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Priyanka Chopra Jonas on people in Hollywood mispronouncing her name: If you can say Oprah, you can say Chopra
Priyanka Chopra Jonas revealed how she had to teach people in Hollywood to pronounce her name when she first worked in the US.
Priyanka Chopra Jonas recently joined actor Kabir Bedi in a virtual chat as she launched his new memoir, Stories I Must Tell: The Emotional Life Of An Actor. While Kabir himself has been an Indian actor who also starred in Hollywood films, the duo had a rather interesting exchange on their experiences in Hollywood. Speaking about the kind of bias Priyanka encountered while starting work in America, the Citadel star said it was mainly about people mispronouncing her name.
During her interaction with Bedi, she recalled being referred to as "Shapra" when she first began working in Hollywood. The actress said that she had to teach people how to pronounce her name the right way and said, "Everybody would be like Priyanka ‘Shapra-Shapra’. I said it is not Shapra. If you can say Oprah, you can say Chopra. It’s not that difficult.”
Priyanka further also shed light on the casting process in Hollywood and how she chose to take up ethnically ambiguous roles at the beginning of her career and with the recent film, The White Tiger, got a chance to play an Indian character. Chopra Jonas will once again be essaying an Indian role in her upcoming project with Mindy Kaling.
Kabir Bedi, on the other hand, discussed with Priyanka how he shaped his Hollywood career especially at a time when Hollywood didn't have enough Asian roles. The veteran actor recalling his experience of working in the US and taking up roles as a "foreign-looking" person said, "In the James Bond film, I was actually cast as an Indian, but in Ashanti with Micheal Kane, I played Tuareg tribesmen. In Bold and the Beautiful, I played a Moroccan prince, so it is playing the foreign tag that got me the roles."
