A global icon, actress Priyanka Chopra is now at the peak of he career, marking her presence in Hollywood as well. But that doesn't spare the star from the struggles of gender discrimination, pay parity and other issues in the entertainment industry. In an interview with international magazine InStyle, the Quantico star spoke about her trysts with these issues.
She also shared an incident when she was discriminated for her skin colour, and missed out on a role. “It happened last year… I was out for a movie, and somebody [from the studio] called one of my agents and said, ‘She’s the wrong—what word did they used?—’physicality.’ So in my defense as an actor, I’m like, ‘Do I need to be skinnier? Do I need to get in shape? Do I need to have abs?’ Like, what does ‘wrong physicality’ mean? And then my agent broke it down for me. Like, ‘I think, Priy, they meant that they wanted someone who’s not brown.’ It affected me,” she said.
In the interview, she spoke about the pay parity and said it remains the same, be it India or the US. In India, she said if it is a female role in a film with popular male actors, the female's worth is not considered much. “I feel it every year, especially when you’re doing movies with really big actors, whether it’s in India or America. If an actor is getting 100 bucks, the conversation will start with max, like, 8 bucks. The gap is that staggering,” she says. In her eyes, the only difference is the language that sugarcoats discrimination.
“In America, we don’t talk about it as brashly, whereas in India the issue is not skirted around. I’ve been told straight up, if it’s a female role in a movie with big, male actors attached, your worth is not really considered as much.”
Priyanka made her Hollywood debut last year with Baywatch, opposite Dwayne Johnson. She said in the interview that the role was initially written for a male actor. She just got lucky.