When Priyanka Chopra Jonas started her journey in the West, there was no one to facilitate her entry into Hollywood with adequate opportunities. That is something she wants to change with the power to create stories. Now that she has turned a producer, the actress says she wants to help in the normalisation of South Asian people through stories as a producer. “I don’t put myself in a box. I am very organic with what I feel. I am doing a comedy with Mindy Kaling, which is probably one of the first few romantic comedies in Hollywood that you will see with an all-South Asian star cast. I don’t remember the last time that has happened. So that’s something very exciting. It was my quest,” Priyanka told IANS while opening about the road she wants to get on as a producer. “When I started working there, nobody made opportunities for me. Opportunities for people who are South Asian and look like us are limited in Hollywood. I wanted to be able to be a kind of producer that creates that,” she added.
The actress continued: “I’m (also) doing a reality show, which is going to have couples from all ethnicities, all religions, celebrating a Sangeet. To take an Indian tradition and open it out to the world and have them understand it, this is what I’m doing.”
“When I came into the movies, I didn’t even know I could act. I was a 12th standard girl who suddenly became Miss World. And then suddenly, I was thrown into the movies. I didn’t have the privilege of going to film school or understanding what cinema was,” she said while looking back at her journey.
“I was pushed into it, and then I realised that this is actually a job. That this is not just trying to look pretty, hair, makeup, and going onto the set. That it is a craft, you can hone it, you can create characters — and there’s a massive responsibility to that. That is when I started getting excited about the movies but never in my wildest dreams, would I have seen having a 20-year career the way I’ve had,” she said.
Especially when she was told that she just had 10 years to work. “In fact, at that time, I was told that women have a shelf life… jaldi-jaldi jitna bhi bhi kaam karna hai, do it. Imagine 10 years if you’re lucky. Sitting here, 20 years later, I feel like my ambition has only grown,” she said.
Priyanka is currently seen in the film adaptation of ‘The White Tiger’, which released on Netflix on 22 January. “So far, I feel unfinished. I have a lot to do. I don’t know what that is. But I just (want to) keep walking in that direction,” said the 38-year-old.