She went from Bollywood stardom to become one of Hollywood's hottest actresses and entrepreneurs. This is what you need to know about Priyanka Chopra.
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00:00I was treated differently because I'm brown, I had really racist behavior when I was in
00:05high school in 10th grade, I was called brownie, curry, go back on the elephant you came on,
00:10and that really affected me when I was a kid and affected my self-esteem.
00:14And I really decided that I'm not going to feel like that anymore, I'm not going to allow
00:17anyone to feel like that anymore.
00:31I came from a completely opposite, nobody in my family ever knew anything about movies
00:37except my dad knew movies because he was passionate about music, but I came from a completely
00:43academic family of doctors.
00:54My mom, being a gynecologist, would go in and treat people, and I used to always ask,
00:59I was like, mom, I'm an Indian girl too, why are girls not, why is there such a difference
01:04between the way you have raised me, where I've been told to have an opinion, I've been
01:09told I don't need to know how to cook, I've been told that I can have whatever job I want
01:13and be successful at it if I have an aptitude, whereas these girls were being told that your
01:20life has been decided for you.
01:22And being the daughters of the same country, I saw that.
01:30It's difficult for a woman of color.
01:38I did not realize how difficult it was till I started working in America.
01:44There are certain, especially an Asian woman of color, South Asian, that is me, there seems
01:52to be, there needs to be an explanation of why a South Asian or an Indian or someone
02:01who looks like me is cast in mainstream entertainment, but I don't think that that's a requirement
02:07because if you look around in America, or North America itself, it's a melting pot of
02:12all kinds of immigrants and cultures.
02:15So how, why should there have to be an explanation of an ethnicity anymore?
02:52It's not about the quantity, it's about the quality.
03:22Even if it's a few scenes, but it's not a wallflower or just a glamour, you know, the
03:28glamorous effect in a movie, it actually should have a punch.
03:31So I started doing that in India and I reached a position in my life in India where I'm fortunate
03:36enough that I get those kind of parts.
03:42In India, when I first started my career, yes, I did get a lot of pretty girls roles,
03:51which is not wrong, but I just, I'm an actor and I want to be able to act.
03:55That's my profession.
03:56So I took a conscious decision in creating parts for myself or looking for parts, which
04:03would give me the ammunition of doing something which was substantial in a film.
04:15I love playing very different characters and my Indian films have played negative characters
04:18before and somehow I really enjoy them, which speaks a little bit about my personality.
04:48I had to kind of, you know, grasp on to things myself, learn myself, you know, teach myself
05:07everything.
05:08I think I started enjoying myself just about three years ago.
05:13I think before that I was just trying to understand what I'm doing here and understand how to
05:17do it right.
05:18Because I never went to film school, I didn't know anything about movies.
05:22Everything that I did was instinctive.
05:24My acting was instinctive.
05:25My choice of films was instinctive.
05:28So now I've started sort of enjoying what I'm doing and taking chances and risks and
05:35yeah, now it's a ride for me.
05:48I don't think anyone else ever looked like me, which is, you know, I don't know, someone
05:54of ethnicity, someone, I think Guest has had the most beautiful women in their campaigns
05:59and it's so flattering for me to be a part of that.
06:06It's exhausting, but it's a choice that I've made.
06:08I love both my careers.
06:10I love making music.
06:12I love acting and I'm really fortunate that, you know, I have so many opportunities to,
06:19you know, test myself creatively and push myself.
06:23And it does get physically, you know, daunting sometimes, but I enjoy it.
06:30I love what I do.
06:31I think I'm extremely fortunate.
06:32I think I have the best job in the world.
06:35And I think that, you know, I feel extremely grateful for the love, the adulation, the,
06:40you know, the kind of affection that I've got from people.
06:43I am here because, you know, of the people who've supported me.
07:40All I'm saying is we can't make the big change.
07:48We are not going to be able to eradicate poverty.
07:50We are not going to be able to bring this gap between the wealthy and the less privileged
07:56together.
07:57We won't be able to do it, but we can work towards giving children an opportunity to
08:03maybe get a fair start, to maybe be able to go to a school.