Priyanka Chopra: One of only four Indians to appear on the BBC’s list of “100 Women” this year is Priyanka Chopra. In a related interview, the actor has since disclosed that things were not always as rosy for the actress. She discussed how in her early days in Bollywood, she was never paid equally to the male lead and how men were given special treatment on the movie sets.
Priyanka Chopra on wage gap
“I’ve never had pay parity in Bollywood. I would get paid about 10% of the salary of my male co-actor. It’s (the pay gap) large, substantially large. And so many women still deal with that. I’m sure I will too if I worked with a male co-actor now in Bollywood,” she said. “My generation of female actors have definitely asked (for equal pay). We’ve asked, but we’ve not got it.”
Priyanka also spoke about the treatment she would get on sets and how she thought it was something normal. “I thought it was absolutely OK to sit for hours and hours on set, while my male co-actor just took his own time, and decided whenever he wanted to show up on set is when we would shoot,” she said.
When she revealed that Citadel will be the first time she has a male co-lead, Richard Madden, she also discussed how things are different in Hollywood. “Well, that has happened to me for the first time in Hollywood. So moving forward, I’m not sure,” she said.
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