hit hai to movie bhi chaelgi,” she says.
In Delhi to promote the girl child cause PeeCee says, after Mumbai, it is saddi Dilli for her. “I would love to walk the gallis of Delhi but that is a distant dream. I have also heard so much about the street shopping in the Capital,” she says. As a child, she was a haat shopoholic at Bareilly. She used to love hanging out with friends at local stores. Even now, whenever she gets a chance, PeeCee heads for Bareilly.
“It takes me back to my roots. Yes, I have a small town mentality. I belong there. Whenever I visit Bareilly, I feel strange because nothing has changed in these 20 years. There is a charm in there. I have relatives who live there and am in touch with them. It is not as if ki Mumbai ake humne rishtey naate sab bhula diya. I lead the life of a normal human,” she says, adding that the last time she had gone to her hometown was after her father passed away.
When she is not doing stage shows and concerts or running from shoot to shoot, she is busy giving back to society. “There are a lot of things that still need to be done for the uplift of women. I am startled by the dwindling sex ratio. Forget the Government, people need to do something as the fault lies in us,” she says.
It’s been more than an hour, and there is so much more to ask of her. But the star has others waiting, so “we will chat up again some time,” she says. As a parting shot, she reminds you to hear, not see, her in a movie for once. In Disney Films’ animated mount Planes she has gotten to live her dream. “Every girl cherishes to be a part of Disney as a princess. I am lucky I got to be the plane,” she tells you, laughingly about her part of the voiceover.
As you walk away, you are convinced that Priyanka Chopra is one bubble which is not going to burst in a long while. Not even if nightmares of failure visit her every now and then.
“Before every film, a voice inside me says I am going to fail...,” she says, trailing off. But almost immediately, there’s a twinkle in her eye and a smile on her lips. “So, I have stopped thinking,” she says, already looking beyond to Krrish 3 and the MC Mary Kom biopic, both of which are big- budget wonders highly unlikely to fail.
Has earned her place
According to a 2012 estimate by a leading film trade analyst in Mumbai, Priyanka Chopra’s acting fee per film is Rs 2-3 crore. Her endorsement fee (per day) is Rs 0.65-0.75 crore. This makes PeeCee the seventh heavily paid actor in Bollywood.
At present, the diva endorses 10 big brands — Nokia, Dabur, lux, Sunsilk, Garnier, Samsung, Nestle, Nikon, Asmi and Pepsi. Given the duration of the commercial and other endorsement terms, it is believed that she will be making Rs 3-5 crore per endorsement.