Sanjay Leela Bhansali asked Priyanka Chopra not to come for Mary Kom shoot at her dad’s funeral. Here’s what she did

NEW DELHI DEC 12 (ONLINE): Priyanka Chopra hasn’t played the leading lady in a Sanjay Leela Bhansali directorial, but she still shares a close relationship with the filmmaker. Speaking at the Red Sea International Film Festival, Priyanka revealed how Bhansali had a word of advice for her before the shoot of his 2014 production, Omung Kumar’s sports drama Mary Kom, which starred Priyanka in the titular role. “I was supposed to start Mary Kom the month my dad died. So the sets (for the boxing scenes) were up. And my dad passed. I remember, Sanjay Leela Bhansali had come to the funeral. He gave me a hug and said, ‘You don’t need to come to work. I understand, it’s totally fine. We’ll shut the sets down. We’ll do it when you’re ready.’ The one thing that my father would’ve never wanted me to do was not go to work. So I went back back to work four days after his funeral because I know that’s what my dad wanted me to do. And I put all my grief into those fight scenes,” recalled Priyanka.

During the release of her last Hindi film, Shonali Bose’s The Sky Is Pink in 2019, Priyanka confessed that she never processed her father’s loss completely. And she wanted to do a film like The Sky Is Pink, that revolves around parents’ different ways to cope with their daughter’s premature loss, in order to process her father’s death. Priyanka even co-produced the film under her banner, Purple Pebble Pictures.

Before working together in Mary Kom, Priyanka also starred in a special song in Bhansali’s 2013 directorial, Goliyon Ki Raasleela: Ram-Leela, starring Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone in lead roles. Two years later, Priyanka shared the screen space with the two actors in Bhansali’s next directorial, Bajirao Mastani, in which she played Kashi Bai, the wife of Peshwa Bajirao I (played by Ranveer). Priyanka will be next seen in The Bluff, Heads of State, and Citadel season 2. Meanwhile, Bhansali is currently filming his next feature, Love & War, with Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, and Vicky Kaushal.