There has been a shift in my thought process: Parineeti Chopra

Parineeti Chopra is looking and feeling her best today. The actress waited patiently for months together and took her time to evaluate the offers that were coming her way. She has been away from the big screen for quite some time now, so Pari doesn’t want to make a faulty move. Recently, she got a chance to become associated with Steven Spielberg for the Hindi dubbing of his film The Big Friendly Giant. She also did a special song with Varun Dhawan in Dishoom and made quite a splash with her new lean avatar. And over the last few months, her social media pages have been replete with photo updates showing off her svelte self.

So does she feel more happy and confident today than she used to be? “I am always happy. I think the most important thing has been this personal achievement. This phase of being more confident and not being worried about my body has come after thirteen years of my life. I have struggled with my weight forever and I’ve always wanted to lose weight. Finally, I managed to do it a year ago. I feel like a new person, I don’t have to worry about how I sit, what I have to wear. It’s a very new thing for me. I am nowhere close to the body I want to have but I am more than happy and satisfied with my present self.”

Her film choices have not been run-off-the-mill and Parineeti had once said that she wanted to be a better actress than a heroine. There was a time when the industry looked up to Parineeti for her acting chops, rather than the way she looked. The actress feels people evolve every year. She explains, “There was a time I didn’t have the flexibility to wear everything or look the way I wanted. But hopefully, I have opened more windows of opportunities now. I want to do all kind of roles today. For me, there has been a complete shift in my thought process and I hope it helps my work. It has helped me a lot in my personal life.”

Many think that it was the failure of Kill Dil that prompted Parineeti to re-look at her career. We ask her if she would have still opted to take a break had the film done well. “Of course,” she replies, adding that the break was always on her mind. “I took a break because I had done six films back-to-back, the last one being Kill Dil. I was moving into my new home at that time, so I needed to make time for that. I figured I’d require about nine months in all for that and also to work on my body, keep up my endorsement deals. I didn’t want to sign a film at that time. I didn’t even get something that was exciting. But now I have been announcing films, Bindu is almost over. I needed the emotional break to work on myself and take time off to rediscover my passion for films. I have so much passion for acting and everything that I do today. It was the most important one year that I have ever taken for myself.”

Parineeti continues, “People keep associating this change to my films and my career. It’s not like that. I have been obese and I have battled my weight since childhood. I always wanted to be fit. It’s just because I am a public figure, the media will compare me to what I was two years ago. But my life didn’t start two years ago. My life has been going on for more than that. It has been a personal desire for me to be fit, thin or whatever you want to call it, for years now. It has noting to do with Kill Dil. It has nothing to do with me being an actress; it has nothing to do with anything apart from my personal choice. At one point, it had become a default adjective for me, which is fine — curvy or whatever diplomatic term for overweight was.”

So what kind of roles would the newfound Parineeti Chopra want to be associated with? “I think I am looking at variety, something different. I am finishing Bindu which is different from Homi Adjania’s Takdum which I start next. Even the film after that is going to be very different. I want to play around with the scripts I am being offered now, and I also want to experiment with how I look on screen.”

Having once casually mentioned about not being able to join a film school, we asked if she would like to go to one if given a chance. Not entirely discarding the idea, she says, “I am not dying to go to a film school. I mean if there is something, a new aspect of my personality or my acting that I can improve, then I would love to do.”