October 6, 2021 • 49 mins
Actor and advocate Priyanka Chopra Jonas speaks to host Amanda de Cadenet about her early life in India, how that upbringing impacted who she is now, and who she wants to become in the future.
Through conversations around love, loss, religion, and spirituality, Chopra Jonas gives us an in-depth and personal glimpse into her life and career.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to VS Voices. I'm a mandit Acadeney. In this episode,
I speak with actor, producer and advocate Prianka Choper Jonas.
We talk about reaching rock bottom with grief, finding a
life partner from a totally different background, and getting comfortable
with life being a bit messy. I hear you great, Um,
(00:26):
I have. It's like seven, it's eight am here in
l a and it's like almost the end of my day. Yeah,
I'm sorry to make you do that. That's okay. That
coffee has kicked in. I know, right, wh hasn't. I've
got it right here. I've got it right here and
I'm just going to drink it throughout our in. You
absolutely should. So you're in London, yes, ma'am my hometown
(00:53):
is it? Where in London you from? Like? Which part? Chelsea? Oh?
Look the well I've been in London through its worst,
because I mean through its worst, lockdown, through its worst.
London cannot be worst kind but it can't. It's just
one of the most beautiful cities in the world. But
I've it was so miserable to see this incredibly joyous
(01:21):
Allied city just you know, the tabletops upturned, the I
remember walking in Mayfair and all the tables were upturned
and the chairs were upturned, and there was it was
like a movie scene almost, And this is like February
and there were you know, these dry leaves just flying by,
and I swear to god, I had a moment. I
(01:42):
just turned around when back into my car and I
was like, let's just go. I know, it's really sad.
It's really really sad. I mean, you know, I think London.
You know, my family is there, and my mom is
there and my dad is there, and you know, I've
not been able to go. And then my passport expired
during COVID and so having to get a new passport,
(02:04):
a new English passport during COVID. I still don't even
have it because it all there's no like expediting and
I haven't been there and I haven't seen anyone in
over two years. It's awful, so awful, but you know,
it is what it is. So you're known as an actor,
as singer, a producer, an investor, and an advocate. Do
(02:28):
you think would you say all of those accurate? Um?
I think I'm a little bit more I would say
complex than that, or more interesting than that that. I
just don't have buckets and like boxes that I like
to check. It's um my journey has been very self made,
self taught. You know. Um I've been banged and bruised
(02:49):
and I've kind of had to stand up myself again
and I didn't have too many people holding my hand
during this time. I came from a background of you know,
physicians and academia, and I wanted to be an engineer,
and I was thrown into arts, which I didn't even
know I had an aptitude towards at that point. I
(03:09):
just like being in school plays and like singing. But
I came from a family that it was never it
was never a considered profession or you know, it was
never like arts. Who makes money with arts? Like who
pays the bills? But um, I've I've always sort of
needed to, you know, make a path of my own.
(03:31):
And I think I just don't know how to label that.
So I would say multiple A lot of them are accurate,
but they're not a whole. Yeah, I feel labels are
really limiting, and they are for the purpose of the
world comprehending who someone is or a piece of who
they are. But actually, when I what I'm more interested
(03:54):
in is. How would you describe yourself as a human being?
What are the human qualities that describe you. I'm very
hard working, um, I I'm rarely afraid of trying something new.
I think I'm but I'm also like a cry baby.
(04:18):
Like when I get angry, I cry, which is worst
because you're trying to be tough on you're and then
I have these big tears that come out of my eyes.
And I to deal with my emotions. UM, to see
your feelings, that's good, I am, and that has been
inculcated in me. My father was very very sensitive as well.
And you know, um, but I'm and I'm okay with
(04:40):
feeling the feelings that I do. I don't run from them,
I don't hide from them. But I'm also very driven
and ambitious. So empathy is a big part of I
think who I am. I always try to sort of
perceive people or meet people by putting myself in their shoes.
Let me ask you a question about expressing your feelings.
(05:00):
How do the people around you make space for that?
Because not everyone is comfortable with people feeling their feelings.
It's not normalized at all. It's not okay to like
feel fear or feel shame and talk about it, or
feel judged and talk about it. You're supposed to process
it alone. And because that's the culture we've created, feelings
(05:22):
feel really large when actually if you address them in
a very coherent manner and just having a conversation with
whoever you're feeling these feelings with, it diffuses it. It
takes away the power of how scary they seem when
actually discuss it so over time. And this is again
something I've learned in my you know, second half of
(05:43):
my forties. I didn't know this in my twenties, is
that it's just I don't need the drama of extreme emotions.
I can just normalize them, have conversations with people I
work with, talk with and just try to reach a
place where it's not dramatic and we're all just functional
and have enjoying this beautiful gift called life. Gosh, it's
(06:06):
it's so good to hear that you are so comfortable
in yourself. It sounds to me like you have done
a lot of work to be able to um own
who you are and you feel comfortable in your skin.
It's absolutely been a journey. I mean I I sometimes
when I hear myself back. I'm like, girl, you sound
(06:28):
like you know everything. I don't. I really don't. I
kind of come to a new consensus every day from
whatever has happened in my life the previous day. And
you know, there are days you wake up when it's
just all of it is too much and too hard,
and you have to be your hype man and hype
woman and tell yourself to get out there, because you know,
(06:49):
when you've got to show up and you have a commitment,
no one else is going to know what you're coming from.
And especially being a public person, when I go out
to do my job, no one knows where I'm coming from.
If I've slept three hours or four hours, or if
I've had a fight with whoever, or if I'm like
feeling failure or any of those feelings. People don't want
to see that, you know. People just want to see
(07:11):
what they want to see. So there is not really
a safe space to project those human human feelings. So
I sort of incubate them. And I'm very private my
my family, my home, my feelings, my emotions. I keep
them very closely guarded and and rightly so, because that's
(07:33):
the safest place to allow them to be and to process,
and it's a healthy place to be because social media
is not a safe space and the Internet is not
a safe space. So absolutely protect yourself and share yourself
with the people who love you versus just a large
community of of people we don't know a large community
(07:57):
of anonymousy. So that's that you bring up something which
I want to talk to you about, which is to
do with what you show on social media versus what
you keep private. Do you have kind of areas or
specific things like for me, I don't really show my
kids on social media. It's a very very rare day.
(08:18):
And now my kids are older and they have a
choice if they want to be on social media. But
I for many years I would never show their faces
and I still am uncomfortable with that. That's an area
for me that's like I don't do that. What are
the areas for you that you keep off of social media? So,
I mean I don't have kids yet, so I don't
(08:38):
know how I feel about that. Um, it's something I
would love to think about sooner than later. But um,
I think for me, I don't like digging too deep.
You know, I will maybe, you know, show an image
is me and my husband, or me and my mom
and my brother, and I'll be like, Okay, marry Chris,
(09:00):
but you'll never see like what actually happens within the
sacred safe space of my home. Like it's it's a
little bit um ornamental. I feel like what I share, uh,
And unless I'm having a moment where I feel vulnerable
and I'll you know, talk about my feelings and I
(09:20):
captured or something, which I have done, but there are
few and far in between I've I've had to, I guess,
build a very hard exterior. I started this business when
I was seventeen, you know, in um a predominantly patriarchal industry,
and you kind of had to toughen up and pull
(09:44):
up your boots and just survive, and you're not allowed
to feel anything. So I think for a long time,
I'm built myself to be a survivor, you know, to
be a street dog who's just like I'm gonna do
whatever I need and and and do it with grace
and dignity. That now that I'm in a comfortable place
with myself my life as a woman, I don't know
(10:06):
how to undo that. Like I don't know how to
undo the desire to constantly look like I'm in control.
Mm hmm, well I don't think there is. That's necessarily
a choice, at least in my experience. The the we're
not in control, I mean we think we are. And
(10:27):
you know, there's that great um phrase if you want
to make God love, tell them your plans, and that's
absolutely you know, social media as a curated version of
what you want people to believe, right, and that's just projections.
So I'm talking about like I've also over time, because
perfection or you know, having everything tied up in a
(10:48):
neat little bow is something we've been taught, specifically as women,
so as public people, that everything should be neat and
tidy and it can't be messy. Done that for such
a long time that now I'm getting to a place
when i'm really un learning it because I'm more confident
about who i am, that I'm okay with being a
little messy, and I'm okay with talking about things that
(11:10):
I may have vehemently protected my whole life, Like I
never spoke about a relationship in my life before my
husband for some reason, I just didn't I didn't want
to be defined by it. And suddenly he comes along
and I'm like, you know what, this feels comfortable. It
feels like I do want to not think about, you know, um,
(11:35):
not think about my actions visibly what is expected of me,
but actually just do you know, be giddy and have
fun and just like live your life four o'clock in
the morning and live your life like I didn't. I
hadn't thought of all of that because I kept myself
so tightly wound that I don't know. I'm in a
place now, almost approaching forty, learning how to how to live.
(11:58):
But you know, that's like you said, It's like we
learned survival skills in order to you know, make it work,
you know, in and in certain environments. And you grew up,
as you said, in a largely patriarchal society, and so,
you know, I actually wonder what it was like for
you growing up where there was such a in India,
where there was such a massive gender and castified How
(12:21):
did witnessing um that inform the work that you do
in the world, specifically your advocacy work, because that must
have impacted you a lot. I think growing up in
India is the definition of who I am. It's my
pride and it's um. It's what I take before I
even introduced myself is the fact that I come from
(12:42):
this incredible land of legacy, and I think that um,
you know, having traveled around the world, I've seen the
the skewed nature of human life everywhere you go. Every
country has its own version of it and um you know,
and even the gender disparity. Every country he has its
own version of it. Um where women stand in in
(13:04):
the scheme of things. So while these dichotomies exist in
I think India and large parts of the world, like
we had a prime minister who was female in the eighties,
you know, so there's there's that as well, where there's
like so much progress. Women are um, women are worshiped,
our deities are predominantly women. And but at the same time,
(13:27):
you know, women are treated with um, with a disparity.
That's it's so hard to understand if you go into
deeper parts of the country or even deeper parts of
many parts of the world, where you know, women are
don't have a choice in their own lives, where women
don't have a say in um who they want to become,
dreams aspirations is like it's it's a far that itself
(13:50):
is a faraway dream. So having witnessed and seen that, definitely,
I think shaped me wanting to be able to you
be the voice that magnifies a lot of these girls
that don't have that opportunity. And I didn't know I
had that. I only realized that that I could do
that was when I became a public person. I was like, oh, hello,
(14:12):
now if I'm talking about something, somebody's reading it. So
this is now I've become a medium. Um, the means
to an end, and I want my purpose to be
larger than just my work all my life. I want
my purpose to have meant something, and I try to
do my best in terms of, you know, being an advocate.
But it's just um being an activist and like talking
(14:36):
about the things that matter to me. Um. I try
very hard to incorporate that in my life. When you
moved to America the first time, UM, I believe you
came here for high school, right, yes, I did. I
was thirteen. That must have been a big culture shock,
and oh yes, definitely. While I was in India, I
(14:59):
was just preteen, right like twelve, just about aware of
the world. My impression of America was, you know, nine
o two one oh or Saved by the Bell and
like high schools that have like these colored lockers, and
and my mom used to watch Bold and the Beautiful
and like everyone is always dressed, and everyone is rich,
(15:20):
and everyone lives in mansions. And that was my impression
as a twelve year old arriving into Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
And I it was I was actually visiting my mom's sister,
and I got so enamored by my cousin's high school,
which looked exactly like Saved by the Bell. It had
so much space. That's the first thing that struck to
(15:42):
me about America is everything was huge. Are huge, food
is huge. Everything is huge. And you know, when you
come from a country that has almost one point seven
billion people in that much of a space, you're like,
what I keep talking about so luxurious. Coming from England
(16:03):
to America, I had the same experience. Everything was so big,
like the streets, the cars, the food. I was like,
this is like giants Land. Yeah, totally um. In my head,
that was the impression. But I think when it comes
to prejudice, I didn't see that happen for the first
two or three years that I lived here. Until I,
(16:25):
you know, was in tenth grade and I realized how
racism is so deep seated in human nature. And it's
not just in America, and it's not just within black, white, brown,
or the various races around the world. Racism and colorism
(16:46):
and favoritism and just basically, you know, taking away opportunity
because of a like or a belief from another human.
When I turned up, I think fifteen sixteen not only
the as it happened to me, but I was a
lot more aware of how much it's happening around the
world in different ways. Um, And I think that's that
(17:12):
is something to stand up for, fight for eventually, you know,
equal opportunity and a lack of bias is what we
all need in the way we we view the world.
And I just find it really amazing that, you know,
race and color has is such a large conversation in
today's world. It's sort of defeating. Sometimes we're one world.
(17:35):
We're literally like a couple of continents that came up
from the same motion, you know, build on the same planet,
same same size nose, same mouth, like same features, Like
how are it's it's so you know, private, it's like
medieval to me as a thought that we're still having
these conversations and that our children might still have to
(17:57):
have these conversations. Yeah, I mean that was a question
I was I was going to ask you, which is
there We've had more awareness of, you know, bias, unconscious bias, racism,
you know, deep deep prejudice over the last couple of years,
certainly in America and globally, but in reality, I wanted
(18:21):
to know how much you think has actually changed. I
think the volume is louder like. I feel like it's
not like suddenly we have access to all the information
in the world and that's why we're all woke. But
I think it's like everyone has a camera form, so
now we know what real things are actually happening. Things
(18:42):
we would have never heard of, prejudices we would have
never seen, you know, racism that we would have never witnessed.
But because people have the access of information of the Internet,
now suddenly there's accountability. So I feel like that's a
cool thing to have that power as a young person
in the world to I feel like I have the
power of information. I have the power of being able
(19:05):
to create a movement about something that I believe in.
Now that can be good and bad. Now, that can work,
you know, in a good way, and that can work
in a bad way. And and we've seen that happen
as well. So people can find their tribes right in
whichever and they wanted a good tribe according to me,
I if I you know, bad version of that. And
(19:28):
and that's the tricky thing about you know, the the
internet and living in the world of information. It's really
important for us to have that dialogue because only when
we have that dialogue over and over again and we
reiterate what um an unbiased world would look like, and
we reiterate what a sustainable world would look like, or
a peaceful world would look like, maybe we can make
(19:51):
this tribe larger. But it will only happen with consistent
conversation and also the people who are having those consistent
conversations and creating a version of that reality in many
forms or whatever form we can, so that way you
can actually look to something tangible, right because exactly yeah,
and I think I think that's the phase that I
(20:12):
am excited to see. Is after all this immense awareness,
which is as you know, the first stage of action
is the awareness of change. And then what do we
do moving forward where we can create tangible change in
these different areas. And I hope that the work from
many of the advocates who are really leading the charge.
(20:33):
I hope that we're going to be able to see
real infrastructure change. But it takes so long, you know,
it's also, like I have to say, it's terrifying. Sometimes
there's an unrealistic expectations. Sometimes, I think online of people
to take a side and to pick aside and say
that you know you're right or you're you know wrong.
(20:54):
But most of us live in grays. Most of us
have beliefs in grays, and I think except an understanding
of where people come from is a better step versus um,
you know, trying to tell people to change. I love
what you said about removing the judgment because judging people
(21:16):
for being right or wrong doesn't help bring people together
to move forward. And I think there is and you're
just stuck. Yeah, you're in groundhog Day because because everyone's
on their sides and I feel the same way as you.
I really I'm interested in having conversations that bring people
together differing opinions. It's, you know, to try to understand
each other and find a middle path and in ways
(21:38):
that work and removing that judgment and being able to say, Okay,
we can, we can agree to disagree, but but let's
find a way to move forward still. So I'm I'm
with you on that one. Um, as an Indian woman
you're married to an American man. Has it been um
an education for him to to understand how differently I'm
(22:02):
sure your experience in the US is as a woman
who came from India as it is from him being
a white male in the US. Oh. Absolutely, But I
think that awareness Nick had that awareness before me as well. Um.
I think him and his family are so deep rooted
(22:22):
and come from service, and he's very giving, but at
the same time, he's very very understanding of and it's
in one of those traits that I love about him,
understanding of different people being different and having an inherent
acceptance of you know, the world is made up of
all kinds of people, and that's the family that we are.
And it's so amazing to me that we were raised
(22:44):
in different parts of the world with the same beliefs
and the same value system and neither having an idea
of each other's careers because we were both so busy
building our own careers at that time. I didn't know
much about the Jonas brothers. He definitely know much about me.
It was really interesting when we got together to sort
of not just have our cultures marry and clash, but
(23:04):
to also be able to um peel layers of getting
to know each other's lives. And we've both had two
decades of public lives, you know, and we could we
got to experience that all over with each other, and
that was lovely. Yeah, I wasn't it wild what you
(23:25):
said about coming from different culches, but the you know
who you are as people, and you're I'm sure you're
ethics and your principles lineup and and that that is,
you know, that's beautiful. So you have been married for
three years and much of that has been in lockdown,
which I think is like double time marriage. That's like
(23:47):
six years in my opinion. Um, it was the first
time I'd had my husband home and not on tour
in a very long time. So for me, I have
found you know, this time very interesting. But have you
lived through a tour yet? And yes, only one? Okay,
how was that? But also because I was filming myself
at that time, I only came in and out, so
(24:10):
I've never really done a full tour with him. But
I've been on tour because as Indian actors we used
to we also do tours because we have music in
our um in all our movies. Actors, you know, we
do tours and we do stage shows and stuff like that.
So I've done my own and I've been on one
as a wife. But because I was a working wife,
(24:32):
I didn't really experience the whole tour. I used to
come on my weekends. I used to come for the
fun shows, like the big Venue and stuff like that.
We have twins who are fourteen years old. Oh my goodness,
I got pregnant on tour, and so every time I
would show up, they were like, oh, she must be ovulating,
because I would show up in random cities that nobody
(24:54):
would want to go to, you know. And I actually
did get pregnant on that tour, and I was went
with twins trying to sleep on a bunk on the bus,
and at the end I got so big I couldn't
fit in the bunk and I couldn't go in tour anymore.
But I do love a tour of bus. Do you
like I I didn't. I was a little unsure, and
I was like, I don't know. I'm used to being
(25:15):
in trailers that don't move, like as an actor, my
trailer is not supposed You're not supposed to sleep in
a trailer eating trailer, Like, I only know that you
do that on a road trip, not when you're working
and need to wake up and do your job. But um,
my husband was convincing, and because we did it in Europe,
and I was like, this is not this is like
(25:36):
so amazing this tour of us. The bunk beds, like
it's like a home on wheels, and um, and I
actually slept like a baby. I felt like I was
being rocked to sleep. Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh,
that's amazing. Well, I just want to say that, UM yeah, all,
I'm I'm here for any I'm here for any touring tips.
(25:59):
I need that. That's true because he's going on tour
now that they just kick started the tour. So I'm
hoping if I can go back from London, then maybe
I lead some of those tips and tricks. So you
talked about how you married your cultures, and I remember
seeing a photograph of you and your husband in what
(26:23):
I think would have been traditional Um Indian attire. It
was just beautiful. I remember thinking at the time, Wow,
this man is honoring this woman with such complete commitment
that he is um embracing her culture in a really
(26:45):
honorable way. As a visual, it was very impactful because
the way society is structured is we're largely living in
a patriarchal society, and to see that your man was
coming forward into your world, it gave a very clear message.
That's why what I meant by marrying the culture, because
the way you responded to that image of him in
(27:09):
you know, wearing a pugree and wearing the Indian wedding outfit.
A lot of Indians reacted to me in the white
dress because we get married in red um we actually
wear white and funerals. Oh I love that though. That's great.
I just think that it was so it was so
(27:29):
amazing and interesting to me that both those images were
not natural to how we had grown up, but we're
so embracing of each other. How did your Indian community
respond to seeing your your partner in that Indian you
know attire. I think they loved it, and I think
(27:52):
they really like there was a social media hashtag I
remember which said at our wedding, which was national jiju UM,
and jiju means like brother in law. So basically he
married the entire country, not just me, um. And there
was that kind of acceptance of him. UM. I think
(28:13):
Nick can speak to his experience a little bit more
than I can, but I think to me, Um, my
family and you know, the fans and the community that
have probably seen and grown up with me, um, it
was really wonderful to see them accepting of Nick in
that role, which you know was it was something that
(28:35):
I had protected for a very long time. I was
not someone who spoke of relationships so my um or
you know, past relationships. So I think when I respected it,
there was a lot of respect that that you know,
he got from the community that gave me has given
me that love for so many years. That's beautiful. And
(28:56):
have your cultural spiritual traditions are those also um broke
into your marriage. I think spiritually Nick and I aligned
when it comes to our feelings of in our relationship
with our face. Of course, we've been raised with different faiths.
I'm a believer that eventually religion is you know, Um,
(29:20):
a map to get to the same destination, which is God.
So whatever your face has been when you've been raised,
it's the same direction. We're all going in the same
direction to a higher power. So we both align on that. Um.
We both find the ritualistic nature of you know, like UM,
both our religions also really UM, I think easing and
(29:44):
when it comes to a spirituality. So I do a
lot of pujas at the house, which are prayer ceremonies,
and Nick usually asks me to do them whenever we're
starting something big, because that's how I've always started something
auspicious in my life, UM, with a prayer of thanks.
And I've had that upbringing and he's had that upbringing
and sort of we've created that within our family as well. Yeah,
(30:08):
like you said, you know, faith has many faces and
ultimately it they will do lead to the same direction
of whatever your version of a God or higher power is.
So I I love that you have that joint um
anchoring you know of of faith. UM. I want to
(30:29):
talk a little bit about your dad, UM and your
dad UM past how many years ago now two so
nine nine apears It seems like a blink, but at
(30:51):
the same time it seems like it's such a long
time and you were very close to him, right mhm
M I was. Um. Um, my mom used to call
us twins. M yeah, UM, my dad is is in
(31:11):
the process of of he's very sick. My dad is
very sick. I apparently I'm in something called the early
stages of grief, um. And this is a whole new
room for me that I've not been in before. So um,
But when I was reading about your relationship with your dad, um,
I wanted to talk to you about, you know, how
(31:33):
it affected you his passing and what the greatest gifts
of his passing gave you. I was so angry when
he died. I was just angry at the world. I
was angry at myself for not being able to do more, um,
(31:54):
you know, not being able to fly him to maybe
a better hospital or find a better clinical trial, or
why I had hadn't I done enough. I I felt
that very viscerally, because I'm a very goal oriented person.
You put a problem in front of me, and my
first instinct is not being overwhelmed. The first instinct is
fixing it. And I think as well as women, we
(32:16):
naturally have that aptitude. So I blamed myself. I was
very angry with myself. I distanced myself from my family.
I just, you know, um buried myself into my work
because I couldn't make sense of it very much, and
which is silly, because you know, my dad had a
very aggressive form of cancer and um it had come
(32:39):
back after he had beat it, and so we just
didn't have time. And I guess in my mind that
I was prepared with the fact that he had beaten it,
and then when it just came back and then it
was so quick the deterioration after that, I just didn't
have time to come to terms with it. And I
was going through a lot personally, um, with the work
that I was doing, and you know, I just started
(33:01):
working in America as well, and I was just transitioning
to come into this new country, you know, where nobody
really knows the work I've done, and having to reintroduce
myself and found the pavement, and you know, a lot
was going on at that time, and I remember his
passing just kind of silenced everything, and I went into
a really deep incubation of myself. I used to go
(33:25):
to work, but I was very zombie like. I used
to not meet friends, I stopped. All of it hit
me together. I think my dad's passing was the last straw,
you know, that broke the camel's back, and I just
I was just like I gave in. I kind of
(33:45):
which is what I was talking about earlier to you.
I allow myself to feel my feelings, um, And I
was angry and I was mad, and I was going
to work. But I would just go to work, come
back home, watch TV for like four hours, sit with myself,
or would allow myself to be gluttonous and allow myself
to you know when your friends says about the size zero,
(34:07):
and this is how it probably happened. But because I
was just like eating my emotions at one point in
my life, and I didn't have the energy to fight it,
and I used to go to work. I had done
this for long enough to know I can read my
lines and you know, do my scenes. But I was
just not there for a good like two years, and
(34:29):
and then I had to sort of pull myself out
of it. I didn't rely on therapy. It probably would
have been a shorter duration if I had, but I
just didn't think it was something for me. UM. I
didn't rely on friends, family. I just completely isolated, and
one day I just I missed the sunshine and one
(34:49):
day I missed being inspired when I went to work
and when I came back from work, and I just
suddenly looked at myself from a little further back, and
I was like, is this it you worked so much
for like almost fifteen years for. Is this what your
dad worked so much? My dad and my mom both
gave up their profession when I moved to Mumbai because
(35:12):
I was seventeen, so they had a fully built hospital.
They were in their forties and their fifties, and because
my career was took precedent at that point, my parents
backed up their hospital, sold it and moved to a
completely new city to start their careers again. Because I
will never forget my dad said this, that we're doctors.
(35:32):
We can pick up and practice medicine anywhere. She can't.
She has to go to Mumbai. And again, I didn't
think about their acts, their sacrifices when I was seventeen
year old, you know, driven workhorse like, I didn't think
about anyone. But as I look back, and this period
really helped me. That's what helped me get out because
I was like My dad was so ambitious for me.
(35:55):
He wanted me to win in every scenario. He loved
entertain and he loved movies. He loved that I was
in the movies, and he just was the biggest fan
of my career. And I was like, I'm not going
to have one if I don't pull myself out of it.
And that was a big impetus for me to sort
of claw my way out. So his death was very,
(36:17):
very instrumental in in me having a really life changing
experience and becoming a lot more confident with the woman
that I am today, what I stand for of not
being able to be overwhelmed, be level headed, take on
as much as I can do, still strive for excellence.
But it really shifted me from being an extreme person
(36:41):
just sort of being a more balanced person because I
went through that like hit rock bottom, lived in rock Bottom,
and then just hated the stent. Yeah, the dark night
of the soul, right, just like living in that, yeah,
and then coming through like a phoenix and exactly, um, well,
(37:04):
I no one can do that for you, but you nobody.
Oh my gosh, if someone could, I know, I would
have found them, I know. And we keep asking that question, right,
like when will When will I get over it? Like
when will it be over? It never does. As soon
as you accept the fact that failure, loss, grief and
all of these crippling emotions are not ever gonna go away.
(37:27):
You just have to compartmentalize them and like pack them
away for a while. And there'll be days where they
pop out and then they're big and you know, you
drink a glass of rose and you have a conversation
with them, and then there are days where they don't
come out, and it's it's just practice over time, and
I think learning to live with something, right, Yeah, that's
(37:48):
the thing. It becomes a part of your fabric in
a way that is integrated, and it doesn't take you
over in the same way, although there are some days
where I think it does. It's a little bit like scars,
isn't like you carry them there with you as a
reminder of that moment when it happened and how it
felt and how painful it is. But it doesn't define
(38:11):
who you are. They just kind of exist and it
tells a story. Yeah, and there's many of them coexisting,
right absolutely. Um, So thank you for sharing that insight. Um.
That was that was really beautiful to hear. You know,
do you think about what your dad would think of
your life today and your marriage and your success and
(38:37):
everything that you're striving for. Do you have a sense
of what he would say. I think it'd be really proud.
My mom speaks for both of them to me now,
and she watches on the sidelines, and there'll be days
she just couldn't give me a hug from nowhere and
she just said, I don't have much to say that
(38:58):
he would have been proud. I try to think about
the moments he's missed. I try to think about, you know,
how joyous and you know big his reactions would be
at times when I'm excited. My dad's favorite thing was
he was a really large personality, big laughter, you know,
in the room, he'll be the one who to be
(39:19):
telling the loudest joke, like, never afraid of making a
joker out of himself. Like that person very much like
my personality, a little big, extroverted. You know. I was
gonna say, maybe you get that from him. Yeah, I
think so. I love people and I get that from him,
and I think that's what he would have been. He
would have really enjoyed the life that I've built over
(39:42):
this time. I want to just go back to you
said that during that period of time, you were uh
eating your feelings, but I it just reminded me about
relationship to our bodies, and UM, I was curious how
how you felt about your body over the years, because
(40:04):
certainly I know for me, as I'm getting older, my
body is changing and um, and it naturally should and
that's what it needs to do. UM. But when you're
a public person, there is so much focus on the
external that it's really hard to not have your your
(40:24):
own lens hyper focused on the way you look. And
I wonder how you've managed that well. I had a
transition period that kind of I had to ask myself
that question. What I had to say, Wait, what is realistic?
And how are you feeling about this versus how you're
supposed to feel about it? So obviously, again being raised
in the industry and like having such a tight lens
(40:48):
on what my you know, shape was, or what my
figure was, or what my measurements were, and like, you
know what my minutely looking at every um part of
me that I kind of grew up for a while
in my twenties thinking that was normal like most young
(41:09):
people where you think about these unrealistic standards of beauty,
which is like absolutely photoshop face, like perfect hair. I
never used to have. I never used my natural texture.
For years. I used to always just have a blow
blown out hair like I would not do it until
just a few years ago. And um, I think it
(41:31):
was a big journey for me because I grew up
in the entertainment world. I learned everything that was thrown
at me at such a fast speed that I just imbibed,
you know, the headlines in a way. I didn't have
time to delve deep into what it was doing to me,
to me the person, not me the public figure. And
(41:52):
I think over time, when my body started started changing,
and when I went through that phase where I was
eating my emotions and my we started changing. I reached
my thirties, I went through struggle because I used to
get online, you know, grief from people about like you're
you're looking different, your aging, this that you know, just
(42:13):
it was. It messed with my mind at that time,
but my mind was already in such a dark place
that I didn't have time for it. My relationship with
social media change, my relationship with the internet change, I
incubated in a way where I protected myself, like I
went into my my cancery and self preservation self and
(42:35):
UM got back into my shell and I kind of healed.
I healed and I allowed myself to spend time with me,
gave my body what it needed, and if it was
a pizza at like one o'clock at night, I would
order it. And then slowly I reached a point where
I was like, I want to go for a run
or I need to do something where I feel like
(42:56):
I'm contributing to the health of my body. And that
happened over two years. And then I have not consistently
worked out and been healthier as I've been in the
last two years. And that was, you know, after this
really dark phase of my life, which was five or
six years ago, that I've I've come to a place where,
(43:17):
you know, I I want to take care of my body.
I've recently become a vegetarian. That's so new for me.
But I feel healthier, lighter, I'm contributing towards my own body.
I'm working out, i feel more energetic, and you know,
I think that it's it's a phase every one of
us will go through. You know, the ups and downs.
But I think eventually, the sooner we start choosing ourselves,
(43:41):
the better life becomes when we get rid of the
noise of what the expectation of someone else's. And it's
really hard to do, especially like with my job. It
is really hard to do. And we've heard it a
million times in so many different versions of love yourself first,
Love yourself first. You cannot love anyone else until you
(44:04):
love yourself first. And yet what does that mean? It
looks so different for everyone, and it's not a tangible thing.
Each person has their own road map. There isn't there
isn't one size fits all. Right. It's only over time
that I've come to understand what that means for me.
And it's a daily practice of choosing myself and choosing
(44:27):
putting healthy boundaries in place emotional and physical and work
relationships myself. Um, but what does that mean for you?
To love yourself? It's choosing yourself, really is It's it's
not like taking on, you know, that extra thing because
(44:50):
I have to prove a point, or if you want
to value, if you need validation, and you make a decision.
Those are not choices that we make for ourselves. I
think about it this way at least that that's how
I explained it to myself, Because you're right, love yourself
is too vague for someone who's as tangible as me.
I need to know, like it's scientifically what can I do?
And so I broke it down to myself with intention?
(45:12):
So what is your intention for any action through the day?
So when I wake up in the morning, I'll have
a cup of coffee because I need my brain to
wake up. So I'm doing that for me. That it's
for me so that other human beings can tolerate the
person that I am when I wake up in the morning.
So I need coffee, I do it for me. Then
whatever you're actually I'm going to set. I need to
read my lines? Do I read them the night before?
(45:35):
Do I need Do I read them in the car
when I'm on my way to work? Is it for me?
Or am I being lazy? So in every single thing,
if you start thinking about is your intention beneficial to
your well being, slowly you'll realize that you'll be able
to start taking things away in your life that is
that is not beneficial to your well being. And if
(45:55):
you're not at a in a good place, there's no
way you can incubate a good environ meant, I think
it was so powerful that we have a collective of
these incredible women that have taken the legacy of Victoria's
Secret and just turned it on its head. And I
feel it's really powerful that a brand with the legacy
(46:15):
of Victoria's Secret and image of what that looks like
has decided to go along on this journey and say,
you know what we're We're gonna do right by our
customer base. We're going to do right by the trans
woman that has spent so much time being a customer
and hasn't been acknowledged, or a certain body type that
has not been acknowledged, And um, I just think that
(46:38):
there is we have an amazing opportunity to really, you know,
change the way women are seen an advertising and the
standard of beauty. And I just feel very proud to
be able to work with all of you guys in
being able to achieve that larger, greater mission that I
know we all individually have but collectively think it's very powerful.
(47:02):
I'm so pleased that you brought this up, because I,
like you, feel incredibly honored to be a part of
this collective of women. I very much believe in the
power of united forces, and when I look at everyone
who's involved, I see that everyone is doing their own
(47:23):
incredible work in their own ways. We have an opportunity
to create real cultural change, and to have the support
of such a huge global brand is really unprecedented in
this way because a lot of the time people are
just trying to put a band aid on something and
(47:43):
make it look good, and that's not what's happening with
this company. From my experience thus far is is there
is a team of people who are really interested in
creating tangible change. I get to use my brain where
I advised the company in eternally regarding you know, representation
(48:03):
and authentic representation of women and an inclusive perspective is
making sure that this women and females telling the stories
and taking images and creating narratives. I get to create
a lot of that content as a photographer and a
director um and I also get to use my face
and beforeward facing. So I'm using my brain, my creativity,
(48:25):
and my face. And as women, we don't often get
the opportunity to use all of those aspects of ourselves.
And I think It's so great that we get to
be in charge of our own agency, and I think
that's a very powerful tool for women, and also to
show that when women come together, because we have the
(48:47):
ability to work together, we can actually stand up for
sisterhood and for other women and create opportunity that we lacked,
that we didn't have, so that the generations coming after
us don't have to inherit our problems. And I feel like, hopefully,
you know, by God's blessings and grace, this will be
the first of many changing faces of entertainment and media.
(49:10):
Thank you for being open to to everything that we
talked about. Thank you so much. Thanks everybody, Bye bye.
This is VS Voices, a brand new original podcast series
by Victoria's Secret. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome to VS Voices. I'm a mandit Acadeney. In this episode,
I speak with actor, producer and advocate Prianka Choper Jonas.
We talk about reaching rock bottom with grief, finding a
life partner from a totally different background, and getting comfortable
with life being a bit messy. I hear you great, Um,
(00:26):
I have. It's like seven, it's eight am here in
l a and it's like almost the end of my day. Yeah,
I'm sorry to make you do that. That's okay. That
coffee has kicked in. I know, right, wh hasn't. I've
got it right here. I've got it right here and
I'm just going to drink it throughout our in. You
absolutely should. So you're in London, yes, ma'am my hometown
(00:53):
is it? Where in London you from? Like? Which part? Chelsea? Oh?
Look the well I've been in London through its worst,
because I mean through its worst, lockdown, through its worst.
London cannot be worst kind but it can't. It's just
one of the most beautiful cities in the world. But
I've it was so miserable to see this incredibly joyous
(01:21):
Allied city just you know, the tabletops upturned, the I
remember walking in Mayfair and all the tables were upturned
and the chairs were upturned, and there was it was
like a movie scene almost, And this is like February
and there were you know, these dry leaves just flying by,
and I swear to god, I had a moment. I
(01:42):
just turned around when back into my car and I
was like, let's just go. I know, it's really sad.
It's really really sad. I mean, you know, I think London.
You know, my family is there, and my mom is
there and my dad is there, and you know, I've
not been able to go. And then my passport expired
during COVID and so having to get a new passport,
(02:04):
a new English passport during COVID. I still don't even
have it because it all there's no like expediting and
I haven't been there and I haven't seen anyone in
over two years. It's awful, so awful, but you know,
it is what it is. So you're known as an actor,
as singer, a producer, an investor, and an advocate. Do
(02:28):
you think would you say all of those accurate? Um?
I think I'm a little bit more I would say
complex than that, or more interesting than that that. I
just don't have buckets and like boxes that I like
to check. It's um my journey has been very self made,
self taught. You know. Um I've been banged and bruised
(02:49):
and I've kind of had to stand up myself again
and I didn't have too many people holding my hand
during this time. I came from a background of you know,
physicians and academia, and I wanted to be an engineer,
and I was thrown into arts, which I didn't even
know I had an aptitude towards at that point. I
(03:09):
just like being in school plays and like singing. But
I came from a family that it was never it
was never a considered profession or you know, it was
never like arts. Who makes money with arts? Like who
pays the bills? But um, I've I've always sort of
needed to, you know, make a path of my own.
(03:31):
And I think I just don't know how to label that.
So I would say multiple A lot of them are accurate,
but they're not a whole. Yeah, I feel labels are
really limiting, and they are for the purpose of the
world comprehending who someone is or a piece of who
they are. But actually, when I what I'm more interested
(03:54):
in is. How would you describe yourself as a human being?
What are the human qualities that describe you. I'm very
hard working, um, I I'm rarely afraid of trying something new.
I think I'm but I'm also like a cry baby.
(04:18):
Like when I get angry, I cry, which is worst
because you're trying to be tough on you're and then
I have these big tears that come out of my eyes.
And I to deal with my emotions. UM, to see
your feelings, that's good, I am, and that has been
inculcated in me. My father was very very sensitive as well.
And you know, um, but I'm and I'm okay with
(04:40):
feeling the feelings that I do. I don't run from them,
I don't hide from them. But I'm also very driven
and ambitious. So empathy is a big part of I
think who I am. I always try to sort of
perceive people or meet people by putting myself in their shoes.
Let me ask you a question about expressing your feelings.
(05:00):
How do the people around you make space for that?
Because not everyone is comfortable with people feeling their feelings.
It's not normalized at all. It's not okay to like
feel fear or feel shame and talk about it, or
feel judged and talk about it. You're supposed to process
it alone. And because that's the culture we've created, feelings
(05:22):
feel really large when actually if you address them in
a very coherent manner and just having a conversation with
whoever you're feeling these feelings with, it diffuses it. It
takes away the power of how scary they seem when
actually discuss it so over time. And this is again
something I've learned in my you know, second half of
(05:43):
my forties. I didn't know this in my twenties, is
that it's just I don't need the drama of extreme emotions.
I can just normalize them, have conversations with people I
work with, talk with and just try to reach a
place where it's not dramatic and we're all just functional
and have enjoying this beautiful gift called life. Gosh, it's
(06:06):
it's so good to hear that you are so comfortable
in yourself. It sounds to me like you have done
a lot of work to be able to um own
who you are and you feel comfortable in your skin.
It's absolutely been a journey. I mean I I sometimes
when I hear myself back. I'm like, girl, you sound
(06:28):
like you know everything. I don't. I really don't. I
kind of come to a new consensus every day from
whatever has happened in my life the previous day. And
you know, there are days you wake up when it's
just all of it is too much and too hard,
and you have to be your hype man and hype
woman and tell yourself to get out there, because you know,
(06:49):
when you've got to show up and you have a commitment,
no one else is going to know what you're coming from.
And especially being a public person, when I go out
to do my job, no one knows where I'm coming from.
If I've slept three hours or four hours, or if
I've had a fight with whoever, or if I'm like
feeling failure or any of those feelings. People don't want
to see that, you know. People just want to see
(07:11):
what they want to see. So there is not really
a safe space to project those human human feelings. So
I sort of incubate them. And I'm very private my
my family, my home, my feelings, my emotions. I keep
them very closely guarded and and rightly so, because that's
(07:33):
the safest place to allow them to be and to process,
and it's a healthy place to be because social media
is not a safe space and the Internet is not
a safe space. So absolutely protect yourself and share yourself
with the people who love you versus just a large
community of of people we don't know a large community
(07:57):
of anonymousy. So that's that you bring up something which
I want to talk to you about, which is to
do with what you show on social media versus what
you keep private. Do you have kind of areas or
specific things like for me, I don't really show my
kids on social media. It's a very very rare day.
(08:18):
And now my kids are older and they have a
choice if they want to be on social media. But
I for many years I would never show their faces
and I still am uncomfortable with that. That's an area
for me that's like I don't do that. What are
the areas for you that you keep off of social media? So,
I mean I don't have kids yet, so I don't
(08:38):
know how I feel about that. Um, it's something I
would love to think about sooner than later. But um,
I think for me, I don't like digging too deep.
You know, I will maybe, you know, show an image
is me and my husband, or me and my mom
and my brother, and I'll be like, Okay, marry Chris,
(09:00):
but you'll never see like what actually happens within the
sacred safe space of my home. Like it's it's a
little bit um ornamental. I feel like what I share, uh,
And unless I'm having a moment where I feel vulnerable
and I'll you know, talk about my feelings and I
(09:20):
captured or something, which I have done, but there are
few and far in between I've I've had to, I guess,
build a very hard exterior. I started this business when
I was seventeen, you know, in um a predominantly patriarchal industry,
and you kind of had to toughen up and pull
(09:44):
up your boots and just survive, and you're not allowed
to feel anything. So I think for a long time,
I'm built myself to be a survivor, you know, to
be a street dog who's just like I'm gonna do
whatever I need and and and do it with grace
and dignity. That now that I'm in a comfortable place
with myself my life as a woman, I don't know
(10:06):
how to undo that. Like I don't know how to
undo the desire to constantly look like I'm in control.
Mm hmm, well I don't think there is. That's necessarily
a choice, at least in my experience. The the we're
not in control, I mean we think we are. And
(10:27):
you know, there's that great um phrase if you want
to make God love, tell them your plans, and that's
absolutely you know, social media as a curated version of
what you want people to believe, right, and that's just projections.
So I'm talking about like I've also over time, because
perfection or you know, having everything tied up in a
(10:48):
neat little bow is something we've been taught, specifically as women,
so as public people, that everything should be neat and
tidy and it can't be messy. Done that for such
a long time that now I'm getting to a place
when i'm really un learning it because I'm more confident
about who i am, that I'm okay with being a
little messy, and I'm okay with talking about things that
(11:10):
I may have vehemently protected my whole life, Like I
never spoke about a relationship in my life before my
husband for some reason, I just didn't I didn't want
to be defined by it. And suddenly he comes along
and I'm like, you know what, this feels comfortable. It
feels like I do want to not think about, you know, um,
(11:35):
not think about my actions visibly what is expected of me,
but actually just do you know, be giddy and have
fun and just like live your life four o'clock in
the morning and live your life like I didn't. I
hadn't thought of all of that because I kept myself
so tightly wound that I don't know. I'm in a
place now, almost approaching forty, learning how to how to live.
(11:58):
But you know, that's like you said, It's like we
learned survival skills in order to you know, make it work,
you know, in and in certain environments. And you grew up,
as you said, in a largely patriarchal society, and so,
you know, I actually wonder what it was like for
you growing up where there was such a in India,
where there was such a massive gender and castified How
(12:21):
did witnessing um that inform the work that you do
in the world, specifically your advocacy work, because that must
have impacted you a lot. I think growing up in
India is the definition of who I am. It's my
pride and it's um. It's what I take before I
even introduced myself is the fact that I come from
(12:42):
this incredible land of legacy, and I think that um,
you know, having traveled around the world, I've seen the
the skewed nature of human life everywhere you go. Every
country has its own version of it and um you know,
and even the gender disparity. Every country he has its
own version of it. Um where women stand in in
(13:04):
the scheme of things. So while these dichotomies exist in
I think India and large parts of the world, like
we had a prime minister who was female in the eighties,
you know, so there's there's that as well, where there's
like so much progress. Women are um, women are worshiped,
our deities are predominantly women. And but at the same time,
(13:27):
you know, women are treated with um, with a disparity.
That's it's so hard to understand if you go into
deeper parts of the country or even deeper parts of
many parts of the world, where you know, women are
don't have a choice in their own lives, where women
don't have a say in um who they want to become,
dreams aspirations is like it's it's a far that itself
(13:50):
is a faraway dream. So having witnessed and seen that, definitely,
I think shaped me wanting to be able to you
be the voice that magnifies a lot of these girls
that don't have that opportunity. And I didn't know I
had that. I only realized that that I could do
that was when I became a public person. I was like, oh, hello,
(14:12):
now if I'm talking about something, somebody's reading it. So
this is now I've become a medium. Um, the means
to an end, and I want my purpose to be
larger than just my work all my life. I want
my purpose to have meant something, and I try to
do my best in terms of, you know, being an advocate.
But it's just um being an activist and like talking
(14:36):
about the things that matter to me. Um. I try
very hard to incorporate that in my life. When you
moved to America the first time, UM, I believe you
came here for high school, right, yes, I did. I
was thirteen. That must have been a big culture shock,
and oh yes, definitely. While I was in India, I
(14:59):
was just preteen, right like twelve, just about aware of
the world. My impression of America was, you know, nine
o two one oh or Saved by the Bell and
like high schools that have like these colored lockers, and
and my mom used to watch Bold and the Beautiful
and like everyone is always dressed, and everyone is rich,
(15:20):
and everyone lives in mansions. And that was my impression
as a twelve year old arriving into Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
And I it was I was actually visiting my mom's sister,
and I got so enamored by my cousin's high school,
which looked exactly like Saved by the Bell. It had
so much space. That's the first thing that struck to
(15:42):
me about America is everything was huge. Are huge, food
is huge. Everything is huge. And you know, when you
come from a country that has almost one point seven
billion people in that much of a space, you're like,
what I keep talking about so luxurious. Coming from England
(16:03):
to America, I had the same experience. Everything was so big,
like the streets, the cars, the food. I was like,
this is like giants Land. Yeah, totally um. In my head,
that was the impression. But I think when it comes
to prejudice, I didn't see that happen for the first
two or three years that I lived here. Until I,
(16:25):
you know, was in tenth grade and I realized how
racism is so deep seated in human nature. And it's
not just in America, and it's not just within black, white, brown,
or the various races around the world. Racism and colorism
(16:46):
and favoritism and just basically, you know, taking away opportunity
because of a like or a belief from another human.
When I turned up, I think fifteen sixteen not only
the as it happened to me, but I was a
lot more aware of how much it's happening around the
world in different ways. Um, And I think that's that
(17:12):
is something to stand up for, fight for eventually, you know,
equal opportunity and a lack of bias is what we
all need in the way we we view the world.
And I just find it really amazing that, you know,
race and color has is such a large conversation in
today's world. It's sort of defeating. Sometimes we're one world.
(17:35):
We're literally like a couple of continents that came up
from the same motion, you know, build on the same planet,
same same size nose, same mouth, like same features, Like
how are it's it's so you know, private, it's like
medieval to me as a thought that we're still having
these conversations and that our children might still have to
(17:57):
have these conversations. Yeah, I mean that was a question
I was I was going to ask you, which is
there We've had more awareness of, you know, bias, unconscious bias, racism,
you know, deep deep prejudice over the last couple of years,
certainly in America and globally, but in reality, I wanted
(18:21):
to know how much you think has actually changed. I
think the volume is louder like. I feel like it's
not like suddenly we have access to all the information
in the world and that's why we're all woke. But
I think it's like everyone has a camera form, so
now we know what real things are actually happening. Things
(18:42):
we would have never heard of, prejudices we would have
never seen, you know, racism that we would have never witnessed.
But because people have the access of information of the Internet,
now suddenly there's accountability. So I feel like that's a
cool thing to have that power as a young person
in the world to I feel like I have the
power of information. I have the power of being able
(19:05):
to create a movement about something that I believe in.
Now that can be good and bad. Now, that can work,
you know, in a good way, and that can work
in a bad way. And and we've seen that happen
as well. So people can find their tribes right in
whichever and they wanted a good tribe according to me,
I if I you know, bad version of that. And
(19:28):
and that's the tricky thing about you know, the the
internet and living in the world of information. It's really
important for us to have that dialogue because only when
we have that dialogue over and over again and we
reiterate what um an unbiased world would look like, and
we reiterate what a sustainable world would look like, or
a peaceful world would look like, maybe we can make
(19:51):
this tribe larger. But it will only happen with consistent
conversation and also the people who are having those consistent
conversations and creating a version of that reality in many
forms or whatever form we can, so that way you
can actually look to something tangible, right because exactly yeah,
and I think I think that's the phase that I
(20:12):
am excited to see. Is after all this immense awareness,
which is as you know, the first stage of action
is the awareness of change. And then what do we
do moving forward where we can create tangible change in
these different areas. And I hope that the work from
many of the advocates who are really leading the charge.
(20:33):
I hope that we're going to be able to see
real infrastructure change. But it takes so long, you know,
it's also, like I have to say, it's terrifying. Sometimes
there's an unrealistic expectations. Sometimes, I think online of people
to take a side and to pick aside and say
that you know you're right or you're you know wrong.
(20:54):
But most of us live in grays. Most of us
have beliefs in grays, and I think except an understanding
of where people come from is a better step versus um,
you know, trying to tell people to change. I love
what you said about removing the judgment because judging people
(21:16):
for being right or wrong doesn't help bring people together
to move forward. And I think there is and you're
just stuck. Yeah, you're in groundhog Day because because everyone's
on their sides and I feel the same way as you.
I really I'm interested in having conversations that bring people
together differing opinions. It's, you know, to try to understand
each other and find a middle path and in ways
(21:38):
that work and removing that judgment and being able to say, Okay,
we can, we can agree to disagree, but but let's
find a way to move forward still. So I'm I'm
with you on that one. Um, as an Indian woman
you're married to an American man. Has it been um
an education for him to to understand how differently I'm
(22:02):
sure your experience in the US is as a woman
who came from India as it is from him being
a white male in the US. Oh. Absolutely, But I
think that awareness Nick had that awareness before me as well. Um.
I think him and his family are so deep rooted
(22:22):
and come from service, and he's very giving, but at
the same time, he's very very understanding of and it's
in one of those traits that I love about him,
understanding of different people being different and having an inherent
acceptance of you know, the world is made up of
all kinds of people, and that's the family that we are.
And it's so amazing to me that we were raised
(22:44):
in different parts of the world with the same beliefs
and the same value system and neither having an idea
of each other's careers because we were both so busy
building our own careers at that time. I didn't know
much about the Jonas brothers. He definitely know much about me.
It was really interesting when we got together to sort
of not just have our cultures marry and clash, but
(23:04):
to also be able to um peel layers of getting
to know each other's lives. And we've both had two
decades of public lives, you know, and we could we
got to experience that all over with each other, and
that was lovely. Yeah, I wasn't it wild what you
(23:25):
said about coming from different culches, but the you know
who you are as people, and you're I'm sure you're
ethics and your principles lineup and and that that is,
you know, that's beautiful. So you have been married for
three years and much of that has been in lockdown,
which I think is like double time marriage. That's like
(23:47):
six years in my opinion. Um, it was the first
time I'd had my husband home and not on tour
in a very long time. So for me, I have
found you know, this time very interesting. But have you
lived through a tour yet? And yes, only one? Okay,
how was that? But also because I was filming myself
at that time, I only came in and out, so
(24:10):
I've never really done a full tour with him. But
I've been on tour because as Indian actors we used
to we also do tours because we have music in
our um in all our movies. Actors, you know, we
do tours and we do stage shows and stuff like that.
So I've done my own and I've been on one
as a wife. But because I was a working wife,
(24:32):
I didn't really experience the whole tour. I used to
come on my weekends. I used to come for the
fun shows, like the big Venue and stuff like that.
We have twins who are fourteen years old. Oh my goodness,
I got pregnant on tour, and so every time I
would show up, they were like, oh, she must be ovulating,
because I would show up in random cities that nobody
(24:54):
would want to go to, you know. And I actually
did get pregnant on that tour, and I was went
with twins trying to sleep on a bunk on the bus,
and at the end I got so big I couldn't
fit in the bunk and I couldn't go in tour anymore.
But I do love a tour of bus. Do you
like I I didn't. I was a little unsure, and
I was like, I don't know. I'm used to being
(25:15):
in trailers that don't move, like as an actor, my
trailer is not supposed You're not supposed to sleep in
a trailer eating trailer, Like, I only know that you
do that on a road trip, not when you're working
and need to wake up and do your job. But um,
my husband was convincing, and because we did it in Europe,
and I was like, this is not this is like
(25:36):
so amazing this tour of us. The bunk beds, like
it's like a home on wheels, and um, and I
actually slept like a baby. I felt like I was
being rocked to sleep. Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh,
that's amazing. Well, I just want to say that, UM yeah, all,
I'm I'm here for any I'm here for any touring tips.
(25:59):
I need that. That's true because he's going on tour
now that they just kick started the tour. So I'm
hoping if I can go back from London, then maybe
I lead some of those tips and tricks. So you
talked about how you married your cultures, and I remember
seeing a photograph of you and your husband in what
(26:23):
I think would have been traditional Um Indian attire. It
was just beautiful. I remember thinking at the time, Wow,
this man is honoring this woman with such complete commitment
that he is um embracing her culture in a really
(26:45):
honorable way. As a visual, it was very impactful because
the way society is structured is we're largely living in
a patriarchal society, and to see that your man was
coming forward into your world, it gave a very clear message.
That's why what I meant by marrying the culture, because
the way you responded to that image of him in
(27:09):
you know, wearing a pugree and wearing the Indian wedding outfit.
A lot of Indians reacted to me in the white
dress because we get married in red um we actually
wear white and funerals. Oh I love that though. That's great.
I just think that it was so it was so
(27:29):
amazing and interesting to me that both those images were
not natural to how we had grown up, but we're
so embracing of each other. How did your Indian community
respond to seeing your your partner in that Indian you
know attire. I think they loved it, and I think
(27:52):
they really like there was a social media hashtag I
remember which said at our wedding, which was national jiju UM,
and jiju means like brother in law. So basically he
married the entire country, not just me, um. And there
was that kind of acceptance of him. UM. I think
(28:13):
Nick can speak to his experience a little bit more
than I can, but I think to me, Um, my
family and you know, the fans and the community that
have probably seen and grown up with me, um, it
was really wonderful to see them accepting of Nick in
that role, which you know was it was something that
(28:35):
I had protected for a very long time. I was
not someone who spoke of relationships so my um or
you know, past relationships. So I think when I respected it,
there was a lot of respect that that you know,
he got from the community that gave me has given
me that love for so many years. That's beautiful. And
(28:56):
have your cultural spiritual traditions are those also um broke
into your marriage. I think spiritually Nick and I aligned
when it comes to our feelings of in our relationship
with our face. Of course, we've been raised with different faiths.
I'm a believer that eventually religion is you know, Um,
(29:20):
a map to get to the same destination, which is God.
So whatever your face has been when you've been raised,
it's the same direction. We're all going in the same
direction to a higher power. So we both align on that. Um.
We both find the ritualistic nature of you know, like UM,
both our religions also really UM, I think easing and
(29:44):
when it comes to a spirituality. So I do a
lot of pujas at the house, which are prayer ceremonies,
and Nick usually asks me to do them whenever we're
starting something big, because that's how I've always started something
auspicious in my life, UM, with a prayer of thanks.
And I've had that upbringing and he's had that upbringing
and sort of we've created that within our family as well. Yeah,
(30:08):
like you said, you know, faith has many faces and
ultimately it they will do lead to the same direction
of whatever your version of a God or higher power is.
So I I love that you have that joint um
anchoring you know of of faith. UM. I want to
(30:29):
talk a little bit about your dad, UM and your
dad UM past how many years ago now two so
nine nine apears It seems like a blink, but at
(30:51):
the same time it seems like it's such a long
time and you were very close to him, right mhm
M I was. Um. Um, my mom used to call
us twins. M yeah, UM, my dad is is in
(31:11):
the process of of he's very sick. My dad is
very sick. I apparently I'm in something called the early
stages of grief, um. And this is a whole new
room for me that I've not been in before. So um,
But when I was reading about your relationship with your dad, um,
I wanted to talk to you about, you know, how
(31:33):
it affected you his passing and what the greatest gifts
of his passing gave you. I was so angry when
he died. I was just angry at the world. I
was angry at myself for not being able to do more, um,
(31:54):
you know, not being able to fly him to maybe
a better hospital or find a better clinical trial, or
why I had hadn't I done enough. I I felt
that very viscerally, because I'm a very goal oriented person.
You put a problem in front of me, and my
first instinct is not being overwhelmed. The first instinct is
fixing it. And I think as well as women, we
(32:16):
naturally have that aptitude. So I blamed myself. I was
very angry with myself. I distanced myself from my family.
I just, you know, um buried myself into my work
because I couldn't make sense of it very much, and
which is silly, because you know, my dad had a
very aggressive form of cancer and um it had come
(32:39):
back after he had beat it, and so we just
didn't have time. And I guess in my mind that
I was prepared with the fact that he had beaten it,
and then when it just came back and then it
was so quick the deterioration after that, I just didn't
have time to come to terms with it. And I
was going through a lot personally, um, with the work
that I was doing, and you know, I just started
(33:01):
working in America as well, and I was just transitioning
to come into this new country, you know, where nobody
really knows the work I've done, and having to reintroduce
myself and found the pavement, and you know, a lot
was going on at that time, and I remember his
passing just kind of silenced everything, and I went into
a really deep incubation of myself. I used to go
(33:25):
to work, but I was very zombie like. I used
to not meet friends, I stopped. All of it hit
me together. I think my dad's passing was the last straw,
you know, that broke the camel's back, and I just
I was just like I gave in. I kind of
(33:45):
which is what I was talking about earlier to you.
I allow myself to feel my feelings, um, And I
was angry and I was mad, and I was going
to work. But I would just go to work, come
back home, watch TV for like four hours, sit with myself,
or would allow myself to be gluttonous and allow myself
to you know when your friends says about the size zero,
(34:07):
and this is how it probably happened. But because I
was just like eating my emotions at one point in
my life, and I didn't have the energy to fight it,
and I used to go to work. I had done
this for long enough to know I can read my
lines and you know, do my scenes. But I was
just not there for a good like two years, and
(34:29):
and then I had to sort of pull myself out
of it. I didn't rely on therapy. It probably would
have been a shorter duration if I had, but I
just didn't think it was something for me. UM. I
didn't rely on friends, family. I just completely isolated, and
one day I just I missed the sunshine and one
(34:49):
day I missed being inspired when I went to work
and when I came back from work, and I just
suddenly looked at myself from a little further back, and
I was like, is this it you worked so much
for like almost fifteen years for. Is this what your
dad worked so much? My dad and my mom both
gave up their profession when I moved to Mumbai because
(35:12):
I was seventeen, so they had a fully built hospital.
They were in their forties and their fifties, and because
my career was took precedent at that point, my parents
backed up their hospital, sold it and moved to a
completely new city to start their careers again. Because I
will never forget my dad said this, that we're doctors.
(35:32):
We can pick up and practice medicine anywhere. She can't.
She has to go to Mumbai. And again, I didn't
think about their acts, their sacrifices when I was seventeen
year old, you know, driven workhorse like, I didn't think
about anyone. But as I look back, and this period
really helped me. That's what helped me get out because
I was like My dad was so ambitious for me.
(35:55):
He wanted me to win in every scenario. He loved
entertain and he loved movies. He loved that I was
in the movies, and he just was the biggest fan
of my career. And I was like, I'm not going
to have one if I don't pull myself out of it.
And that was a big impetus for me to sort
of claw my way out. So his death was very,
(36:17):
very instrumental in in me having a really life changing
experience and becoming a lot more confident with the woman
that I am today, what I stand for of not
being able to be overwhelmed, be level headed, take on
as much as I can do, still strive for excellence.
But it really shifted me from being an extreme person
(36:41):
just sort of being a more balanced person because I
went through that like hit rock bottom, lived in rock Bottom,
and then just hated the stent. Yeah, the dark night
of the soul, right, just like living in that, yeah,
and then coming through like a phoenix and exactly, um, well,
(37:04):
I no one can do that for you, but you nobody.
Oh my gosh, if someone could, I know, I would
have found them, I know. And we keep asking that question, right,
like when will When will I get over it? Like
when will it be over? It never does. As soon
as you accept the fact that failure, loss, grief and
all of these crippling emotions are not ever gonna go away.
(37:27):
You just have to compartmentalize them and like pack them
away for a while. And there'll be days where they
pop out and then they're big and you know, you
drink a glass of rose and you have a conversation
with them, and then there are days where they don't
come out, and it's it's just practice over time, and
I think learning to live with something, right, Yeah, that's
(37:48):
the thing. It becomes a part of your fabric in
a way that is integrated, and it doesn't take you
over in the same way, although there are some days
where I think it does. It's a little bit like scars,
isn't like you carry them there with you as a
reminder of that moment when it happened and how it
felt and how painful it is. But it doesn't define
(38:11):
who you are. They just kind of exist and it
tells a story. Yeah, and there's many of them coexisting,
right absolutely. Um, So thank you for sharing that insight. Um.
That was that was really beautiful to hear. You know,
do you think about what your dad would think of
your life today and your marriage and your success and
(38:37):
everything that you're striving for. Do you have a sense
of what he would say. I think it'd be really proud.
My mom speaks for both of them to me now,
and she watches on the sidelines, and there'll be days
she just couldn't give me a hug from nowhere and
she just said, I don't have much to say that
(38:58):
he would have been proud. I try to think about
the moments he's missed. I try to think about, you know,
how joyous and you know big his reactions would be
at times when I'm excited. My dad's favorite thing was
he was a really large personality, big laughter, you know,
in the room, he'll be the one who to be
(39:19):
telling the loudest joke, like, never afraid of making a
joker out of himself. Like that person very much like
my personality, a little big, extroverted. You know. I was
gonna say, maybe you get that from him. Yeah, I
think so. I love people and I get that from him,
and I think that's what he would have been. He
would have really enjoyed the life that I've built over
(39:42):
this time. I want to just go back to you
said that during that period of time, you were uh
eating your feelings, but I it just reminded me about
relationship to our bodies, and UM, I was curious how
how you felt about your body over the years, because
(40:04):
certainly I know for me, as I'm getting older, my
body is changing and um, and it naturally should and
that's what it needs to do. UM. But when you're
a public person, there is so much focus on the
external that it's really hard to not have your your
(40:24):
own lens hyper focused on the way you look. And
I wonder how you've managed that well. I had a
transition period that kind of I had to ask myself
that question. What I had to say, Wait, what is realistic?
And how are you feeling about this versus how you're
supposed to feel about it? So obviously, again being raised
in the industry and like having such a tight lens
(40:48):
on what my you know, shape was, or what my
figure was, or what my measurements were, and like, you
know what my minutely looking at every um part of
me that I kind of grew up for a while
in my twenties thinking that was normal like most young
(41:09):
people where you think about these unrealistic standards of beauty,
which is like absolutely photoshop face, like perfect hair. I
never used to have. I never used my natural texture.
For years. I used to always just have a blow
blown out hair like I would not do it until
just a few years ago. And um, I think it
(41:31):
was a big journey for me because I grew up
in the entertainment world. I learned everything that was thrown
at me at such a fast speed that I just imbibed,
you know, the headlines in a way. I didn't have
time to delve deep into what it was doing to me,
to me the person, not me the public figure. And
(41:52):
I think over time, when my body started started changing,
and when I went through that phase where I was
eating my emotions and my we started changing. I reached
my thirties, I went through struggle because I used to
get online, you know, grief from people about like you're
you're looking different, your aging, this that you know, just
(42:13):
it was. It messed with my mind at that time,
but my mind was already in such a dark place
that I didn't have time for it. My relationship with
social media change, my relationship with the internet change, I
incubated in a way where I protected myself, like I
went into my my cancery and self preservation self and
(42:35):
UM got back into my shell and I kind of healed.
I healed and I allowed myself to spend time with me,
gave my body what it needed, and if it was
a pizza at like one o'clock at night, I would
order it. And then slowly I reached a point where
I was like, I want to go for a run
or I need to do something where I feel like
(42:56):
I'm contributing to the health of my body. And that
happened over two years. And then I have not consistently
worked out and been healthier as I've been in the
last two years. And that was, you know, after this
really dark phase of my life, which was five or
six years ago, that I've I've come to a place where,
(43:17):
you know, I I want to take care of my body.
I've recently become a vegetarian. That's so new for me.
But I feel healthier, lighter, I'm contributing towards my own body.
I'm working out, i feel more energetic, and you know,
I think that it's it's a phase every one of
us will go through. You know, the ups and downs.
But I think eventually, the sooner we start choosing ourselves,
(43:41):
the better life becomes when we get rid of the
noise of what the expectation of someone else's. And it's
really hard to do, especially like with my job. It
is really hard to do. And we've heard it a
million times in so many different versions of love yourself first,
Love yourself first. You cannot love anyone else until you
(44:04):
love yourself first. And yet what does that mean? It
looks so different for everyone, and it's not a tangible thing.
Each person has their own road map. There isn't there
isn't one size fits all. Right. It's only over time
that I've come to understand what that means for me.
And it's a daily practice of choosing myself and choosing
(44:27):
putting healthy boundaries in place emotional and physical and work
relationships myself. Um, but what does that mean for you?
To love yourself? It's choosing yourself, really is It's it's
not like taking on, you know, that extra thing because
(44:50):
I have to prove a point, or if you want
to value, if you need validation, and you make a decision.
Those are not choices that we make for ourselves. I
think about it this way at least that that's how
I explained it to myself, Because you're right, love yourself
is too vague for someone who's as tangible as me.
I need to know, like it's scientifically what can I do?
And so I broke it down to myself with intention?
(45:12):
So what is your intention for any action through the day?
So when I wake up in the morning, I'll have
a cup of coffee because I need my brain to
wake up. So I'm doing that for me. That it's
for me so that other human beings can tolerate the
person that I am when I wake up in the morning.
So I need coffee, I do it for me. Then
whatever you're actually I'm going to set. I need to
read my lines? Do I read them the night before?
(45:35):
Do I need Do I read them in the car
when I'm on my way to work? Is it for me?
Or am I being lazy? So in every single thing,
if you start thinking about is your intention beneficial to
your well being, slowly you'll realize that you'll be able
to start taking things away in your life that is
that is not beneficial to your well being. And if
(45:55):
you're not at a in a good place, there's no
way you can incubate a good environ meant, I think
it was so powerful that we have a collective of
these incredible women that have taken the legacy of Victoria's
Secret and just turned it on its head. And I
feel it's really powerful that a brand with the legacy
(46:15):
of Victoria's Secret and image of what that looks like
has decided to go along on this journey and say,
you know what we're We're gonna do right by our
customer base. We're going to do right by the trans
woman that has spent so much time being a customer
and hasn't been acknowledged, or a certain body type that
has not been acknowledged, And um, I just think that
(46:38):
there is we have an amazing opportunity to really, you know,
change the way women are seen an advertising and the
standard of beauty. And I just feel very proud to
be able to work with all of you guys in
being able to achieve that larger, greater mission that I
know we all individually have but collectively think it's very powerful.
(47:02):
I'm so pleased that you brought this up, because I,
like you, feel incredibly honored to be a part of
this collective of women. I very much believe in the
power of united forces, and when I look at everyone
who's involved, I see that everyone is doing their own
(47:23):
incredible work in their own ways. We have an opportunity
to create real cultural change, and to have the support
of such a huge global brand is really unprecedented in
this way because a lot of the time people are
just trying to put a band aid on something and
(47:43):
make it look good, and that's not what's happening with
this company. From my experience thus far is is there
is a team of people who are really interested in
creating tangible change. I get to use my brain where
I advised the company in eternally regarding you know, representation
(48:03):
and authentic representation of women and an inclusive perspective is
making sure that this women and females telling the stories
and taking images and creating narratives. I get to create
a lot of that content as a photographer and a
director um and I also get to use my face
and beforeward facing. So I'm using my brain, my creativity,
(48:25):
and my face. And as women, we don't often get
the opportunity to use all of those aspects of ourselves.
And I think It's so great that we get to
be in charge of our own agency, and I think
that's a very powerful tool for women, and also to
show that when women come together, because we have the
(48:47):
ability to work together, we can actually stand up for
sisterhood and for other women and create opportunity that we lacked,
that we didn't have, so that the generations coming after
us don't have to inherit our problems. And I feel like, hopefully,
you know, by God's blessings and grace, this will be
the first of many changing faces of entertainment and media.
(49:10):
Thank you for being open to to everything that we
talked about. Thank you so much. Thanks everybody, Bye bye.
This is VS Voices, a brand new original podcast series
by Victoria's Secret. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts.
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