Priyanka Chopra Jonas once walked off a Bollywood movie set when the director insisted she flash her underpants.
In an interview with the Zoe Report this week, she related a story from the beginning of her film career, saying she felt it was “dehumanizing” for her to submit to the director’s demands.
“This may have been 2002 or ’03,” Chopra Jonas recalled. She was cast to play an undercover character who was seducing a man by removing one piece of clothing at a time. Chopra Jonas had wanted to put on extra layers of clothing in order to feel more comfortable with their ultimate removal, but the director – who was not named – had other ideas. He insisted that underwear must be seen.
“The filmmaker was like, ‘No, I need to see her underwear. Otherwise why is anybody coming to watch this movie?’” she related. Worse, his comments were directed toward an adjacent stylist rather than the star.
“It was such a dehumanizing moment,” Chopra Jonas said. “It was a feeling of, ‘I’m nothing else outside of how I can be used, my art is not important, what I contribute is not important.”
Chopra Jonas left the movie, but paid back the production for its expenses related to her appearance.
“I just couldn’t look at (the director) every day,” she said.