There was a time when I desperately wanted to be part of a Yash Chopra film, not because he was a great director, but because I was an outsider and I wanted that validation of being accepted in the film industry.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When I was in college, my brother, B.R. Chopra, who is everything to me, was a director in Bombay. He taught me filmmaking. What I am today is because of him.
I was offered some film roles, and I did not do them. It would have been interesting, but I have no regrets. I am where I am; I accept and embrace the mistakes because they're character-building and they build perspective and talent.
To join or not to join films was the biggest choice I had to make. I'd done two years of biogenetic engineering, was an economics graduate and a gold medalist. I had also been a Bharatanatyam dancer from age five, always won the best actress award in school. Finally, I decided to do things for my soul, chose to act.
I never expected to become a director. It never occurred to me to come to America, to Hollywood. It's all been a wonderful accident. I'm still amazed every time I finish a film.
There were movies that always made me want to be a director. You see brilliant scenes and the way the emotions were handled. I thought, I'd really like to do that.
I may be a star in the South, but when I go to Bollywood, I am a clean slate, a white paper. Whatever the director makes of me is what I will become for the audience.
I did not enter the industry to create a certain image. People happened to see me as the friend/sister/daughter next door. I like that association very much. It's close to what I am in real life. As for films, I just focus on the job.
Whenever I work on any Yash Raj film, I feel that they believed in me, and that's why I have been able to be in films today. I had no connection with movies apart from watching them.
I never had any desire to be a film actor. I never thought I was the good-looking movie type, which I assumed they wanted.
I became a director just for the love of movies, because of the power of cinema.