'What a demigod feeling': 'Varanasi' star Priyanka Chopra credits debut film with Thalapathy Vijay as her first taste of fame

'The Bluff' star Priyanka Chopra Jonas recalled that her first real glimpse of fame came not from her own stardom, but from watching Thalapathy Vijay on the set of her debut Tamil film, ‘Thamizhan’. The actor said the crowds that gathered around Vijay during the 2002 shoot left a deep mark on her when she was just 18. Looking back, she said the experience shaped how she first understood celebrity, long before she learned what acting work truly meant.

Priyanka Chopra on Thalapathy Vijay and ‘Thamizhan’

Speaking on the podcast segment Not Skinny But Not Fat, Priyanka said ‘Thamizhan’ gave her “first exposure to a little bit of fame.” She recalled the scale of Vijay’s popularity on set in vivid detail. “It was a movie called 'Thamizhan' in the Tamil language in India. It was my first exposure to a little bit of fame. My co-actor, his name is Vijay, is extremely popular. And I remember when we used to land up on set, there used to be people; hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people just standing there to watch him while he was dancing and while he was doing his thing.”




Chopra said the moment stayed with her because she had never seen anything like it before. “It's my first movie. I had no idea what happens behind the scenes. I just saw what we saw in movie theaters. And I just remember thinking (about fame), what a demigod feeling that must be, especially in India where people love their movies and the fans are really, really giving.”

Priyanka Chopra on fame and work ethic

As reported by India Today, Priyanka also admitted that her younger self first linked acting with public attention. “Yeah. My 18-year-old self was like, is that what this means? I think that my relationship with what this job was was skewed because I thought it was about fame. It's only when I started doing it that I realised that fame is the byproduct of the job. It isn't the job. And that's when it became really fun.”

Chopra has spoken warmly about Vijay before as well. In a 2022 interview with Vanity Fair, Priyanka said she learned from his discipline and humility during ‘Thamizhan’. “I loved watching my co-actor Vijay - he was one of the first few influences in my life. He had tremendous humility on set. Once he comes onto the set, he never leaves the set. And that's something I do even now.”

Priyanka was most recently seen in ‘The Bluff’, which premiered on Amazon Prime Video on February 25. She is also set to return to Indian cinema with SS Rajamouli’s ‘Varanasi’.Get the latest entertainment updates from the Times of India, along with the latest Hindi movies, upcoming Hindi movies in 2026 , and Telugu movies.”