Deepika Padukone, in a recent interview, said her road to recovery from depression was aided by lifestyle changes and medication. The actor also said that she would work towards changing the way people looked at mental health.
In an interview with Evening Standard, Padukone said:
“There are a lot of people who come and say that they contemplated committing suicide and after seeing the video interview that I’ve done, they actually understand what they were going through and their lives have changed (sic). And that was the entire purpose of doing what I did. So I’m happy I made that decision to come out.’
Padukone, Indian cinema’s highest paid female artiste, publicly spoke about her struggle with depression at a time when her films were huge successes at the box office. She later founded the Live Love Laugh Foundation, a Bangalore-based non-profit organisation working in the field of mental health.
“There was a lot happening — people thought professionally it was one of the best years of my life. I was on a career high but that’s the thing about depression — there are no warning signs. It just comes and it has nothing to do with how much money you have or how successful you are. Or what strata of society you come from. It can affect literally anyone.”
In the interview, Padukone also spoke about her encounters with sexism in various stages of her career. The actor, in the start of her career, was advised to get a ‘boob job’ to make her more visible to Bollywood, but she refused.
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“There were lots of things I was advised [to do]. To get a boob job, do the beauty pageants. They felt it was the right way to be recognised or picked up by a Bollywood director or producer. It might be an easier way to achieve what you want. But I haven’t been that person; I’ve always followed my gut.”
Padukone, who debuted in Hollywood in 2017 film xXx Return of Xander Cage, said that Hollywood was yet to embrace diversity completely. “While I feel like not just the conversation but also actions are moving in the right direction, we still have a bit to go before we truly understand the meaning of diversity.”