The World Is Not Enough For Priyanka Chopra

Priyanka Chopra has been an actor, who has captured your attention with some knockout performances. Sometimes, she’s carried the film on her shoulders and sometimes, she took your breath away with just a single scene. Devesh Sharma recollects her finest portrayals

There is this scene in Abbas Mustan’s Aitraaz (2004) where Priyanka Chopra looks seductively at Akshay Kumar leaving him rattled. Because she’s sizing him up and gauging his availability, Akshay seemed uncomfortable. She effectively turned the tables on the male gaze with a subtle expression. An actress was born that moment as you marvelled at her audacity. She chases Akshay with the instincts of a predator and you were rooting for the bad girl all the way. The film, an unofficial remake of Disclosure, bitch-slapped us with the fact that yes, there’s something called female sexuality and it too can cause havoc. Priyanka was relatively a newcomer then but her confident handling of the role made everyone take notice of the fact that there was naked talent smouldering under that hot bod. She won the Filmfare Best Actor in a Negative Role trophy that year. Life’s been positive for her ever since...

There is this scene in Madhur Bhandarkar’s Fashion (2008), where a distraught Priyanka is forced to terminate her pregnancy. The anguish and the humiliation depicted by her is as real as it gets. Also, at some point when she gets high on alcohol and gets into a one night-stand, she lives the nightmare of a single girl lost without an emotional anchor. It’s a hard-hitting, visceral, layer-by-layer unpeeling of innocence, which was so hard to essay. It was a gutsy move for the actress but she never really lacked guts. This was one film, which didn’t have strong male leads and yet her achingly real performance carried the day. No wonder she won both the Filmfare Best Actor and the National Award for her mind-blowing act.