Priyanka Chopra, who is in Miami shooting for Baywatch , kept everyone waiting at a press conference of Jai Gangaajal in New Delhi where she was connected through video conferencing. Answering questions from her hotel room with bleary eyes after a long night shoot, she talked to the gathering with much attention. Terming herself a workaholic, she told us that she wanted to work 36 hours out of 48. “I want to dominate the world through my hard work,” said Priyanka.
The film is releasing around the Women’s Day and Priyanka is happy that conversations regarding representation of women in every sphere are increasing. “When you do not attach a male-oriented tag to a male actor’s film, why add female-oriented tag to a film with a female protagonist? This is the question everyone in the audience should answer as films are just films and beautiful stories just need good actors. They can be from any gender’s point of view. Female actors have as much talent as their male counterparts, and the biggest change that we need is breaking the stereotypes attached to films with female actors,” observed Priyanka, who earlier delivered a hit with Mary Kom.
While everyone is busy endorsing gender parity at workplace, the Indian police still has a skewed gender ratio in favour of male officers. She is essaying the character of an IPS officer in the film who is bold yet cultured. “I had seen a lot of interviews of female police officers which Prakash (Jha) had conducted to prepare the character and picked their body language. Abha, the character I am playing, does not forget her femininity and morals despite her tough outlook as a lady officer. Through this role, I came to know that it is tough to be a lady police officer as you will be as free as the government will allow you to be and as a female you have to prove yourself at every stage else people will not take you seriously. India is a very tough country to govern because of the fact that people of different ideologies, culture and religion are living together and it sometimes becomes chaotic for those who are managing law and order,” said Priyanka on her observation of the system through the film.
Gangaajal became very popular with the masses due to Ajay Devgan’s portrayal of a tough officer and Priyanka said that she chose the film as a challenge to take the franchise to the next level. “I always wanted to work with Prakash Jha but our stars were not matching but I must say he has exploited my love for Hindi to a great extent as I belong to Uttar Pradesh. When we decided to do this film, I had signed Quantico and I had to delay its shooting for one month so that I can shoot for Jai Gangaajal . He has clarity over what he wants to show and he is bold to take stand on subjects which others do not easily pick up due to controversy attached to them. His production is wisely managed as he always comes on time and actors need not work beyond eight hours,” noted Priyanka.
While the Oscars were criticised on diversity issue, South Asians made their mark at the ceremony with Pakistani filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s film A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness , Indian origin British director Asif Kapadia’s Amy , took home an Oscar while Sanjay’s Super Team , another work from Indian origin animator was nominated. Priyanka, who presented an award at Oscars, believed that art is global which cannot be stopped through boundaries and people would realise the potential of Bollywood through avenues like these where actors from India will be seen in big Hollywood ventures. “It was a once in a lifetime experience for me to present an Academy Award despite the fact that I am in the U.S. for only last six months. I am happy that people loved my work within small time. It was an honour for me to represent our country.” She became the second Indian to present it after Persis Khambatta presented it along with William Shatner in 1980. “I was not nervous as Bollywood has taught me a lot about award presentations and I knew what to do on the stage but I was a bit conscious about pronouncing the names correctly,” laughed Priyanka.
