Priyanka Chopra Jonas says she is finally earning as much as her male co-star
After 20 years in the film industry, Priyanka Chopra Jonas claims she is now finally making the same amount of money as her male co-star.
The actress and activist said in an interview with the BBC that she never experienced “pay parity” throughout her time working in Bollywood.
The UK broadcaster’s list of 100 inspiring and powerful women from around the world was released on Tuesday, and Chopra Jonas was one of the ladies on it.
After 20 years in the film industry, Priyanka Chopra Jonas says she is now finally making the same amount of money as her male co-star.
A short video clip from a lengthy interview with the Indian celebrity that will appear next year was shared on the BBC’s website. The BBC also published an article on its website with parts from the interview in addition to the video clip.
The actress and former Miss World revealed in this interview that she recently received pay parity for the first time ever for her part in the upcoming science-fiction spy drama “Citadel” on Amazon Prime Video.
contrasting the state of affairs in Bollywood and Hollywood she said: “Well, the first time it’s happened to me, it has happened in Hollywood. So I don’t know, going forward. Because this was my first show with a male actor as a co-lead.”
Chopra Jonas rose to fame after playing an FBI agent in the ABC series “Quantico” from 2015 to 2018. Richard Madden, a former “Game of Thrones” actor, also appears in “Citadel,” though she avoided mentioning him in the interview.
After winning Miss World two years prior, the actress began her career in Bollywood in 2002. She described how guys were handled differently on-site in the written interview she gave with the BBC.
she said: “I thought it was absolutely OK to sit for hours and hours on set, while my male co-actor just took his own time, and decided whenever he wanted to show up on set is when we would shoot.”
In the video clip, she also discussed her experience with body shaming in the entertainment industry, saying how she was called names like “black cat” and “dusky.”
“I did think that I was dark-skinned. I did think that I was not pretty enough. I did think that I would have to work a lot harder even though I thought I was probably a little bit more talented than my co-actors who were lighter-skinned. I thought that was right,” she said.
“I thought that because it was so normalized, so, I think, as I grew up, I saw things in my career that I didn’t even know were right or wrong and I had to be educated and learn along the way.”
Along with her successful worldwide acting career, Chopra Jonas also runs her own production company and serves as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, advocating for girls’ education and children’s rights. She discussed the potential drawbacks of celebrities while speaking on camera.
“I count myself as the lucky one, part of the lucky few that are able to stand up for themselves,” she said. “I faced racism, people called me names, or you know, said mean things to me, but people around the world get killed for it.”
That position in the public eye comes with a certain responsibility, she said.
“I’m not a politician, I’m an entertainer and I can’t change laws, I can’t create laws, but I have influence. All I think about is what am I doing every single day, can I be a good person and make sure that I create actions within my own life that maybe have a butterfly effect.”
