Priyanka Chopra rose to fame after winning the Miss World title in 2000. But the journey from Bollywood to Hollywood was not a cakewalk for the actress born in the city of Jamshedpur.
She turned 37 yesterday but her long career saw many roadblocks. She tried her luck with acting, singing and has now turned towards direction.
Writer Bharathi S Pradhan mentioned in PC’s biography, Priyanka Chopra: A Dark Horse, how the actor had to face setbacks in the initial days of her career after a nose job went wrong.
According to HT, film producer Vijay Galani had cast her opposite Bobby Deol in a film directed by Mahesh Manjrekar but the project never took off.
Galani said about the film’s mahurat shot, “The media was there in full strength and Prakash Jaju, her secretary, kept asking me to go and meet her. So I went to her room where she was doing her make-up and that’s when I realised why Jaju had been egging me to go meet her.
She’d just had some nasal surgery done in London where the bridge of her nose had collapsed.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I had a little bit of shooting here in Film City and then a long schedule planned in London. How could we shoot with the heroine’s nose looking the way it did?”
The film was ultimately shelved.
Later director Anil Sharma, too, became apprehensive about Priyanka and her nose after signing her for Hero: Love Story of a Spy opposite Sunny Deol.
“When I looked at her (three or four months after signing the movie), I burst out angrily and asked her, ‘Where was the need to do all this?’ Mother and daughter got very emotional at this meeting and they explained that she’d had surgery done, it would take six to seven months for the nose to heal. Since she’d been dropped from three or four other films, they were going back to Bareilly and they returned my cheque to me.”
Like the many outsiders who struggle to fulfil their dreams, her story is no different.
Padma Shri awardee, philanthropist, actor and aspiring director, Priyanka Chopra Jonas who was once denied major roles is all set to turn the sky pink with her directorial debut.
You go, girl!
Cover image: Instagram