2021 proved to be a game-changer for Parineeti Chopra with the three back-to-back power packed performances she gave in The Girl On The Train, Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar and Saina, all within a month. I remember watching all three on the day of their release respectively and falling in love with the actress a little bit more with each film. But before getting all the love and success that she did last year, Parineeti also faced a slump and she even took a sabbatical from acting in between, and as I converse with her, she opens up about that.

For the unversed, Parineeti was absent from the screen for two years with Kill Dill being her last performance in 2014 and Meri Pyaari Bindu in 2017 marking her comeback. In between this, she had a special song in Dishoom with Varun Dhawan.

Talking about that period, Parineeti says,

“I didn’t take a sabbatical during my failure, I actually took it when my films were doing really well. A lot of people were like why I was doing it. But what happened is that as an actor, you are also leading a life side by side. Everything you do is not only for your career. The problem is that everything we do is in public and the public forms opinions very fast. So, when I took that sabbatical it wasn’t because my films weren’t working. I took that time because I wanted to work on my health, which I wasn’t getting the time for and I had just bought a house then and I wanted to be fully involved in that. I had so much to do that I said that I didn’t want to shoot for six months. Just give me a six-month holiday and that kind of helped me so much to improve on the work that I am doing.”

And truly so, the effect is showing now as the hard work she put in for her films last year translated into big offers. Today, she has films like Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Animal with Ranbir Kapoor and also Sooraj Barjatya’s Uunchai in the pipeline.

Opening up on Uunchai, Pari shares,

“It’s surreal to be on that set and every time I enter there, I wonder if I am on the right set or have they made a mistake? How can Mr Bachchan, Sooraj Barjatya, Anupam Kher, Boman Irani and Neena Gupta be on the same set as I? But I think that is a testament to the kind of work I did last year and thankfully it’s all going well.”

Parineeti’s journey is a testament to the fact that sometimes it’s better to take a step back, analyse and get hold of a situation, before moving ahead. I feel glad to see her rise to stardom yet again and I am sure that there is a lot more to come for Parineeti in the coming years.