Priyanka Chopra Career Review – Tracing Footsteps: From Miss World To Desi Girl & Now ‘Global Domination’, Priyanka Chopra Has Done It All
PeeCee apparently in the beginning wanted to pursue aeronautical engineering, however, after her much publicized pageant win, she was flooded with film offers.
Priyanka Chopra Career Review – Tracing Footsteps: From Miss World To Desi Girl & Now ‘Global Domination’, Priyanka Chopra Has Done It All
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Priyanka Chopra’s career can rightly be termed as a ‘dream run’. After Reita Faria, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Diana Hayden and Yukta Mukhi, Priyanka Chopra was the fifth Indian to bag the coveted Miss World title in 2000. Hailing from an academic background, PeeCee apparently in the beginning wanted to pursue aeronautical engineering, however, after her much publicized pageant win, she was flooded with film offers.
Before entering Bollywood with Anil Sharma’s, The Hero: Love Story of a Spy in 2003, Priyanka Chopra had made her acting debut a year earlier in the Vijay starrer Tamil action-drama, Thamizhan. While The Hero – Love Story Of A Spy co-starring Sunny Deol and Preity Zinta became the third highest grosser of that year, her ‘Andaaz’ in the Akshay Kumar starrer Andaaz, in the same year, was also much appreciated.
After a good start at the box office, Piggy Chopps featured in 5 films in 2004. While Plan, Kismat and Asambhav didn’t fare well, her Mujhse Shaadi Karogi and Aitraaz, both made it to the Top Ten Grossers list of that year. The latter had featured Priyanka Chopra in a negative role alongside Akshay Kumar and Kareena Kapoor Khan and had even bagged the actress a Filmfare Award for Best Performance in a Negative Role. Her portrayal of a demanding ex-lover and a crude boss had impressed the critics and the audience, alike. Though it was unusual at that time for a leading lady to take up a negative role in the initial years of her career, kudos to PeeCee for that.
Priyanka Chopra Career Review – Tracing Footsteps: From Miss World To Desi Girl & Now ‘Global Domination’, Priyanka Chopra Has Done It All
She then had a mix year in 2005 with Blackmail, Karam, Waqt – The Race Against Time, Barsaat and Bluffmaster, but it was the Hrithik Roshan starrer Krrish and Don – The Chase Begins Again with Shah Rukh Khan in 2006 that put her in the A-list category. However, soon after, Priyanka Chopra saw a low phase with a series of duds, including films like Salaam-E-Ishq, Love Story 2050 and Drona among others.
However, Madhur Bhandarkar’s 2008 drama Fashion co-starring Kangana Ranaut proved to be a game changer for her. Her portrayal of an aspiring model to an established face and then the character’s downfall was much appreciated. It bagged Priyanka Chopra her first National Award for the film. In the same year she was also seen in another glamourous avatar in the Karan Johar produced Dostana with Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham, both vying for her attention in the film. The movie permanently established PeeCee as our very own ‘Desi Girl’.
While 2009 and 2010 can be forgettable years for the actress except for Vishal Bhardwaj’s Kaminey, from 2011 Priyanka Chopra made some brave choices with Vishal’s 7 Khoon Maaf, Karan Malhotra’s Agneepath and Anurag Basu’s Barfi. While Agneepath was a huge commercial success, Barfi! also turned out to be a sleeper Super-Hit. She played Jhilmil Chatterjee in the latter, an autistic girl, and won the hearts of many with her portrayal of the character.
Around the same time, Priyanka Chopra also ventured into singing and released her first single ‘In My City’, which was an instant hit but not without its critics. Though unfazed by any of it, in 2013 Priyanka release her second single ‘Exotic’ with American rapper Pitbull.
Getting back to her acting career, in 2013 while her Deewana Main Deewana and Zanjeer didn’t do well, Krrish 3 set the cash registers ringing at the box office. 2014 saw her in the Sanjay Leela Bhansali produced Mary Kom, which had won the Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment at the 62nd National Film Awards.
Around this time Priyanka Chopra had started taking baby steps in Hollywood and in 2015 bagged the lead part of Alex Parrish in the ABC thriller series Quantico. It ran for three seasons and the actress for a few years kept juggling between Bollywood and Hollywood with multiple projects including Dil Dhadakne Do, Bajirao Mastani, Jai Gangaajal, Baywatch and A Kid Like Jake. Quantico had received mixed reviews and so did Baywatch, which was based on the popular 90s television series of the same name. However, she has made a strong mark in the West and is reportedly also in the discussion for many big budget Hollywood films, including The Matrix 4.
Her last Hindi film outing, The Sky Is Pink, which she had also produced didn’t do well at the box office despite having received positive feedback from a section of desi and international critics. Her stint with production had started with the 2016 Marathi film Ventilator that had bagged a National Award, and continued with Sarvann, Kaay Re Rascalaa and last year’s Paani – another National Award winner.
She will next been see in Ramin Bahrani’s The White Tiger alongside Rajkummar Rao and we are sure she has some big announcements lined up from Bollywood as well. May be another collaboration with Sanjay Leela Bhansali? You never know…
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