When I met the Bollywood stars: Priyanka Chopra

Priyanka Chopra with Manjusha Radhakrishnan (right). One of the first things that struck me about Priyanka Chopra — long before she became a global icon and catapulted into India’s biggest cultural exports — is her unwavering professionalism. Our first face-to-face meeting was in November 2008 in Dubai when she came for the premiere of her acclaimed film Fashion, directed by Madhur Bhandarkar. Chopra was the poster child for calm, cool and composed.

No matter what sticky question you asked, she answered in her trademark raspy voice without missing a beat. Compared to her glamorous co-stars Kangana Ranaut and relative newcomer Mugdha Godse that day, Chopra seemed to be cut from a different cloth. Her confidence and her conviction in what she believed in was palpable. If Ranaut was fidgety and restless as she spoke about her role as troubled model in Fashion — a movie that explored the seamier side of the fashion industry — Chopra gave off another vibe and was relatively in control of the narrative.

There were times when her responses to the movie questions sound rehearsed and a tad fake, but there was no denying her ability to hold an audience captive. She was a journalist’s delight, long before the voyeuristic social media scene exploded into our faces. Our 2008 interview was the beginning of a good partnership.

Cut to 2019, Priyanka Chopra Jonas whose fame has exponentially increased in India and beyond continues to be warm, yet distant. She is the kind of person who will come and hug you on the red carpet, but when you ask her a question, her game face is back on.

While we have had many interactions in the past, her visit to the Gulf News offices in December 2011 to promote her action thriller Don, along with Shah Rukh Khan, Farhan Akhter and her producer Riteish Sidhwani, would remain memorable for multiple reasons. She is the only actress in Bollywood who can hold a candle when it comes to the art of conversing in front of the super slick and charismatic Shah Rukh Khan. We all know that Khan can walk the talk, but Chopra walks, and talks the talk. She matched her steps to his wit and managed to shine on her own merit, despite Khan’s larger-than-life presence.

Another life lesson you learn from Chopra Jonas is her ability to multitask and her indiscriminate love towards her work. When I met her during a launch of a jewellery line in Dubai, she spoke of her fictional wedding with unending passion and spoke of how she gifts herself diamonds. Back then, she loved pampering herself and did not expect a man to buy her the rocks. It was a lesson in self-reliance. I know celebrities live in a rarefied, isolated world, but if you look closely there’s a lot to learn from each one of them.