Born in Jamshedpur, India, Chopra is the daughter of two doctors. Though
she jokes that her parents set the bar for success unachievably high,
the multi-hyphenate entertainer has made a name for herself as one of
the highest paid actresses in India and one of the most visible faces in
the world.
A self-described "geek at heart," Chopra always thought
she'd be an engineer. "My family is extremely academically inclined,"
she says. Demonstrating her well-earned reputation for professionalism,
Chopra offers immediately to hold my recorder herself, recalling
sympathetically how a different writer had once realized 45 minutes into
an interview that his hadn't been switched on. "He was near tears, and
of course we redid the whole thing," she smiles.
When she was seventeen, Chopra's mother sent her picture to the 2000
Miss India contest "because it was a millennium year and she thought it
would be cool." Chopra not only won the contest but went on to be
crowned Miss World later that year. Suddenly, the girl who loved physics
and math was inundated with entertainment offers. "I guess it made
business sense to have a beauty queen starring in a movie," she notes
matter-of-factly. Chopra is close with her family, and after discussing
her blossoming career options with her late father (she has "Daddy's lil
girl" tattooed on her wrist in his handwriting), she decided to give
acting a chance.
"If you're terrible at it," she recalls him telling
her, "you'll know in a year and you can go back to school. Just give it a
chance." The rest, you could say, is history -- but Chopra prefers to
frame it as something more.
Read the full cover story on www.papermag.com
Credits
Photography: Michael Avedon | @michaelavedonphototography
Styling: Jimi Urquiaga | @jimi_urquiaga
Hair: Danilo | @danilo
Makeup: Dotti | @therealistdotti
Nails: Tracylee at The Wall Group | @thewallgroup
Stylist Assistant: Noah Diaz
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