Priyanka Chopra stands out as one of the rare Bollywood actors who have successfully made the leap into Hollywood. The former Miss World who now has a thriving career both at home and in the West, recently spoke about her rough start in Hollywood. In a conversation with Cavanaugh James on his podcast, Read The Room, Priyanka recalled how she was denied meetings despite having an extensive body of work. She said, “I had featured on the cover of a certain magazine six times in my country, but in the US, they wouldn’t even take a meeting with me.”

The Citadel star described her multiple rejections as a humbling experience and said, “I put my head down and did my work. I didn’t bring my pride of ‘I am a leading lady and blah blah…’ That’s what helped me find a position in which I am today.”

Priyanka Chopra admitted being lost and lonely in the USA and said, “It was the industry that I didn’t know, the people, I didn’t know, I didn’t have friends who would call at 2 in the morning. That’s very important. I was very lonely, and it was very scary. I was in New York City, which, anyway, is a daunting city. It was a dark period of my life.”

She emphasised the importance of letting go of missed opportunities and moving on and said, “I am solution-oriented, but sometimes there are no solutions, and you have to let it be. That’s the lesson that helped me ride the wave instead of fighting it.”

Priyanka Chopra moved to the USA, in 2012 with the release of songs like In My City and Exotic. Now more than a decade later she bagged multiple impressive projects such as films like Baywatch, The Matrix Resurrections or high-budget shows like Quantico and Citadel. She was last seen in the romantic drama Love Again alongside Sam Heughan and Celine Dion. Her next lead film is the action comedy Head of State, which also has Idris Elba and John Cena in the main roles.

In India, Priyanka Chopra celebrates the success of films produced by her production house, Purple Pebble Pictures, which she established in 2015. The production house’s documentary To Kill a Tiger, released in 2022, earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film. Additionally, the Marathi film Paani received the prestigious National Film Award for Best Film on Environment Conservation/Preservation in 2019.