Priyanka Chopra

Interviewer: It sounds to me that you are someone who's always challenged the status quo. You do not accept things as they are if you're not happy with them. Priyanka Chopra: And I remember when I was just starting out in movies and I was meeting a lot of film producers, there was this one producer I was talking to about this big movie with some big major male lead actors.

And he said, "Well, if your remuneration is not what we're willing to give you and if your scheduling is not according to these two boys, then, well, it'll be hard for us to take you in the movie." And so my representation at that point was like, "Well, you know, she's Miss World." And he was like, "Listen, let's keep it real.

Girls are replaceable, okay? So who are people coming to watch in a movie? The guy on the poster."

"The girl is standing where? Behind him." "So if she... if I change her and I get another girl, she's still going to be doing the same thing."

"If I don't get another girl, I'll just launch a new actress." And I remember sitting there in that office, and I must have been all of 19 or 20, and somewhere, I think psychologically it really affected me. I was like, "Wow, we are really replaceable."

"I don't want to be replaceable." And I think that lent me towards doing the parts that I chose eventually through my career, and they were not mainstream, and they were not what leading ladies do. You know, they were not norm because leading ladies don't say lines like that.

That's why I was a supporting part in this movie, by the way. It's true. Interviewer: But you got the best lines it sounds like. Priyanka Chopra: But it was the supporting part.

Because that's what supporting parts can do. The leading ladies weren't supposed to be that. We were supposed to be coy and like, shy and never say anything and look pretty and have wind in our hair.

And I really I still love wind in my hair, by the way. I act better with it. I really wanted to change the game a little...

And I think that started subconsciously. Interviewer: Tell us a little bit more about that culture in the Bollywood industry of the hero and then the ladies or the girls behind him. Priyanka Chopra: I think it's Hollywood, too.

I mean, look at the movies eventually that do the numbers that they do. Very few films that you will see will actually touch the numbers that male films do, and why is that? Isn't that a reflection on us as a society that we end up going watching those films and we make the numbers for the movies which are led by the boys?

And isn't it a reflection on Hollywood or on Bollywood or any film industry that they say, "All right, the numbers come from here, so let's just make these kind of movies." There are very few which have the ability to turn around and say, like we were talking about backstage, we've just about had our Wonder Woman. Which is the first female big superhero movie directed by a female director, and that's in 2017.

So it's a cycle of demand and supply. So while people go watch it, as soon as the audience starts saying, "Oh my God, we love this movie," it doesn't matter if the main lead is a male or a female, is when people are going to start making those films. And at the same time, those producers need to turn around and say, "You know what?

We don't care about who's coming to watch the films. We still want to make it." And that's, that's where I think entertainment is going towards now.

Interviewer: So you know the film industry very well. You know producers, you know financiers. Wonder Woman was a massive hit.

Is that enough to make a change? Do people listen to that kind of success? Priyanka Chopra: It's a big dent.

It's definitely a big dent. It's a dent in the conversation. It's, it's me being able to have an example to cite on the stage right now when we're talking about global entertainment, and that gives us the crutch to stand on something and say, "All right, this happened.