Image Guru (@DILIPtheCHERIAN) Being interviewed on Oprah with your husband is the woke new symbol of arrival among the new global uber elite. That Oprah space itself has been recently redefined. She insists that she’ll get beyond the controversial and try and get iconic people to open their hearts on issues that matter. Priyanka Chopra Jonas’s decidedly exudes that happy, positive vibe now, irrespective of whatever her big giveaway will be, tomorrow.
While the trailer may tease the question as to whether Priyanka Chopra and her youthful music icon husband Nick Jonas are going to start a family (is a coronial in the works?), there’s bound to be much more.
Remember that Priyanka has her own big book, Unfinished, already out this year and given that there are more of her movies (beyond the 60 she’s tartly tweeted about and counting) still to leap out of the cans, this will be a new benchmark Priyanka has adroitly timed and set out for herself.
Breathlessly awaited interviews are a whole new game. But don’t hold your breath to figure out who will get more mileage out of this. My bet is that it is going to be Priyanka Chopra Jonas all the way.
And, in the process, she’s merely underlining that she’s India’s most successful and recognised crossover export to the big bad world out there.
Priyanka has the huge advantage of being image-conscious as much as she is work-devoted. It has taken just a little short of two decades of work to become the international star that she is today. Having swept to the heights of Bollywood from the Miss World platform, she has adroitly avoided the inevitable glass ceiling here. Though the gossip trade media insists that her unexpected move to Hollywood was triggered by a dalliance threatening to turn toxic, there’s little doubt that the Image Re-engineering was well-timed and the best move she could have made.
Structuring this new image for herself as a global actress involved more than just physically moving to Hollywood.
Watch with admiration how she added a macho element to herself by being featured in the highly popular TV series Quantico. She played to her strengths, her brown exoticism and Hollywood’s hunger for talent that would translate well into India’s huge appetite for global action entertainment. Priyanka suddenly fit ALL of those new checkboxes.
Her most recent outing in The White Tiger gave a new twist to the image of Priyanka, adding as it were an international dimension to a globally successful but strongly India-based production on OTT. And later this year, she’ll be seen in the widely anticipated The Matrix 4. Yet another Indian entering territory that is hallowed creative land.
This total makeover pits her against nobody at all. She no longer aspires for even lead roles in Indian movies and is not even desperate to be in the lead in Hollywood.
For her, impactful productions matter. They have allowed her both freedom and time to grow her own rapidly flourishing business. That’s a big, largely underreported aspect of the savvy PC image.
Priyanka is now, highly sought-after as a savvy female global tech investor. Her investments in multiple ventures may have not yet fully fructified. But there is no doubt that her investment in dating app Bumble has already reached stratospheric valuations. Priyanka does more than invest. Her added strength is her considerable heft as the brand ambassador, game-changing for an app that has given Tinder sleepless nights.