Priyanka Chopra admits a Northeastern actor should have played Mary Kom says, "I was very skeptical taking it on"

Priyanka Chopra reflected on her career and choices in an interview with a leading magazine and finally spoke about being a misfit to play the Northeastern boxer in the 2014 film. The actress was not doubt lauded for her transformation and performance in the sports drama which was hailed as her best performance till date but many voices also rose against her casting suggesting that she didn’t at all look the part.

The boxer who hails from Manipur has been an inspiration to many women in the country Priyanka included and the Bollywood biopic based on her life directed by Omung Kumar received flak for not giving an opportunity to a Northeastern actor to play the part who would looked like Mary Kom unlike the Aitraaz actress.

Priyanka looks back and agrees that it should have been another actor in her place and revealed while talking to Vanity Fair about the film, “When I played Mary Kom, I was very skeptical taking it on in the beginning because she was living breathing icon. She made a place for so many female athletes and plus I looked nothing like her.”

Agreeing that she felt misfit being cast in the role, Priyanka added, “We physically didn’t look alike. In hindsight, yes the part should have probably gone to someone from the Northeast, but I was just greedy as an actor to be able to get my hands on to be able to tell her story because she inspired me as a woman so much, as an Indian woman so much, as an athlete. When the filmmakers insisted that I do it, I said, ‘You know what? I am gonna do it.’”

The actress then went on to reveal how hard she had to work in order to simply be fit to play Mary KOm which included spending time with the boxer and her family, and training in the sport along with physically transforming herself to look like an athlete.

The actress did do her fair share of hard work to do justice to a film based on someone who inspired her. Speaking about making up for the physical difference between then she further said, “Because I physically didn’t look like her I decided to embody her spirit. So I spent a lot of time with her so she could educate me about what her choices were, why she made the choices that she did. And to me it is one of my most special movies that I have ever done because I got to work so closely with her.”