Priyanka Chopra Jonas Reveals Her Inner 'White Tiger' Self in Marie Claire Spring 2021
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Actor and activist Priyanka Chopra Jonas covers the Spring 2021 issue of Marie Claire US, lensed by photographer Ruth Ginika Ossai [IG]. Joanna Schlenzka. styles Chopra Jonas in Christian Siriano, Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, Sportmax, Valentino, Versace and more. See fashion credits at Marie Claire US. / Hair by Issac Poleon; makeup by Ninni Nummela
Priya Rao conducts the interview ‘Priyanka Pulls Back the Curtain’. Rao is the Executive Editor at Glossy. Her latest project ‘Unfair’, an Apple-recommended narrative podcast series, delves into the global skin whitening industry.
Much of the Marie Claire interview touches Chopra Jonas’ well-known history and recent interviews. AOC will focus on the actor’s current role in Netflix Originals ‘The White Tiger’, currently playing on Netflix, and her memoir ‘Unfinished.”
The film hit #2 on the Netflix movie list on Monday, Jan. 25, 2021.
Always an avid reader, Priyanka Chopra Jonas “devoured” the 2008 Booker Prize-winning, debut novel by Aravind Adiga ‘The White Tiger’. Wiki summarizes the novel, writing:
In an interview with Aravind Adiga, he talked about how "The White Tiger" was a book about a man's quest for freedom.[12] Balram, the protagonist in the novel, worked his way out of his low social caste (often referred to as "the Darkness") and overcame the social obstacles that limited his family in the past. Climbing up the social ladder, Balram sheds the weights and limits of his past and overcomes the social obstacles that keep him from living life to the fullest that he can. In the book, Balram talks about how he was in a rooster coop and how he broke free from his coop. The novel is somewhat a memory of his journey to finding his freedom in India's modern day capitalist society. Towards the beginning of the novel, Balram cites a poem from the Muslim poet Iqbal where he talks about slaves and says "They remain slaves because they can’t see what is beautiful in this world."[13] Balram sees himself embodying the poem and being the one who sees the world and takes it as he rises through the ranks of society, and in doing so finding his freedom.
“I couldn’t put the book down; it made me uncomfortable, embarrassed,” Priyanka tells Rao. When she learned it was going to be made into a movie with Netflix, she immediately reached out to her agent.
Chopra Jonas plays the only female role in the film — as Pinky Madam. Director Ramin Bahrani narrates to Rao how the actor nailed her part in a way that genuinely surprised him. Challenging her to read a scene that was stumping other actors, she first tried something very unusual that left the director unsatisfied. I said, ‘Maybe you want to try something different?’
His future female lead did NOT want to try something different. Instead, she doubled down, employing the same acting technique and interpretation of Pinky Madam’s lines with even more conviction. The result was a “yes!”. Bahrani says. “I was so surprised and taken aback at an actress who was able to nail that on her own because of her own instinct.”
“I don’t think it’s about the country,” Chopra Jonas says of ‘The White Tiger’s’ subcontinental setting. “It’s about hunger, it’s about ambition, and it just happens to be placed in India. It could be in any other developing economy or a place where there is poverty. It just goes to show when you have an empty belly, what that can do to a man. To me, it’s a metaphor for desire and how far you go to get it.”
On the topic of her new memoir ‘Unfinished’, the actor and activist tells Marie Claire: “I call it the in-between-interviews book. I’ve been in so many interviews in my life, but nobody knows what happened in between them,” she says. “I’m not someone who shares my vulnerabilities, my fears. And somehow in the process of writing this book—because it was so cathartic—I happened to go to those places.”
If this is your first Priyanka Chopra Jonas interview in awhile, you will find lots to read in the exchange between the actor and Priya Rao.
