Deepika Padukone on pushing past western stereotypes: 'I’ve felt the bias around accent and skin colour and casting firsthand'

Deepika Padukone on pushing past western stereotypes: 'I’ve felt the bias around accent and skin colour and casting firsthand'

At the CNBC-TV18 Global Leadership Summit, Deepika Padukone spoke about something she has been quietly shaping for years: how India is represented on the world stage, and how she chooses to navigate that responsibility without bending to stereotypes or expectations. Her rise as a global figure has not been accidental or opportunistic. It has been slow, intentional, and deeply personal.

Deepika explained that her international journey was never about simply entering Hollywood for the sake of visibility. It was about carrying her version of India — the one she knows, loves, and lives — into global spaces. “I was very clear about taking India to the world but the India that I know,” she said. That clarity shaped her choices early on. “For example, I think moving to Hollywood and trying to get into that industry like that or do it in a way that has been expected of us or do it in a way that suits a global audience was something I was very clear I didn’t want to do, even if it meant it took longer.”

That longer journey came with challenges. Deepika has often spoken about how representation of South Asians abroad has been limited, flat, and tied to over-simplified cultural cues. At the summit, she stressed how personally she has felt this. “What bothered me was every time I went to the West, this sort of idea of India that is so different from the India that I know. And all of those clichés, I’ve experienced it firsthand. Whether it’s when it comes to casting, whether it’s our accent, whether it’s the color of my skin, I’ve experienced all of it firsthand.”

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This is where patience became a key part of her artistic philosophy. Instead of fitting into scripts that exoticized her identity, she waited. “I wanted to do it my way and on my terms. And so did it take longer? Yes, it did.”

The payoff came not as a role, but as a billboard. She recalled the moment when her Louis Vuitton global campaign went up across Los Angeles. “Those hoardings were all across Sunset Boulevard, I remember. And I happened to be in LA at that time. And it felt weird, but I felt incredibly proud at the same time to see a brown face on a hoarding for a global luxury brand. Because I had never seen that before.”
But the pride wasn’t hers alone. “That moment for me didn’t feel like a personal victory. It felt like a victory for every Indian woman that needs to be seen in the way that she should be seen.”

Deepika’s journey is still unfolding. But she has made one thing unmistakably clear: representation without authenticity is just visibility. And she’s not interested in being seen — she is interested in being understood.