Priyanka Chopra Jonas says she paid for film production after backing out from ‘dehumanizing’ director

Priyanka Chopra Jonas has given a production what it paid back after withdrawing for just two days from filming due to the “dehumanizing” way in which she was treated by a director.

THE Citadel star opened up about why she made the decision to pay out of pocket after the experience in a recent story for The Zoe Report. The interview saw the Love again the star talks about her marriage to Nick Jonas and their shared work ethic, the challenges of breaking into the American entertainment industry, and her production company’s two unannounced projects for Amazon that had their own writers’ rooms started but now i’m on break because of the strike .

At one point in the discussion, Chopra Jonas addresses an experience she previously wrote about in her memoir Unfinished. It involved a director in one of his early Bollywood projects around 2002 or 2003, and a role where the newest talent in the industry played an undercover woman.

“I’m undercover, I’m seducing the guy – obviously that’s what girls do when they’re undercover. But I’m seducing the guy and you have to take off one piece of clothing (at a time),” she recalled. “I wanted to layer up. The director said, ‘No, I need to see his underwear. Otherwise, why does anyone come to see this film?‘”

Chopra Jonas clarifies that the director did not make the comment directly to her but in front of her to her stylist, whom the director had told to call on the phone for a recommendation. At the time, she asked the director a question about whether to start the scene in multiple layers so she doesn’t end up bare-skinned too quickly, according to her memoir.

However, “it was such a dehumanizing moment. It was a feeling of, I’m nothing but how I can be used, my art doesn’t matter, what I contribute doesn’t matter,” she said.

That prompted her to leave the project after just two days on the job, but the actress now says she paid the production back out of her own pocket for what they had spent on her, “at her father’s urging,” according to The Zoe ReportT. “I couldn’t watch it every day,” she said of her decision.

In the 2021 memoir, according to Hindustan Timesthe actress claimed she made the unnamed director livid, and he “fudged” on the sets of another film she was in, with a co-star having to step in on her behalf.

“I was ready to become a temptress in number,” she said of her time on that initial film. “The director’s words and tone, however, communicated that he regarded me in a way that I found unacceptable.”