Priyanka Chopra, an actress, recalls a “dehumanising moment” on set when a film director put her in an awkward scenario.
During the early years of her acting career, an anonymous Bollywood filmmaker wanted to see her pants, according to the 40-year-old actress.
“It was probably 2002 or 2003,” she told The Zoe Report.
“I’m undercover, I’m seducing the guy — that’s obviously what girls do when they’re undercover.” But I’m wooing him, and you have to remove one piece of clothes [at a time],” she explained.
“I wanted to layer up, but the director said, ‘No, I need to see her pants.'” Otherwise, why is anyone coming to see this film?'”
“He never said it to me,” Chopra continued. “He told the stylist in front of me. It was such a dehumanising experience. It was a sense of, ‘I’m nothing else except how I can be exploited, my art is unimportant, and what I offer is unimportant.'”
Chopra said the trauma caused her to leave the film two days later, but she reimbursed the production staff out of pocket for the money they’d lost when her father persuaded her to.
“I just couldn’t stand looking at [the director] every day,” she stated.
Chopra recently stated that she quit Bollywood because she felt “pushed into a corner” by the industry.
“I had people not casting me, I had beef with people, I am not good at playing that game, so I kind of was tired of the politics and I said I needed a break,” she said in March on Dax Shepherd’s “Armchair Expert” podcast.
Priyanka Chopra discusses?dehumanizing? when the director of the film demanded to see her pants on set
Soon after, she launched her brief musical career, which eventually landed her in Hollywood.
“This music thing gave me an opportunity to go into another part of the world, not crave for films that I didn’t want to get, but I would require to schmooze certain clubs and cliques of people,” she revealed.
“It would require grovelling, and I had worked for such a long time by then that I didn’t feel like I wanted to do it.”
“So when this music thing came along, I was like ‘f-k it, I’m going to America.'”
