On this first morning in post-Roe America, Bollywood star Deepika Padukone is on my mind. She occupies my brain space — not because of her recent appointment as a Louis Vuitton ambassador and not because she “stole the show” in Cannes in early June, appointed as a member of the 2022 Cannes Festival nine-person jury.

Vogue India Interview

Padukone acknowledges in her Vogue India May 2022 cover story — a conversation between the actor and Faye D’Souza, edited and excerpted by Sadaf Shaikh — that she was pleased to be honored as a TIME 100 Impact Award 2022 recipient.

She’s here to talk her casual, tomboy style preferences — Red Carpet glam nights not included. Padukone shows us how the first Indian Louis Vuitton ambassador chills, styled by Megha Kapoor in the all-Vuitton fashion story lensed by Vivek Vadoliya [IG]. / Makeup by Tina Monzón; hair by Noelia Coral

Casual looks are deceiving in the Vogue India fashion story. For the first time in history, a fashion brand — Louis Vuitton — has entered the rarified air of the world’s top 10 global brands, as ranked by Kantar BrandZ Most Valuable Global Brands 2022 report

Louis Vuitton and Deepika Padukone make a good team.

Previously honored by TIME in 2018 on its annual ‘100 Most Influential People’ list, Padukone is also known for her work making Indian film industry more friendly and supportive to all actors, and she is especially dedicated as an advocate for mental health awareness who leads her own foundation to promote awareness about mental illness, speaking out against stigmatisation.

Deepika Padukone on Mental Health

Issues that matter deeply to Padukone — 1) being a changemaker in Bollywood on progressive topics and especially women’s lives and 2) understanding the complex topic of mental health and its impact on individual lives and society — currently live in a harmonious, activist-oriented space in her mind.

Padukone wants to dig beneath the surface of issues in films made in Bollywood and also Hollywood. She’s not interested in “checking boxes” on any topic from diversity to women directors.

Yes, the actor chooses roles that will hopefully advance topics like mental health, but she refuses to pay lip-service to them. Because Padukone herself has dealt with depression and spoken openly about her own challenges, she insists that roles explore challenging topics with depth, understanding and empathy.

Change isn’t only required in how women’s roles, the role of a mentally-ill person, an outcast in high society — all topics that invite the viewer to relate with the actor — are portrayed. Padukone believes that change is required on the movie set itself. She says:

If an actor were portraying a character with a physical ailment, for example, they would do their research and due diligence in order to discern exactly how to depict their condition. The same courtesy needs to be extended to mental illnesses. Actors, writers and directors shouldn’t be winging it. We should afford the same honesty and authenticity to characters with mental illnesses as we do to biopics. Cinema is such a powerful medium of understanding. If mental health is depicted in the right way, it can have far-reaching consequences for a country like India, where the conversation around mental health has only just begun. Similarly, one wrong depiction could set us back by years.

Roles impact an actor — and especially if it’s one with depth and psychological-emotional challenges. Both as an actor and a producer, Padukone hopes to see a therapist on set in the future. “We have a doctor on set, so I don’t see why we can’t have a mental health professional too.”

Challenging Movie Roles Often Stir Up the Actor’s Own Inner Balance

Padukone had a personal therapist on set, as she played the role of Malti in ‘Chhapaak’, a 2020 Indian Hindi-language biographical drama about real-life, acid-attack survivor Laxmi Agarwal. Playing Malti for so many months took a toll on Padukone’s own psyche, causing her to have panic attacks and to feel claustrophobic in her daily acting roles as Malti.

Now the Bollywood heavyweight wants to see a therapist on the set for the entire cast. As a rock-star producer today, the actor is in a position to make these changes happen.

The May 2022 Vogue India interview doesn’t delve into Padukone’s experience with the film ‘Padmavati’. But her challenges around the film have lived front and center in my own mind for multiple reasons.

The term ‘six degrees of separation’ is in play with most of life’s experiences, especially if one leads an expansive live, is well-informed or both. Connecting the dots becomes a daily experience if one is empathetic and alert.

For better or worse, I am very good at connecting dots. In today’s world, most events are interconnected.