Mumbai, May 7 (IANS): Actress Parineeti Chopra, whose first solo film "Ishaqzaade" hits theatres Friday, holds three degrees in finance and always dreamt of becoming an investment banker. But global recession in 2009 changed her future, and she landed up as an actor.

"I am triple-qualified. I have done triple honours in Business, Finance and Economics. I have grown up wanting to be a banker, so studying finance was an automatic thing," the 23-year-old said.

"I went to England and studied in Manchester Business School. Then I went to London because I wanted to work in an investment bank. But recession hit in 2009 and I wasn't getting jobs and it was not because of my qualification, it was because they couldn't give jobs to who were not British nationals," she added.

That's when she had to return home.

"I came back to India and I wanted to do an internship for six months and I happened to come to the Yash Raj Films (YRF) office and I was very intrigued by this huge studio in Mumbai. So I said let me try," said Parineeti, who made her debut with YRF's "Ladies vs Ricky Bahl" in 2011.

Parineeti, who happens to be actress Priyanka Chopra's cousin, says her close proximity with the profession increased her interest in acting.

"I used to work with actors at very close quarters. My respect for the profession increased, I fell in love with acting, I loved what actors used to do and I always felt like I could do this and I could do this well. So I decided to become an actor," she said.

In "Ishaqzaade", Parineeti is paired opposite filmmaker Boney Kapoor's son Arjun.