Priyanka Chopra has many reasons to smile – her movies’ve been doing well, and she’s been winning awards for her work too. She’s also been declared the number one actress in Bollywood, but this damsel would rather concentrate on her work than count numbers.“With every hit film, you become a number one or a number two, and with each flop film, you become a number six or number seven. And hits and flops come and go like nobody’s business in this fraternity. If you start keeping track of the number and the position, you’ll really lose your mind. Nothing succeeds like success, and that’s why I pay no attention to this whole number game. We’re all striving to be successful, but the measure of success does not come from being called number one for three months and then being forgotten about,” she explains.
Next year, it’ll be 10 years since Priyanka won her Miss India and Miss World crowd. “Oh yes, that’s right! It will be about 10 years next year. It makes me feel so old! Wow, now it’s scary – I feel like I was standing on that stage like a lost little girl. And where did the time go? My God, I haven’t had time to think about that,” she says.
Priyanka maintains that she is the same simple girl that she was when she entered the industry.
“I’m not very shrewd. If I look back at my life, it makes me feel that I’ve stayed away from the conventional stuff, deliberately. For instance, the films I do, the way I lead my life – I’m a lot more private. I don’t like focussing only and only on film, I pick different things to do. I’m writing now. I like getting involved in a lot of public forums, and because of all this, I feel is unconventional,” she says, adding, “And the unconventionality continues in my movies. I like to take up all kind of genres to test myself as an actor. Even a commercial film like Dostana was unconventional. I like to take up movies that I know I’d like to watch as a member of the audience. I’m an entertainer, but I’m also the audience. And I do go to movie halls, buy my own ticket and watch a lot of movies.”
Talking about movies, Priyanka will be seen in two this year – Kaminey and What’s Your Rashee? “I had to study Marathi for my role in Kaminey, it was like I was giving my exams. I had a tutor with me all the time and a dialect coach on the sets. But it was exciting. I’m a sucker for knowledge. And I learnt the language in a month and a half!”
Talking about Kaminey, Priyanka was recently linked with none her co-star in the movie, Shahid Kapur. However, she was also recently linked with the Hollywood actor Gerard Butler. So is either of them a ‘close friend’? “I’ve always been very private about my personal life. I don’t like giving importance to non-issues.” And what about Gerard Butler, ain’t she friends with him? “I don’t know if I want to talk about that,” she demurs.
