told me that, ‘I never want you to have a ‘what if..’ in your life. What if I had tried it? What if I had done it? So I want you to try whatever you want to do and if you’re bad at it you can always go back to school.’ It was so easy. My parents were always about whatever my ambition is, whatever my dreams are, however radical it might be. At 13 years old I moved to America to live with my aunt and uncle and my parents were OK with it because I spoke to them about it. I said, ‘I want to experience this.’
So they didn’t try and make you take a more traditional route? No my parents were my biggest champions and both my grandparents as well in fact. There was a time, I remember I was going into the kitchen and I can’t cook, I’m terrible at it. I was trying to do something and I remember my father called me out and he said, ‘What are you doing?’ And I was like, ‘I’m trying to make a roti’ or whatever. And he was like, ‘You don’t know how to.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m trying to learn.’ And he was like, ‘You don’t need it.’ And I was like, ‘Why?’ And he said, ‘That’s not your dream, that’s not something you want to do – do you like cooking?’ I was like, ‘I don’t actually’ and he was like, ‘Then why do you need to do it. You’ll never be identified by just that.’ It was something so small but something so big. And I was like, ‘Yeah you’re right.’ And today my poor husband has to…. I can’t cook! He does.
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So Priyanka, you’ve achieved so much in your career and life so far - what would you say is the secret to your success? I feel like - this is very individual to me - but I feel like it’s persistence, for sure. You can’t give up on an idea, until you’ve gone all the way. And second of all, do not be afraid of hard work. There’s no free lunch in the world. Depends on what you want. You want to buy a jacket, you have to have enough money to be able to buy the jacket. You want to buy a car, you have to have enough to buy the car. You want to be able to make movies that people watch in a square, 30,000 people, you have to work that hard to attain that credibility. So I think that’s very important. You meet people who sit and say, ‘Oh my gosh I really wanted it, but I never got an opportunity.’ You have to have faith in yourself to create opportunities.
Were you always into movies as a kid and could you have imagined at that time how successful you would become? My 16-year-old self could have never imagined that I would have been able to have a career which has been prolific or that people recognise my influence and my footprints in the world of entertainment and in the world of philanthropy. At that time, I didn’t really know movies very much. I used to just listen to the music from movies. I watched very few, I wasn’t a fan, I was more of a fan of music. I learnt western classical music, I used to do theatre, I used to do stage. But movies were something I never knew – who would have thought?
Tell us a bit about your background? How did your parents feel about you going into showbiz? I come from a very academic family. Both my parents were physicians, all my aunts and uncles, everyone comes from academia of some sort. So when I won Miss India and then I won Miss World and then movies started coming to me, my parents and I had a whole conversation. My father was someone who is my biggest champion, I lost him a couple of years ago, but he
You had probably one of the world’s most public weddings, apart from maybe the royals in the UK? Which is shocking because there were no cameras in our wedding. We only put out a few pictures the day after - so I don’t know how it became so public!
Why do you think it did captured the worldwide imagination so much? I don’t know. We’ve talked about it so much because there was such an amazing reception to our wedding and the pictures that we put out. I feel like there was so much love and affection to the fact that two completely different cultures can come together in a very harmonious way. I mean that’s what I take away from it, because it was the kind of interest that came around the wedding was extremely amazing and we felt so blessed because there was so much love that poured in from around the world. But I think it was that it sort of signifies some sort of hope that different cultures can co-exist harmoniously in a beautiful way. Not just for Nick and I - but for our families as well.
How have you found the differences in culture between you and Nick? I love culture. I love experiencing different things. I’m curious about different people. What happens I feel like in our world today sometimes, we’re scared of ‘different’. As soon as someone who is different comes in front of us, we’d rather not offend them or not say the wrong thing and so we create a sort of distance. Whereas we should create curiosity in our kids. If you see something different – ask about it. It’s OK if you don’t know, it’s OK if you don’t understand, you know, ask a question, make a friend. I’ve always had that sort of inquisitiveness, even when I moved to the US. It wasn’t easy. I felt very different, I was bullied when I was in school as a teenager, I went back to India because of it, actually. And then my career started. I think looking back I just see that every part of it sort of taught me so much. When I come back to America this time, I understand people and I understand the culture so much better because I went to school
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CE L EBRIT Y INTERVI EW PRIYANKA CHOPRA JONAS
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