‘Priyanka Chopra had solid support from parents…me and Lara Dutta ate instant noodles because we had no money’, recalls Dia Mirza 

Priyanka Chopra, Lara Dutta and Dia Mirza stepped into the spotlight at the same time as the three women won popular international beauty pageants in the same year. But, as soon as they entered the Hindi film industry, their fate took them in different directions. In a recent interview, Dia recalled the time when she and Lara shared instant noodles while living in the same apartment that was the “size of a matchbox” and said that Priyanka had many battles to fight, which got increasingly hard with time.

Talking to Zoom, Dia said, “We (me and Lara) shared Wai Wai noodles, we had no money.” Dia recalled that by the time Priyanka and Lara made their debut in Andaz, she had already had three flops and the journey became harder for her as “naturally, there was a lot of comparison.” She insisted that their equation with each other was never affected by such comparisons and recalled those early days when they were navigating Bollywood. “Priyanka still had some support from her parents but Lara and I didn’t. Lara was already living here because she was modelling and she had opened her heart to me and shared her apartment, which was the size of a matchbox. I remember helping her pack for her Miss Universe and going away,” she said.

Dia said that she would find herself and Lara sitting in expensive gowns and posing with fancy champagne bottles at events and coming back home to instant noodles “because that’s all we could afford.” “We would both laugh hysterically like just look at us ‘bhaade ke kapde (rented clothes)’. ‘Hum kitne glamorous lag rahe hain par bank men paise nahi hain (We look so glamorous but we have no money in the bank.)'”

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Dia Mirza said that Priyanka Chopra started doing “extraordinarily well” from the beginning but “she had other battles to fight and deal with and she continued to, and some of those just intensified with time but she was doing really well and so, one only had awe and respect for that. You kind of looked at it and said ‘what incredible confidence’. I remember thinking to myself – ‘If I was half the actor she is, how much further I would be able to go.'”

Dia said that she and Lara did not borrow any money from her parents and recalled that Priyanka had “solid support” from her family. “Even in Priyanka’s situation, it’s not like she was coming from… she had solid support and her parents were very involved, especially her brother and mother were very involved.”