{"id":24918,"date":"2014-09-06T08:20:08","date_gmt":"2014-09-06T00:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=24918"},"modified":"2014-09-06T00:12:13","modified_gmt":"2014-09-05T16:12:13","slug":"bollywood-star-priyanka-chopra-says-biopic-mary-kom-has-international-appeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/09\/06\/bollywood-star-priyanka-chopra-says-biopic-mary-kom-has-international-appeal\/","title":{"rendered":"Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra says biopic \u2018Mary Kom\u2019 has international appeal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Priyanka<\/a>
Priyanka graces the \u2018Mijwan-Sonnets in Fabric\u2019 fashion show. Photo from Bollywoodhungama.com <\/a>\/ Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TORONTO\u2014Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra knows her latest film may not be what most international audiences might expect from Indian cinema\u2014there are no flashy dance numbers, no dolled up female leads and few wild action sequences.<\/p>\n

But the 32-year-old actress hopes \u201cMary Kom\u201d\u2014which is based on real-life events\u2014will help break stereotypes while telling an inspirational story.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think a good story appeals to anyone. Yes, we do have a language barrier with Indian films, but the fact that this movie is a real story about a girl who is a youth icon today is relevant,\u201d Chopra said in an interview during the Toronto International Film Festival, where the movie premiered on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Based on the life of Olympic medallist and five-time world boxing champion Mary Kom, the film follows the struggles faced by the daughter of a rice farmer who didn\u2019t want his little girl to take up the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a story of someone who is unstoppable and it doesn\u2019t matter if she\u2019s Indian, it doesn\u2019t matter which part of the world she comes from, that\u2019s a story that will appeal to anyone that has a dream,\u201d said Chopra.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it goes beyond the barriers of countries and languages, it\u2019s just a really inspiring, good story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chopra, a former Miss World and one of India\u2019s most in-demand actresses, was drawn to the film because she likes to \u201cpush the envelope a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want it to be stereotyped into women-centric or a niche film just because it\u2019s different,\u201d she said of her latest project.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stereotype of it is that \u2018oh, it\u2019s a girl on the poster.\u2019 Second, it\u2019s a boxer\u2014girls boxing? What?…All those stereotypes of what should be a good Hindi movie, this is not all of that. But it\u2019s a good Hindi movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chopra admits she didn\u2019t know much about the woman she portrays on the big screen before she took on the film, but worked hard to play her role accurately.<\/p>\n

The actress travelled to the real Kom\u2019s hometown, living with her and her family\u2014the boxing champion is a mother of three and still an active athlete\u2014to absorb as much of her character\u2019s mannerisms and personality as possible.<\/p>\n

It was at that point that Chopra learned that despite her prowess in the boxing ring, Kom was also a devoted mother and wife.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s someone who celebrates her femininity and I love that about her,\u201d the actress said. \u201cShe loves shopping, she loves cooking, she\u2019s a proud homemaker, loves being a mom, but at the same time, she\u2019s a beast in the boxing ring, which in India at least, is a very very male sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

The biggest challenge in playing the character convincingly, however, came from the fact that Chopra looks nothing like the real-life Kom, who is from north east India and has physical features often associated with\u00a0southeast Asian\u00a0women.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t have the crutch. Half the battle is won if you look like the person you\u2019re playing. I didn\u2019t have that,\u201d Chopra explained, noting that she faced criticism early on when chosen for the role.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to adopt every aspect of her. Not just change my body type\u2014I had physically changed, I\u2019m very petite, I had to become much bigger\u2014I had to learn the dialect, the way she speaks, I had to understand her fears.\u201d<\/p>\n

That issue turned into something of a revelation for Chopra as the movie was made, with the film also exploring some of the exclusion felt by Indians from Kom\u2019s home state of Manipur.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe said to me, \u2018I would much rather have Priyanka Chopra playing me than someone who is Korean, or with South east Asian features because when the national anthem plays, Priyanka will understand what I\u2019ve felt more than someone who looks like me,\u2019\u201d Chopra said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy eyes and my cheekbones probably don\u2019t look like her but everything else is completely Mary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMary Kom\u201d opens in theatres on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TORONTO\u2014Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra knows her latest film may not be what most international audiences might expect from Indian cinema\u2014there …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":24919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","mauthors-diana-mehta","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}