Priyanka Chopra discussed her role as a “sexually charged character” in Aitraaz, which she played when she was around 21, and how the positive response to the film influenced her script choices. People warned her not to take the position, claiming that the audience would not regard her with ‘purity’ later.

Aitraaz was directed by Abbas-Mustan and starred Akshay Kumar and Kareena Kapoor in major parts. Priyanka Chopra portrayed a lady trapped in an unhappy marriage who makes sexual attempts toward her ex-boyfriend, who now works for her husband. She accuses him of rape when he resists her.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Priyanka said that heroines back in the day were expected to be ‘coy, pure, good girls’ but her character was a ‘bad b***h’. “Because my character was a sexual predator, and I was 21 or 22, people were like, ‘If you play such a sexually charged character, I don’t know if your audience will be able to see you with that kind of purity and that dream girl.’ The girl you want to take to your parents, basically, versus the one you want to take to your bed’,” she said.

However, Priyanka was ‘shocked’ by how well her character in Aitraaz was received. “I’ll never forget, we were at the screening and I was terrified. I was sort of embarrassed too because my parents were watching it as well. When the movie finished, people stood up and they started clapping and they started looking at me. There were other people in the movie who were massive stars but I walked out of the theatre and people were standing outside to congratulate me. And it was such a crazy moment in my head because I had built it up in my head that I was going to be cancelled after this movie and no one’s ever going to work with me again,” she said.