Priyanka Chopra: Who She Is Behind The Scenes
When lovers of the Bollywood actor hear her name, the person they imagine is the baby girl and ardent lover or the courageous spy we have all seen her play on the big screen several times. But there’s more to the actor than meets the glittered eye. Let’s dive in, shall we?
FAMILY
The elder child and only daughter of Ashok and Madhu Chopra, Priyanka was raised in a humble family of four. Both her parents were physicians in the Indian army, and due to their profession, Chopra traveled throughout her childhood years — from Delhi, Chandigarh, and Ambala, to Bareilly, Ladakh, and even Pune. She also stayed with her aunt in the US for three years as a teenager but came back to India to finish her education. She entered the modeling industry soon after and participated in the Miss India beauty pageant.
CHILDHOOD DREAMS
Before entering pageants and eventually winning The Miss World Title in 2000, Priyanka’s childhood dream was to become an aeronautical engineer. She has often admitted to being fascinated with airplanes and having the dream to become a NASA pro, but her dreams changed when her brother registered her for a beauty pageant and she did well. The actor has also said that if her childhood dream had come true, she might have missed out on her husband Nick Jonas.
VICTIM OF BULLYING
Due to her parents’ career choice, the young actor often traveled around and eventually spent 3 years in high school with her aunt in the US. During this time, she was a victim of racial bigotry and bullying. When asked by Oprah why she didn’t stick it to her bullies after she became popular, Priyanka said she had just won the Miss World title and was overwhelmed by her newfound fame and just wanted to keep her head above water.
MISS WORLD SAGA
17-year-old Chopra was enrolled as a contestant in Miss India 2000. Her sharp personality and earnest views soon won the crowd and jury over, and she became a frontrunner in the contest along with Lara Dutta and Dia Mirza. She was crowned the first runner-up and went on to participate in — and eventually win — the Miss World beauty pageant in 2000.
DEBUT MOVIE
Most people think her debut movie was the 2002 thriller Humraaz, alongside Bobby Deol and Akshaye Khanna, or the 2003 spy thriller The Hero: Love Story of a Spy but Priyanka’s debut was the Tamil movie, Thamizhan (2002) where she starred alongside Tamilian actor, Vijay. It wasn’t until 2003 that she made it to Bollywood with the release of the spy thriller The Hero: Love Story of a Spy. The then-debutant was seen alongside Sunny Deol and Preity Zinta in the film and gained critical acclaim for her performance. She then went on to star in blockbusters like Aitraaz (2004), Bluffmaster (2005), and Don (2006).
AWARDS AND FEATURES
Good work is never left unacknowledged, and Priyanka Chopra’s wall of achievements is proof of this. Here are some of Priyanka Chopra’s biggest wins:
2004: Stardust Awards: Best Supporting Actress for The Hero: Love Story of a Spy
2005: Screen Awards: Best Actor in a Negative Role for Aitraaz
2008: National Film Awards: Best Actress for Fashion
2009: IIFA Awards: Best Actress for Fashion
2009: Shanghai International Film Festival: “Golden Goblet” Award for contribution to cinema
2010: Producers Guild Film Awards: Best Actress in a Leading Role for Kaminey
2010: Big Star Entertainment Awards: New Talent of the Decade
2011: Green Globe Award for contribution to a greener earth
2013: Zee Cine Awards: Best Actor Female for Barfi
2014: IIFA Awards: Woman of Substance
2014: Stardust Awards: Best Actress Drama for Mary Kom
2015: Best Indian Act presented by MTV Europe Music Awards
2016: IIFA Awards: Best Supporting Actress for Bajirao Mastani
2016: People’s Choice Awards: Favorite Actress in a New TV Series for Quantico
2016: Padma Shri
2016: TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World
2016: Woman of the Year presented by the International Indian Film Academy Awards
2017: Forbes’ World’s 100 Most Powerful Women
2017: People’s Choice Awards: Favorite Dramatic TV Actress for Quantico
2017: Mother Teresa Awards: Mother Teresa Memorial Award for Social Justice
2017: Best Film Category for Ventilator presented by Maharashtra State Film Awards
2019: the Danny Kaye Humanitarian Award from UNICEF 2019 for her philanthropic work.
HAS HER OWN PRODUCTION COMPANY
From a Bollywood actor to a Hollywood star, Chopra has come a long way in the entertainment industry despite having faced struggles along the way. This inspired her to start her own production company, Purple Pebble Pictures, along with her mother Madhu Chopra in 2015 to lend a platform to local talents. Headquartered in Mumbai, the company promotes emerging voices in the television and film industries with special attention to regional films. Over the years, her facility has produced several great movies including The White Tiger, which received an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.
A TECH INVESTOR
An advocate of inclusion and diversity, Chopra is an investor at the Holberton School with which she shares the vision of empowering women through technology. The school teaches students to think and learn like programmers with a vision, which the actor believes is essential in cultivating a brighter future. She has also joined hands with Bumble to promote the company’s vision in India.
PROUD PHILANTHROPIST
During her talk with Oprah Winfrey, Chopra opened up about the responsibility of being a privileged member of society, and how lucky she feels about belonging to a family where women are not made to feel undervalued. The experience instilled in her the urge to impart this sense of self-confidence to women around the world, paving the way for her efforts to champion girls’ education as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. “There are so many women in the world that don’t have a choice in their existence. It’s decided when they have kids, who they marry, what jobs they do — if they have jobs, whether they go to school,” the actor-humanitarian said while talking about her journeys and experiences worldwide.
KEPT A CHECKLIST OF HER IDEAL PARTNER IN HER WALLET
Before she met Jonas, Chopra made a checklist of five things she wanted in her future partner. While speaking with Oprah Winfrey, she revealed the points too: Someone who’s honest loves having family around, loves his job, understands business and finances (because she self-confessedly doesn’t), and someone confident in himself. When she met Nick, she found that he ticked all those boxes. And what did Nick admire most about Priyanka? Her ambition, she told Winfrey.
NICK SLID INTO HER DM
Most people think the lovebirds first met at the 2017 Vanity Fair Oscars party but the duo had been chatting on Twitter for months after Nick slid into her DM in 2016. Speaking of the moment he spotted her at the party while he was at the bar. Nick said, “And I put my drink down,” Jonas told Vogue, “Get on one knee — this is in front of a bunch of people — and I say, ‘You’re real. Where have you been all my life?’ Like, loud.”
NICK SHUT DOWN TIFFANY TO PROPOSE
In July 2018, Jonas had a Tiffany store in New York shut down allegedly to pick out a ring, and Chopra stepped down from her latest Bollywood project, giving rise to speculations that the couple were engaged.
THE PRIYANKA CHOPRA COLUMN
While it’s popularly claimed that her memoir ‘Unfinished’ is her first book, it’s however not the first time the actor ventured into writing. Priyanka Chopra first ventured into the field of writing for the first time in 2009 with an opinion column called ‘The Priyanka Chopra Column’ for the Hindustan Times. The series had the star extensively discussing issues around women’s lives and safety in the country.
FIRST INDIAN ‘GUESS GIRL’
In 2018, Chopra made fashion history when she was chosen to star in a Guess campaign, becoming the first and only Indian woman to have been an ambassador for the American label. She joined the notable legacy of Guess Girls, which includes the likes of Claudia Schiffer, Adriana Lima, and Anna Nicole Smith,
NEVER LEAVES HOME WITHOUT
The Baywatch actress has admitted to never leaving home without her jar of pickles. Also, Chopra can’t eat a meal without a side of pickles. “Everything I’m is because of where I grew up. I am very desi. My achar goes with me even over my shoes,” she once revealed to Vogue in an interview.
HER DOG HAS MORE FOLLOWERS THAN YOU
Diana Chopra Jonas, a small pooch Priyanka Chopra adopted after attending an interview by Buzzfeed in 2016 centered around rescue puppies. The actor said the little pup kept snuggling into her arms. The little pup is now a public figure and has over 154k followers on Instagram.
That’s all we know for now about the hardworking actor, we look forward to more laudable deeds from Priyanka. Don’t forget to applaud and comment and also share and follow for more.
