While Perizaad Zorabian has been away from the movies for many years, she’s still a face which people haven’t forgotten. One look at her and one recalls the work she’s done in films like ‘Joggers Park’ and Amitabh Bachchan starrer ‘Ek Ajnabee’. She was at the peak of her career when she decided to get married and stopped doing movies. In a recent interview, Perizad revealed that she left a film with Anil Kapoor and Nikhil Advani’s ‘Salaam-e-Ishq’ when she got married. Today, instead of chasing scripts, Perizaad spends her time building a business empire. The company she once joined during a period of financial struggle has grown into a thriving enterprise with an annual turnover of around Rs 120 crore. ronically, acting was never part of the plan.Born into a Mumbai-based Irani family, Perizaad grew up idolising her father and dreaming of becoming an entrepreneur. Long before she knew what the word actually meant, she knew she wanted to follow in his footsteps. I was 8 and couldn’t even pronounce entrepreneur correctly, but I knew that’s what I wanted to be,” she said in an interview with Suketu Shah.After completing her studies in India, she moved to New York to pursue an MBA. During her time there, she came across the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute through a friend. Curious about acting, she enrolled and spent a year learning the craft after finishing business school.Even then, she returned to India with every intention of joining the family business. At a family gathering, a modelling coordinator noticed her and offered her a Fair & Lovely advertisement. One commercial led to another, and before long, filmmakers began taking notice. Soon, she was cast as the leading lady in Nagesh Kukunoor’s ‘Bollywood Calling’ opposite Om Puri. At the time, Kukunoor was among the most exciting independent filmmakers in the country, having already built a loyal audience through films like ‘Hyderabad Blues’ and ‘Rockford’.Perizaad agreed to do the film, took a month off from work and completed the shoot. But when the movie’s release got delayed, she simply went back to work.“I was fully hands-on at Zorabian,” she later recalled. Then came the turning point. When Pritish Nandy Communications acquired ‘Bollywood Calling’ and put Perizaad front and centre in its promotions, everything changed almost overnight. “My life changed after that,” she admitted. The timing couldn’t have been better. Indian English-language cinema was still a relatively unexplored space. There were only a handful of films being made and an equally small pool of actors associated with them. Perizaad suddenly found herself in demand.One project led to another. ‘Morning Raga’, ‘Joggers Park’ and ‘Mumbai Matinee’ followed, establishing her as one of the most familiar faces in the niche segment. Yet she never confused that visibility with mainstream Bollywood fame. “I was not a Bollywood star. I wouldn’t get the kind of attention that a Karisma Kapoor would get,” she said.Even as her acting career flourished, another life waited for her outside film sets. She continued splitting her time between movies and the family business until her father eventually asked her to choose one path. This time, she picked acting. The decision came with her father’s blessing.Over the next few years, Perizaad built an eclectic body of work. She shared screen space with Amitabh Bachchan in ‘Ek Ajnabee’, appeared in the television show ‘Hum Pardesi Ho Gaye’, performed extensively in theatre and even travelled to China for three months to star in ‘Bandung Sonata’, where she portrayed former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.Perizaad was 33 when she married businessman Boman Irani. Before their wedding, he expressed a preference that she avoid extensive travel after marriage. “My husband said, ‘Once we get married, I don’t want you to travel’. And my mother was like, ‘What nonsense! How can he say that?’ and my sister-in-law was like, ‘That’s it. Don’t get married. He already knew you were an actor. Why would he say something like that at the last minute?’”But Perizaad told her family, “He didn’t say you can’t travel. He said, ‘I will wait for you but I would prefer if you didn’t travel’. I didn’t take on another film after that.” The decision wasn’t solely about marriage. She was also thinking about motherhood. Her priorities had begun to shift. “Biologcal clock was ticking,” she said, explaining why she chose to focus on starting a family.Looking back, she acknowledged that having children helped her make peace with leaving films behind. “I knew the only way to be okay with it was to get pregnant, so I chose to have a family.” At that point, Subhash Ghai wanted her for ‘Black and White’ opposite Anil Kapoor. Nikhil Advani offered her a role in ‘Salaam-e-Ishq’ opposite Sohail Khan. She turned them all down. Her mother remained fiercely protective of her independence.“My mother told my husband, ‘She is a butterfly. Don’t clip her wings because she will wither away and die’.” Fortunately, Perizaad never felt trapped by the decision she made. Marriage brought new experiences, not fewer opportunities. She continued performing in theatre, worked on television projects and embraced motherhood. One memory remains especially close to her heart. “I had given birth to two children and I was at 48 kgs wearing a pair of shorts and standing in front of 1100 people to a standing ovation,” she recalled.While her film career faded into the background, another success story was quietly taking shape. When Perizaad first became actively involved in the family business, the company was struggling and carrying significant debt. Over the years, she helped transform it from a traditional wholesale poultry operation into a modern food business with interests spanning retail, ready-to-cook products and quick commerce. Today, the company employs around 700 people and generates approximately Rs 120 crore in annual revenue.Despite spending years in the poultry business, she remains extremely particular about what she eats. Perizaad has often said she consumes chicken every day, but avoids ordering it when dining out.
