Deepika Padukone on racist portrayals of Indians in Hollywood: It would upset me every time I went to the US

Deepika Padukone is one of Bollywood’s highest-paid actors, who started off as a professional badminton player before making her Bollywood debut in, “Om Shanti Om,” in 2007. In 2017, she crossed over to Hollywood with the action film “XXX: Return of Xander Cage.” Having most recently appeared in Shakun Batra’s Gehraiyaan, Deepika currently stands as one of Bollywood’s most popular actresses.  She is currently in Paris attending a Louis Vuitton event, where she revealed in an interview about how she has faced racism in the West and how Hollywood actors have come to perceive her.

As someone who did not grow up in the limelight and was an outsider to both the film and fashion industries, Deepika found a plethora of obstacles in her journey to the global stage as a young Indian woman,  which she had to continuously confront. “Of course, the hustle is much harder [as an outsider]. You’ve got to wait much longer for the right opportunities,” she says. “But also, from my perspective, the gratification is so much more.”

In a conversation with BOF, Deepika Padukone spoke out on racial stereotypes in Hollywood and her own experience with it, stating, “You are the scientist. You are the computer geek. You are the taxi driver. You are the therapist. You are the owner of a convenience store. I’ve had my fans ask me why I’ve not done more [global] movies. But that’s not what I’m settling for, because I am — and we are — so much more than that. It would upset me every time I went to the US. Some of the things that are said and some of the things that are done just [make it] so obvious that people don’t know the world outside of the world that they live in.”

Deepika went on to give an example of an English actor who once complimented her English at a Vanity Fair Party, noting the hint of his surprise and unwarranted approval in his tone, and goes on to reflect how so many westerners possess this notion that we as Indians don’t speak English properly.

Meanwhile, Deepika’s upcoming projects include Nag Ashwin’s Project K and Siddharth Anand’s Pathaan.