Priyanka Chopra reveals she earned just 10% of the hero’s salary, waited for him for hours on sets in early days

Priyanka Chopra has shared how female actors were treated unfairly in the industry when she was just starting out.

Priyanka Chopra is one of the only four Indians to make it to the list of BBC’s ‘100 Women’ this year. The actor has now revealed in a corresponding interview how things were not always this golden for her. She spoke about never getting paid equal to the male lead in her early days in Bollywood and also how men earned special privileges on film sets. (Also read: Kangana Ranaut reveals she isn’t ‘underpaid’ when asked about pay parity in film industry: ‘All men have helped me’)

“I’ve never had pay parity in Bollywood. I would get paid about 10% of the salary of my male co-actor. It’s (the pay gap) large, substantially large. And so many women still deal with that. I’m sure I will too if I worked with a male co-actor now in Bollywood,” she said. “My generation of female actors have definitely asked (for equal pay). We’ve asked, but we’ve not got it.”

Priyanka also spoke about the treatment she would get on sets and how she thought it was something normal. “I thought it was absolutely OK to sit for hours and hours on set, while my male co-actor just took his own time, and decided whenever he wanted to show up on set is when we would shoot,” she said.

She also spoke about how things are different in Hollywood, when she said that Citadel will be the first time she will have a male co-lead, Richard Madden. “Well, the first time it’s happened to me, it has happened in Hollywood. So I don’t know going forward,” she said.

Produced by Russo Brothers, Citadel will hit the OTT on Prime Video. The upcoming sci-fi drama series is directed by Patrick Morgan and stars Richard Madden alongside Priyanka. Priyanka will also be seen in international project Love Again with Sam Heughan.

In Bollywood, she will be starring with Alia Bhatt and Katrina Kaif in Farhan Akhtar’s Jee Le Zaraa, which promises to be another tale of friendship following the lineage of Dil Chahta Hai and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, both of which have become cult classics over the years. Jee Le Zaraa is reportedly going on floors soon and will be ready for release in the summer of 2023.