When Priyanka Chopra pleaded with Abbas-Mustan to not show Rakesh Roshan a scene from Aitraaz: ‘Meri izzat ka sawal hai’

Priyanka Chopra has often said that she learnt the ropes of acting on film sets and not in film school. For the first few years of her career, she was doing what felt natural to her, but after gaining some experience, she actually began working on her characters more intensely. One of her breakout roles came in the film Aitraaz, where she played a ‘sexually forward’ character. Priyanka recalled the ‘funny story’ of how her Aitraaz performance got helped her get cast as a ‘pious girl’ in Krrish.

Speaking with Anupam Kher on his talk show, Priyanka recalled how Krrish director Rakesh Roshan spotted her and then cast her in the superhero film. She said, “Rakesh sir saw me at a funeral, and he called me. He said, ‘I saw you at a funeral, you’re very pretty’. I said, ‘Excuse me?’ I was wearing a white salwar kurta, no makeup. Anyway, Rakesh Roshan was calling me, and this was right after Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai. He wanted to see my rushes from Aitraaz.”

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Priyanka was stressed. She knew that Rakesh Roshan was known for showing women in a certain light in his films, and it wasn’t at all like her character in Aitraaz. She offered to get him rushes from other projects that she was working on, but he was insistent. He wanted to see her in Aitraaz. She continued, “I called up Abbas-Mustan, and I said, ‘Look, meri izzat ka sawal hai (my reputation is on the line), please don’t show him the interval scene’. It was a rape scene, in which I rape Akshay’s character. He watched that scene and cast me in Krrish. I was so embarrassed, I couldn’t look him in the eye.”

Krrish was among India’s first mainstream superhero movies. It starred Hrithik Roshan as the titular character, and was a sequel to Koi… Mil Gaya. Both Hrithik and Priyanka returned for a follow-up film, Krrish 3, which was released in 2013.