Priyanka Chopra believes she was once turned down from a movie opportunity due to her skin color.
Chopra is an icon in her homeland of India, which is also a country where discrimination based on skin tone is rife, and where darker skinned people and women in particular are often subjected to harsh treatment.
Chopra, who starred alongside Zac Efron and Dwayne Johnson in Baywatch last year, revealed she was once turned down because of her skin color.
“It happened last year. I was out for a movie, and somebody [from the studio] called one of my agents and said, ‘She’s the wrong’ – what word did they use? – ‘physicality.’ So in my defense as an actor, I’m like, ‘Do I need to be skinnier? Do I need to get in shape? Do I need to have abs?’ Like, what does ‘wrong physicality’ mean? And then my agent broke it down for me. Like, ‘I think, Priy, they meant that they wanted someone who’s not brown.’ It affected me.”
