Priyanka Chopra’s manager Anjula Acharia says ‘prominent people’ in Bollywood were ‘negative’ about her

India — Anjula Acharia, the woman behind Priyanka Chopra’s success in the West, revealed that she was discouraged about signing the actor initially. Anjula said that prominent people from Bollywood were extremely ‘negative’ about Priyanka.

In an interview, Anjula recalled being warned about Priyanka at a dinner party and being told that she was ‘wasting (her) time’. Anjula, however, chose to go with her instinct and place her bets on Priyanka.

Talking to Forbes, Anjula said, “I remember when I first signed Priyanka, there were a lot of people, particularly in India, who were so negative. I was at this dinner, at my friend Manish Goyal’s house in New York, with some prominent people from the Hindi film industry and they were just so negative about her. They were like, ‘She is never going to work, I don’t know why you are wasting your time’, blah blah.”

“I remember feeling really hurt actually, at the time. I remember being like, ‘Am I wasting my time?’ But this is where your self-belief comes in. It seemed like a crazy dream, right, to bring somebody from India to Hollywood? But I got to tell you, when I look in Priyanka’s eyes, I just believe. Priyanka is just undeniable, she is a disruptor,” she added.

Priyanka began her international career as a singer. She made her music debut in 2012 with the single, In My City, featuring will.i.am. She also released two other songs, Exotic and I Can’t Make You Love Me. In 2015, she was cast as the lead in an American TV show, Quantico. Currently, she has a number of international projects in her kitty, including The Matrix 4, Text For You and the Amazon spy series Citadel.

Earlier this month, Priyanka made her debut as an author with a memoir titled Unfinished. The book traces her journey from her formative years to becoming a successful star in Bollywood and Hollywood.