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

Asked about the criticism Priyanka said she got for her appearance initially, Anil said 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.”

He said that he spoke to another producer shortly afterwards, who showed him a picture of a new heroine he’d signed. Anil asked who it was, and was shocked when the producer told him that she was Priyanka. “She looked terrible, she was so dark, what in the world had she done to herself? I summoned her immediately, and she came over the next day with her mother,” he continued, adding that both her parents were very nice people. “They were in tears, they told me about the operation, which had even left a mark under her nose. It’s still there to this day. They said it would take months to heal, and that Priyanka had been dropped from several projects she’d already signed,” he added.

“Why did you do it?” Anil asked them, and they said that it was because she had a sinus problem. But because it was botched, Priyanka was in a bad condition psychologically. “She had decided to return to Bareilly and return after some months, and was offering her signing amount back to me,” Anil said, adding that Priyanka was ‘depressed’.

But he resolved to stand by her. He called up a veteran makeup artist who used to work at Yash Raj Films, and had worked with Madhuri Dixit and Sridevi in the past. “I called him over. I said, ‘Dada, yeh ladki hai, iska kya kar sakte hain (This is the girl, what can we do to fix this)?’ He said he’d do something. Three days later, we shot a screen test with her. We gave her a short wig, and once the test was shot, we showed it to people, including Sunny Deol. They all thought she was beautiful,” he said.

Anil said that he was always admired Priyanka’s drive and determination, and that his role in her journey was incidental; she would’ve still been successful without his aid. Recently, after the success of Gadar 2, Priyanka and her husband Nick Jonas sent Anil Sharma a congratulatory present, a picture of which he shared on social media. Gadar 2 has emerged as the third-biggest Bollywood hit of all time in India, with over Rs 520 crore domestically. Priyanka, on the other hand, last starred in the big-budget Prime Video series Citadel, and the romantic drama Love Again.