Priyanka Chopra and Lara Dutta rose to fame after winning international beauty pageants in 2000 and made their way into films. The two actors started their career together with the Akshay Kumar-starrer Andaaz, which marked the beginning of their journey as promising newcomers in the industry.
Despite this, Priyanka’s film with Sunny Deol, ‘The Hero: Love Story Of A Spy’, came in at number one, marking her debut. In a recent interview, Lara spoke candidly about those early days and credited Akshay for being a strong support system. She shared that she felt very lucky to have him as her first co-star and described him as a friend, philosopher and mentor. “Of course I had Akshay Kumar, who today I consider a friend, philosopher and mentor in the business,” she said in an interview with YouTube channel atncanada.
Just having that environment around you where you feel protected and not taken advantage of in any way and people who kind of take care of you. Even Akshay has always been very protective.”
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Talking about how Akshay mentored her and Priyanka, Lara shared, “Priyanka and I were coming at the same time. He saw two little girls coming in with stars in their eyes and no direction or guidance. He never took advantage of that.”
Today, I think he’s an incredibly street smart person. He knows the business like the back of his hand, he knows what works. So, in that sense, I had a really strong starting point to take off from.
“Meanwhile, Andaz product
Sunil Darshan
He had earlier hinted at a reported relationship between Akshay and Priyanka after the film. At that time, Akshay was married to
Twinkle Khanna
Darshan claimed that this situation led to complications in another project.Recalling the situation in an earlier interview with Bollywood Hungama, he said that he had to replace Akshay in Barsaat despite having already shot a song. “I also came to know about other issues that arose between him and his wife. I was told that she had issues with Priyanka… I feel that the profession has its own risks. Sometimes, proximity, sometimes one’s lifestyles, all these things come in the way and the media exaggerates them, without realizing how much loss a director can suffer due to…” he explained.Today Priyanka Chopra is married to
Nick Jonas
The couple is parents to their daughter Malti Marie. On the other hand, Akshay and Twinkle have been happily married for more than 25 years.