Priyanka Chopra posted a video on Friday and honestly it might be the most relatable thing she has ever put on the internet.
No red carpet. No gown. No event. Just her, sitting in the passenger seat of a nice convertible, straw hat on, sunglasses up, visibly doing nothing, while Nick Jonas drove. She captioned it “Mommy Daddy days are my favourite” and that was it. And people went absolutely feral for it. The whole “passenger princess” angle got picked up everywhere. But I think the reason it hit so hard is simpler than that. She looked like someone who had finally, for one afternoon, stopped running.
Which, if you know what her last few weeks looked like, makes complete sense.
This woman just got off one of the most packed months any celebrity has had in recent memory. Let’s actually go through it, because the list is kind of insane.
Her film The Bluff dropped on Amazon Prime Video at the end of February. It is an action movie, she is the lead, and she does sword fights and gun sequences and all of that. Mahesh Babu yes, that Mahesh Babu, her co-star in the massive SS Rajamouli film she is currently shooting took to social media to tell her she was “swashbuckling” in it and that the film had great emotional depth. That is a big deal. She replied, thanked him, threw in a pirate flag emoji, and then casually dropped “See you soon in Antarctica” at the end, which sent the whole internet into a spiral. But we will get to that.
Then came the Oscars.
March 15th, the 98th Academy Awards, Dolby Theatre, Los Angeles. Priyanka walked the red carpet in this white Dior gown strapless, high slit, feather detailing, Bvlgari diamonds at the neck. She looked, to put it plainly, unreal. Nick was next to her in a black velvet tuxedo and if you looked at his wrist there was a traditional kalava thread tied on it, the red-and-yellow kind that holds religious significance in Indian culture. It was a small thing. It became a very talked-about small thing by the next morning.
Getting there was its own adventure. Apparently their car got blocked by security outside the venue, so someone arranged a golf cart to rush them in. And during one of the turns, the cart tilted so hard that one wheel came off the ground. There is a video. They held on. The driver got it back under control. They made it inside, laughed about it, and Priyanka went on to present the Best International Feature Film award on stage with Javier Bardem. She has not been to the Oscars since 2017. Nine years. She walked back in like she never left.
After the ceremony there was the Vanity Fair party. Different outfit, this time a silver Stella McCartney gown with a brown fur boa, very old Hollywood, very deliberate. She posted pictures with Nick, with her best friend Isha Ambani and Anand Piramal, captioned it “Our very own after party..” and called it a night.
Then a few days later, the convertible video. Quiet afternoon. Straw hat. Done.
Now about Antarctica.
That tweet to Mahesh Babu was not just cute. It was a confirmation. Varanasi, the Rajamouli film she has been shooting for over a year now, is actually going to Antarctica. Specifically the Ross Ice Shelf, which is one of the most remote and extreme locations on the planet. No Indian film has ever been shot there. In fact only three other feature films in the entire history of cinema have actually filmed on that continent.
This will be the fourth. Rajamouli is shooting the whole thing in IMAX. Wide format, the kind you see in those massive nature documentaries. The story itself involves time travel, an asteroid threatening the city of Varanasi, multiple timelines, locations across Kenya and India and now a frozen continent at the bottom of the world.
Mahesh Babu plays Rudhra and also Lord Rama in a different timeline. Priyanka plays a character called Mandakini. They have already filmed with actual wildebeest in Kenya. Mahesh Babu described a moment where they were dropped off by their vehicles in the middle of the Maasai Mara and the cars just drove away and suddenly the ground was shaking because a herd was running toward them and Rajamouli was somewhere in another vehicle talking to them via walkie-talkie saying “keep moving, very nice, very nice.” Which is honestly a sentence that could only happen on a Rajamouli set.
Priyanka has been open about what this film means to her. She is from Uttar Pradesh. She is a Shiva devotee. When Rajamouli told her the story and explained why the film is called Varanasi, she said it hit her personally. She also told him before signing on that her one request was that she gets to dance in the film, because she had not danced on screen in years and she missed it badly. He said yes. She later told Mahesh Babu she regretted asking because they have not stopped dancing since.
She is 43. She is about to fly to one of the coldest places on earth to shoot an IMAX film. She just came off a press run, a film drop, and the Oscars in the span of a few weeks. And on Friday, before all of that resumes, she sat in a car with her husband, put her hat on, and filmed a five-second video of herself doing absolutely nothing.
Sometimes the most honest thing a person can post is exactly that. A little proof that somewhere behind all the schedules and the gowns and the continents, there is just a woman who likes the passenger seat when the sun is out and her husband is driving and her daughter is probably in the back asking about something to do with Moana.
That caption. “Mommy Daddy days are my favourite.”
Yeah. Same, honestly.
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Sana has been covering film, fame, and everything in between for over a decade. From red carpets to rehab rumors, she brings nuance, wit, and an insider’s edge to every story. When she’s not reporting, she’s probably watching Koffee With Karan reruns or doom-scrolling celebrity IG feeds.
