Priyanka Chopra on learning to be comfortable in her own skin
The "Quantico" star opens up about growing up in America.
— -- Priyanka Chopra hasn't always been comfortable in her own skin.
The Indian star of ABC's "Quantico" opened up to Glamour magazine about attending high school in Iowa, where she said she was bullied for being different.
"There was this girl who was a major bully. I think she didn’t like me because her boyfriend liked me, or some high school dynamic. She made my life hell. She used to call me names and would push me against the locker," Chopra told the June issue. "High school’s hard for everybody, and then there’s this woman."
Chopra, who was living with her aunt and uncle at the time while her doctor parents remained in India, said her alleged bully made her feel ashamed for being Indian.
"I don’t think a lot of people understand what Indians are. And that’s our fault, a little. We tend to forget our roots a bit," she said. "As kids [we think], If I’m too Indian, I’ll be put in a box, and people will think of me as different. They’ll think I’m weird, because I eat Indian food or my name is difficult to pronounce. That girl in school used to call me ‘curry.’ You’re scared of those things. We’re afraid of letting people see the glory of who we are."
Chopra said she ended up asking her mother to come get her, and she finished school in India, where she later competed in and won Miss World before becoming a major Bollywood star.
In India, she said she encountered prejudice for having darker skin.
"A lot of girls who have a darker skin hear things like, ‘Oh, poor thing, she’s dark. Poor thing, it’ll be hard for her.’ In India, they advertise skin-lightening creams: ‘Your skin’s gonna get lighter in a week.’ I used it [when I was very young]," she said. "Then when I was an actor, around my early 20s, I did a commercial for a skin-lightening cream. I was playing that girl with insecurities. And when I saw it, I was like, ‘Oh s---. What did I do?’ And I started talking about being proud of the way I looked. I actually really like my skin tone."
That confidence helped Chopra land her current role, as one of the leads of "Quantico."
"After 'Quantico' was picked up, I was like, ‘Oh crap, if I don’t do well, people will be like, ‘Oh my God, Indian actors can’t do lead parts.’ I felt that pressure," the 34-year old admitted.
At the same time, Chopra, who stars in the new "Baywatch" movie out later this month, is grateful for the platform she's been given to expand the image of Indians beyond "exotic" and "model minority."
"Maybe I, being on the platform that I am, can say this louder than the kid who has to get on the subway and go to school, 'You don’t need to be afraid of who you are,'" she said. "I don’t want any kid to feel the way I felt in school. I was afraid of my bully. It made me feel like I’m less -- in my skin, in my identity, in my culture."
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