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Priyanka Chopra Discusses Her Toughest Role Yet

If you were stuck in traffic on King Street West Thursday afternoon you might have caught sight of something spectacular: a former Miss World in a black LBD, hopping out of her limo to sprint through gridlock in her stilettos.

“I could run a marathon in these,” says Priyanka Chopra, the Bollywood superstar and (recently) pop music sensation, nonchalant about her mobility on heels. Chopra’s direct flight from Mumbai to Toronto was delayed, causing a TIFF press conference for her new film Mary Kom to run late. When she was stuck in gridlock, Chopra decided to abandon her six massive bodyguards and entourage in the limos and hightail it to the Lightbox on foot.

The real Mary Kom should be proud of Chopra’s athletic initiative. Kom is a boxer, the first Indian female to get a medal in the Olympics. In order to play the titular role in the biopic that premiered at TIFF Thursday night, Chopra had to ditch Miss World/Guess Girl physique and bulk up with endure grueling physical training that made her hurt in places she “didn’t’t know could hurt”. The King Street sprint across unsuspecting traffic was just a mild display of the results.

I caught up with Chopra in her room at a downtown hotel soon after the presser, mere hours after landing at Pearson. She’s famished and starved but looking perfectly prim. She calls for Burger King from her entourage—because she’s a fiend for junk food—but since the whopper has no real estate in our neck of downtown, all they could scrounge up is some Hero Burger. I give them directions to Burger Priest … for next time.

As our interview commences, one of Chopra’s bodyguards is posted in the hallway. The other five are in the lobby, taking a break now that she’s safe from the hordes of Bollywood fans who stalked her when she landed at the airport and the Lightbox. That kind of security only seems excessive to those who don’t realize that this girl commands crowds like Brangelina.

She might not be a household name for North American audiences (Bollywood fans aside), but that should soon change. Chopra has been shifting from the Bollywood song-and-dance routine to a more international pop tune, dropping English-language singles like “In My City” with Will.I.Am and “Exotic” with Pitbull. With her music, Chopra is aiming to breakdown the barriers and stereotypes that has limited Indian talent from Western audiences.

“I always grew up with people that think India is just henna, elephants, snake charmers and we talk a little bit like this,” says Chopra, affecting a thick Apu-like accent before snapping back to her eloquent self. “We don’t. We’re so much more as a nation. If you see, young India today, global pop culture is something that we are aware of. Why can’t someone of Indian descent be a part of that? My music is a way of me doing that.”

With songs like “In My City” and “Exotic”, Chopra owns her ethnicity while embracing all others. Her music issues a utopian view of globalization. But she’s well aware it hasn’t arrived just yet.

“Racism is something that happens everywhere,” Chopra points out. “Despite the fact that we’ve become such a small place because of the internet, we’ve become a lot more intolerant of each other. I thought it would be the other way around.”

Chopra actually lived in the US in her high school years, well before she would become a star. She had a taste of the ideal American life, getting great grades, enjoying extra curricular activities like theatre and song, and taking part in pep rallies.

“I was a popular girl,” says Chopra. “I was a smart girl as all Indian girls are. High school’s hard for everyone. If you’re different, it’s even harder. I don’t want to sound like the Indian girl who faced racism, complaining about how awful it was. Each one of us experiences that in one way or another. I got called ‘brownie’ all the time. In fact, I went back to India because I faced a lot of racism in high school.”

That move proved to be serendipitous. Immediately after, Chopra’s mother entered her into a beauty pageant. She went on to be crowned Miss World in 2000. That led to a career in movies beginning with the Kollywood film Tamilian, where she delivered a rookie performance in a language she doesn’t speak. Chopra’s slightly embarrassed by it and instructs me not to see it.

Now, with her music career taking off, Chopra’s flying back-and-forth between Mumbai and LA, and she isn’t holding a grudge for previous experiences with racism.

“It did make me angry,” she recalls. “But it didn’t make me angry enough to want lash out. It made me angry enough to want to educate. It made me want to try to educate that it’s not important to look at differences. It’s important to look at similarities and how every culture has so much more to offer. It’s so incredible to look at a rainbow together.”

She’s certainly made the in roads. “In My City” became the theme song for the NFL Network’s Thursday Night Football, taking America’s national sport from Faith Hill to Bollywood. Chopra also became the first Indian Guess Girl. She has been owning that “Miss World” spirit and now she’s scouting roles in Hollywood that are “ethnically ambiguous”, which shouldn’t be difficult since she was often confused for a Puerto Rican.

While Chopra’s cracking the North American market in fashion, film and music, she’s also mindful of the aspects of Western media that her Indian fan base might find lewd. Traditionally, India has been very timid about sexuality, which is why Bollywood actors would often dance behind trees instead of making out under them. If Chopra came out all Nicki Minaj, I can’t help but assume a scandal.

“There’s a major metamorphosis at the moment,” Chopra answers back. “It’s become very individual. You have actors in India who have no problem with nudity or being sexual. And you have actors in India who do have a problem. For me I think a woman is beautiful, and her beauty needs to be celebrated, as long as she is not objectified. So I don’t see it as my community that tells me what I should or shouldn’t do. I want to represent the free Indian woman of the world. That could be me in a beautiful sari or a gown speaking Hindi or English. Whatever it is, its very individual, as long as you hold on to your value, culture and pride.”

I remind Chopra that we have TMZ and phone hackers, media mechanisms that often destroy what might constitute values. While they have paparazzi in India, Chopra acknowledges that it hasn’t got as bad as that.

“Please don’t spoil them,” she asks, as if I have any influence on the matter. “You don’t have people with big ass zoom lenses sitting on the fence of a tree. That stuff has not happened yet. But I do foresee it.”

She goes on to explain that she’s “ferociously private”, acknowledging that the invasive attention is the price to be paid for fame. Then Chopra channels a bit of that Mary Kom, fighting spirit to issue a warning.

“They don’t call me junglee billi (“wild cat”) for no reason,” says Chopra, slowing her speech to a purr. “If someone tries to force themselves into my private space, I got claws you ain’t wanna see.”

movies@nowtoronto.com | @FreshandFrowsy

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