‘I don’t think I ever wanted to leave Bollywood, but..’ WATCH – Firstpost

Priyanka Chopra in an interview with Firstpost talks about her role in Prime Video’s ‘The Bluff’ on how far parents can go to protect their children. She even spoke about why she felt limited as a craftsman in Bollywood.

WATCH and read Priyanka Chopra’s interview:

Edited excerpts from the interview:

You were literally the first one to move out of the comfort of Bollywood and make it big in Hollywood. How has the journey been?

I don’t think I ever wanted to leave Bollywood. I felt limited for many reasons when I was working in Hindi films. I was being pushed into… I was looking for opportunities that felt exciting to me as an artist and I landed up working in America. After 12 years, I am finding the momentum in choosing work. But at the same time, I love my work in India, I am really excited to be doing Varanasi in India again. I would hate to have to choose between the two. I straddle both the worlds and I enjoy working in both the industries. They are both different in many ways just as cultures.

There is a dialogue in the film where you say, “I will do anything in my power to protect you…” The Bluff is a movie that really touched my heart. As a mother, how much do you relate to the character and the subject? 

I’m so glad it resonated with you. I remember when I first heard the script, my daughter was only two years old. And that was the first time I understood what the feeling was. How far parents can go to protect their children. And how far a mother would go to protect her family. In every scene that I performed, rage is not even a word; your motivation is so deep inside you that you are able to do whatever it takes. These thoughts helped me in building my character.

You are playing the role of a woman pirate for the first time. How was the training for this role like, the challenges and the sword swinging bit?

I was thinking about how many women have played pirates in movies or substantial parts. I have to ask AI or google after our interview. Just being able to play a female pirate is itself so unique. I did not know that it was possible that women could be Pirates in history until I started doing some research. There are so many around in different parts of the world. That was very cool but I had never encountered sword fighting, maybe a little bit very early in my career. So, I had to re-learn working with blades. My costar Karl had a lot of experience with blades so we had to work with equal footing for our characters. It took weeks and weeks of training. And this was while I was filming Heads of State. So, it was really a lot of work but the role required it. And I like to give hundred percent to my characters.

When you played Mary Kom, you learned how to box. Did you get hurt this time? What was the behind the scenes struggle for this role?

I have done 85 percent of the action scenes all by myself. You’re bound to get injured and I had lots of cuts and bruises all over me and I didn’t know when I got them. Your body would be constantly aching and my knee was busted. I fell on the floor once and got a big bruise. But I don’t sit and think about the injuries. I prefer to concentrate on the intensity of the work. We were on real locations, not a padded set. I had lots of splinters because I was without shoes while the invasion happens in the house. We were in Australia so we had bugs everywhere. We had snake wranglers so we had many challenges.