Priyanka Chopra is getting candid about the weight of Hollywood standards on women — herself included.
During a conversation with Amazon Studios’ Jennifer Salke at the South by Southwest Film Festival on Friday, the 40-year-old Citadel star shared how she’s affected by the pressure stars are under to be a certain size and look a certain way.
“I’ve been told many things that are difficult to hear. In my job, the pressure is so intense you can’t really show the chinks in your armor,” she said, per People. “Someone told me yesterday that I wasn’t sample-sized… I was hurt and I discussed it with my family and I cried to my husband [Nick Jonas], and my team, and I felt really bad about the fact that I’m not sample size, and that’s a problem, apparently, and most of us are not and sample size is size two.”
However, it’s not just the former Miss World pageant winner’s physique that is under a microscope.
“I have had times when I may have said something, and it’s been misconstrued, and you see people saying the meanest and nastiest things not just about me, about my child, about my family members, and I think sometimes people forget you are even human,” she added. “And those pressures — it’s inexplicable. I can’t explain how it feels when you are sitting down on your couch and you just feel the world coming at you because people have forgotten that you are human.”
Fortunately, the new mom, who has been married to Jonas since 2018, can lean on members of her inner circle, whose love is not conditional.
“I think what you have to do is surround yourself with people who love you and surround yourself with people who care about you, and not about what you can bring to the table and not about what you can do for me,” she explained. “People who want to see you smile and be enriched.”
Added Chopra, “It doesn’t have to be a room full of people — I can count them on my hands.”
While Hollywood’s relationship with body image remains complicated, some overdue progress has been made with pay parity. As Chopra confirmed, “When I did Citadel, it was the first time in my career that I had pay parity with my male costar — the first time in 22 years.”
Related Gallery
