The first actor to play 12 roles in a single movie
It’s always a marvel to see actors play multiple roles in a single film. Eddie Murphy has always been good at offering up his talents to playing several characters at once in a given movie, including the likes of Coming to America, Bowfinger, Norbit and, of course, The Nutty Professor and its sequel, in which he played an impressive seven roles.
We also shouldn’t forget about the likes of Mike Myers, who played many roles in the Austin Powers films, including the titular character plus Dr Evil, Fat Bastard and Goldmember. Nor should we be oblivious to the talents of the legendary Peter Sellers and his multiple roles in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove.
While these feats are indeed remarkable, they are largely blown out of the water by an Indian actor who delivered an enormous 12 roles in just one movie. Her name is Priyanka Chopra, and she performed a dozen characters in the 2009 Hindi-language romantic comedy What’s Your Raashee?.
Chopra had come to the acting industry via her modelling career. After winning the Miss India World beauty pageant, she went on to win the Miss World pageant of 2000, and this success and exposure led to several film performance offers coming her way.
Chopra’s debut came in 2002’s Tamil movie Thamizhan, followed up by her Bollywood debut, The Hero: Love Story of a Spy. The actor then moved on to the box-office smashes Andaaz, Mujhse Shaadi Karogi and Airtraaz, and before making her record-breaking appearance towards the end of the 2010s, she also featured in the likes of Krrish, Don and Fashion.
What’s Your Rashee? arrived in 2009, starring Harman Baweja, Darshan Jariwala and Dilip Joshi alongside Chopra. The tells of a Gujarati non-resident Indian by the name of Yogesh Patel, who, in order to save his brother from harm, must marry a woman. He agrees to meet twelve potential brides, one from each zodiac sign.
Who played the 12 brides? You guessed it: Chopra. But rather than use prosthetics to create a big difference between the individual brides, Chopra challenged herself to work on altering her body language and accents in order to give each bride a personal and unique character.
The film was not necessarily the best-received movie of all time, but Chopra’s performance was praised, as was the film’s soundtrack. In fact, Chopra was nominated for a Screen Award for ‘Best Actress’ and found herself being written into the Guinness World Records book for her efforts as the first actor to play 12 roles in a single film.
