Told Priyanka Chopra to ‘fix her nose immediately’, recalls Andaaz producer: ‘Her father was accomplished plastic surgeon’

Filmmaker Suneel Darshan recalled advising Priyanka Chopra to fix her nose, and said that she asked for a month to do so.

By: Entertainment Desk

New Delhi | Updated: November 30, 2023 07:30 AM IST

4 min read

Priyanka Chopra made her debut in Suneel Darshan's Andaaz.

Listen to this article

Your browser does not support the audio element.

Film producer Suneel Darshan praised actor Priyanka Chopra’s drive and determination to succeed, as he recalled their first meeting when she trying to break into Bollywood. Among the first films that Priyanka signed in the Hindi industry was Andaaz, opposite Akshay Kumar and Lara Dutta, although her first Hindi release was The Hero: Love Story of a Spy, which debuted a month earlier.

In an interview with Zoom Entertainment, Suneel Darshan said that he wasn’t quite impressed by Priyanka when he first laid eyes on her, and recommended that she fix her nose. He implied that her late father, whom he described as ‘an accomplished plastic surgeon’, was responsible for her botched nose surgery. Priyanka has spoken about the ostracization she faced for the surgery, which she has said was to treat sinus. “I wanted to cast a fresh face in the film, and one day, I got a call from the reception saying that someone had come to meet me with a girl. I make sure to meet whoever comes over to my office, and it was Priyanka Chopra. I looked at her and thought, ‘Really?’ I asked them to take a seat,” he said.

Also read | ‘Priyanka Chopra looked terrible, I asked her why she went for nose surgery’: Gadar director Anil Sharma recalls ‘tearful meeting’

The filmmaker continued, “She was not a conventional beauty, but within 15 minutes, I knew I was going to cast her. Uski aankhein itni zabardast chalti thi, uski awaaz sexy aur nasheeli thi, uski bhook gehri thi (Her eyes were hypnotic, her voice was alluring, and her hunger to succeed was visible). These were sufficient reasons to bet on her. I told her that she was perfect for the role, and asked her to immediately fix the problem with her nose. Her father was a very, very accomplished plastic surgeon. She said, ‘No problem, sir, I’ll be ready’. I told her that we were going on the floors in 10 days, but she said that she needed more time.”

Suneel told her that he’d film other scenes in the meanwhile, and a month later, ‘she was back, and she was all there’. In a recent interview, Gadar and The Hero director Anil Sharma recalled how distraught Priyanka was about her nose, and narrated how he helped her out even as others in the film industry were turning their back on her. He told Bollywood Thikana in Hindi, “I’ll tell you what happened. A big tragedy happened with her. She was wonderful, I’d already signed her, my wife herself presented her with a cheque outside a temple. I left for a trip to America and Europe after Gadar released, and I returned after two months and found out that Priyanka had gotten an operation on her nose because she wanted to look like Julia Roberts. This is what I read in the papers, and I wondered why she’d do something like this; she was already good-looking.” Anil Sharma summoned a veteran makeup artist to help fix Priyanka’s face, and revealed that she was on the verge of quitting films because she was ‘depressed’.

In the lead-up to the release of her autobiography last year, Priyanka wrote about the terrible experiences she had early in her career, and how she took a stand for herself in an industry dominated by men. While speaking to The Zoe Report recently, Priyanka remembered working on a Bollywood film in 2002-2003, in which she was supposed to seduce a male character. “I’m seducing the guy and you have to take off one piece of clothing (at a time). I wanted to layer up. The filmmaker was like, ‘No, I need to see her underwear. Otherwise, why is anybody coming to watch this movie?’” Priyanka narrated.

From the homepage