Why 2015 was Priyanka Chopra's year

It is difficult to say which among our current crop of female actors is the best. From Deepika Padukone to Anushka Sharma to Kangana Ranaut, every one of them is rewriting the rules of Bollywood by doing meaningful films that they carry nearly entirely on their shoulders.

Piku was nothing if not a love song to Deepika. Queen did not just re-emphasise Kangana’s acting chops, it made a strong feminist statement also. And Anushka’s roles in PK and NH-10 kept all the promises she made to us in Band Baaja Baaraat.

So, it is her special talent that makes Priyanka Chopra a cut above the rest. 2015 has been a huge year for the actor which is saying something since she has done consistently good work over the last few years. In a parallel, and undoubtedly poorer, world, if Priyanka had retired after last year’s Mary Kom, she would still be remembered as one of our most talented actors.

Yet, she continues to shift the goalposts. Why, she positively burns them down! Her role as Kashibai in the recently released Bajirao Mastani is so good that when she did not appear much in the film’s first half, fans began to question why she had said yes to the film.

But slowly yet surely, you see her grow in the role. She is in nearly every frame in the film’s second half, as she plays the torn wife who must choose between her rage at her husband’s infidelity and her essential goodness and deep love for him.

Also read: My 10 favourite Indian films of 2015

Rajeev Masand asked her in an interview how it was working as Kashibai, and Priyanka said she would never do such a role again. She had much trouble portraying a woman who accepts her husband’s second marriage. "I would have left him in a heartbeat," she joked.

And yet, Kashibai in Bajirao Mastani is hardly a doormat. She forbids Bajirao from visiting her room after his affair comes to light.

In one scene, she censures him for cheating on her, saying she would have gladly sacrificed her life for him if he had only asked. By marrying Mastani he had killed her self-esteem. It is hard to imagine another actor bring out this dilemma with as much gravitas as Priyanka.

The film's director, Sanjay Leela Bhansali has taken much liberty with the script, including having a song between Kashibai and Mastani in which the women, like the doomed pair of Paro and Chandramukhi in his earlier Devdas, celebrate their love for the same man.

Few actors can carry this off without their characterisation coming across as forced. Yet, Priyanka captures both the hurt and the ephemeral joy of her situation with felicity.

Also read: Bajirao Mastani vs Dilwale: Clash of two cultures

This week, the trailer of Jai Gangajal was released. Priyanka plays Abha Mathur, the first woman superintendent of police (SP) of a lawless district in Bihar.

Like all Prakash Jha films, this one too focuses attention on the sordid cocktail of corrupt politicians and a compromised police force ruling Bihar.

Into this turmoil comes the upright Abha. The trailer of the film, which has Jha play a police officer too, is so good and Priyanka is such a natural that it boggles the mind that the same actor played an ambitious model in Fashion. Or the autistic Jhilmil in Barfi. Seriously, with Priyanka, her acting talent is the gift that keeps on giving.

She returned to India this week after wrapping Season 1 of Quantico, her show for ABC in which she plays an FBI agent who is blamed for a terror attack. Reviews of the series have been generally favourable, and one hopes that it picks up steam as it goes along.

And yet, it says something about Priyanka’s force-of-nature career graph that a primetime main lead debut on American TV is just another feather in her cap this year. From an army family of doctors, Priyanka has risen progressively from the time she was crowned Miss India in 2000.

Also read: 10 worst Bollywood films of 2015

Even in films that she today regrets doing, such as the abysmal Aitraaz, she lit up the screen. The fact that she, like her three contemporaries I mentioned earlier, is not from a film background makes their success all the more fetching.

From new films to new scripts, we are undoubtedly looking at a new Bollywood, and we have actors like Priyanka Chopra to thank for leading this charge.