Actor-producer Priyanka Chopra Jonas has represented India on various global platforms and has carved her own niche in both Bollywood and Hollywood. She was also one of four Indians on the BBC’s ‘100 Women’ list of influential figures this year.
In an interview with BBC 100 Women, Ms Chopra said she is finally earning as much as her male co-stars after spending 22 years in the film industry for her role in upcoming spy drama ‘Citadel’. Speaking to the outlet, the actor said, “I’ve never had pay equality in Bollywood. I’d get about 10 percent of my male co-actor’s salary.”
She added that the gap is not thin. “It (the pay gap) is big, substantially big. And so many women are still dealing with that. I’m sure I will too if I worked with a male co-actor in Bollywood now,” she continued to tell the outlet Ms. Chopra also informed that many female actors of her generation have asked for pay equality, but to no avail.
Talking about her early days, Ms. Chopra revealed that she had to wait on set for hours while her fellow male actors got dressed. “I thought it was absolutely okay to be on set for hours and hours, with my male co-actor just taking his own time and deciding when he wanted to appear on set, when we would film,” she told the BBC.
Also Read: Priyanka Chopra visits drought-stricken Kenya: “Millions are on the brink of famine”
In the interview, the actor also discussed India’s obsession with fair skin and recalled being embarrassed because of her skin color. “I was called ‘black cat’, ‘dark’. I mean, what does ‘dark’ really mean in a country where we are literally all brown? I thought I wasn’t pretty enough, I believed I was a lot harder, though I thought I was probably a little bit more talented than my fellow actors who were lighter-skinned. But I thought that was just because it was so normalized,” she said.
Priyanka Chopra Jonas also responded to a question about how different Hollywood is in terms of pay parity. She said, “Well, the first time it happened to me, it happened in Hollywood. So I don’t know how it goes on. Because this was my first show with a male actor as a co-lead”.
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