The creepy director Priyanka Chopra refused to work with: “There’s no room for growth”
Priyanka Chopra has become one of the most successful actors in the world, but it’s not without some strict boundaries on the behaviour she expects out of her co-stars and directors.
India’s film market is one of the biggest on the planet, and many of its most notable stars have pulled off amazing careers without ever having to appear in films from other nations, but Chopra is one of the rare performers who has had significant crossover success. While she has picked up many accolades in her home country, including two National Film Awards, she’s also become famous in American cinema thanks to her appearances in Heads of State, The Matrix Resurrection, and Baywatch.
She has found an extraordinary amount of success for someone in her age bracket, but it’s certainly not been overnight, and it was only after an extensive career as a child star, which included attending hundreds of classes and auditions, that she was able to become one of the biggest faces of Indian’s film community. However, on route to stardom, Chopra admitted to having some of the same negative experiences when starting out that many young actresses did.
According to The Indian Express, the former Miss World revealed during a presentation at the Forbes Power Women’s Summit that she was only a teenager when she was harassed by a famous director when speaking about wardrobe requirements for a role. It was after asking about her stylist that Chopra was demeaned by the filmmaker, who seemed to have no qualms about objectifying her in public.
“He picks up the phone and goes, ‘Listen, people are going to come into the movies to watch her when she shows her panties’,” she recalled, “‘So it needs to be really short so that I can see her panties. You know those people sitting up front? They should be able to see her panties’. And he said it like four times, and it’s not even pretty in Hindi. It’s worse.”
Scared of speaking out against toxic men for the fear of being blacklisted or fired, as is still the reality for many female actors in the industry, Chopra talked to her mother who told her to remain steadfast in her demand for respect, further declaring, “If that’s what he thinks of me, if that’s how small I am, there’s no space for growth”.
She declined to name and shame the director but revealed she can’t even look at him and refused to ever work with him thereafter, showing that although the conversation about sexual harassment in Hollywood, Bollywood, and the global film community has intensified following the scandalous revelations about Harvey Weinstein in 2017, there is still clearly a lot of work to be done.
Even if some of the conglomerates of abusers have been outed and removed from receiving other opportunities, there are many with allegations against them that continue to work in some capacity, including Brett Ratner, Mel Gibson, Paul Schrader, Louis CK, Woody Allen, and Casey Affleck, among others.
While Chopra’s comments may not have fixed the issue overnight, they have at least moved the conversation in the right direction, and her newfound prominence in the industry is a great example of why actresses should not settle for working with disrespectful men within the business, even if they seemingly hold power over them.
