Deepika Padukone, please stop trying to do a Priyanka Chopra, here’s to Deepika’s gown-with-the-Vin act

By Subhash K. Jha -

January 18, 2017 - 10:43 AM IST

The second week of 2017 will be remembered for the battle of the plunging necklines as the Bollywood beauties, the two women in the golden gowns (probably cocking a snook at Roger Moore’s Golden Gun), vied for eyeballs in near-identical sartorial splendour with plunging necklines that left little to the imagination.

Deepika Padukone, please stop trying to do a Priyanka Chopra, here’s to Deepika’s gown-with-the-Vin act

The PN (plunging neckline) worked for PC. Not for DP. I don’t know how happy her Hollywood co-star was with her gown-with-the-Vin act. Most of her Indian fans and filmmakers including those who have worked with her, felt Deepika’s cleavage binge smacked of desperation.

One of her distressed directors told me, “She doesn’t need to do this. Deepika is naturally beautiful. One of the last great Indian beauties. Why does she need to get into a revealing gown or for that matter, play this exotic gun-toting beauty in XXX? The gown and the role were misfits for Deepika. It was like Deepika trying to be another Priyanka Chopra. Why does she need to do that? It’s like Hema Malini trying to do a Zeenat Aman. Most uncalled-for.”

As far as Deepika’s eagerly awaited Hollywood debut alongside the smitten Mr. Diesel is concerned, the reactions in India are mixed. While some of Deepika’s directors and co-stars are happy and proud that she plays the romantic lead opposite the Diesel, others feel that’s no big deal.

“What is there for her to do in the film? Please don’t forget she is Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmavati. She plays the author-backed role in the most lavish Indian film of all times. What was she doing in XXX? And where is her character from? She sounds like she is from Karnataka,” says a young director who has never worked with her.

“But I’d love to, provided she gets time off from Mr Diesel and Mr Bhansali,” the director adds cheekily.

The call of the West seems to have reached Deepika’s ears right after Priyanka Chopra managed to make herself seen and heard. The timing is unfortunate. Just when she was scaling a new pinnacle of glory in Bollywood, Deepika is anxious to conquer the West. Is this Hollywood phase a passing whim? One certainly hopes so. Hearing the utterly charmed Vin Diesel declare that they plan to do the next film in the XXX franchise with Deepika in May 2017, made me shudder.

This is really a no-Vin situation.