Priyanka Chopra: Reinventing Myself

Priyanka tells her story of becoming the bold new Asian face on American television after her sensational Quantico debut.

- Sharin Bhatti

The ripples started last year. In 2014, Priyanka Chopra made an appearance at the Golden Globe Awards and its after-party in a strapless Burberry dress and a Bibhu Mohapatra. Team Priyanka—her managers and promoters in the US—made it known that the ‘Bollywood star and exotic singer’ was indeed in Beverly Hills. There she was, sashaying down the Hollywood red carpet alongside Julia Roberts, Lena Dunham, Jennifer Lawrence and Tina Fey, in relative anonymity. It was early in the year, the award season had just begun, and even though her presence in Hollywood won her admiring glances, it did not arouse much curiosity.

It’s the fall of 2015 now and Priyanka Chopra, 33, has become an American TV icon. She is the luminously-haired, brown-skinned, accented and luscious Alex Parrish from the three episodes-old ABC drama series Quantico, star trainee of the FBI and someone who is accused of ‘the biggest terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11’. The Hollywood press has fallen in love with Priyanka’s Alex. They are lauding her performance, her charm, her strong female characterisation, and how she stands a cut above the rest of the show’s cast. With this, she joins America’s gilded list of multicultural stars on television, like Taraji P Henson’s Cookie (Empire), Viola Davis’ Annalise Keating (How to Get Away with Murder) and Kerry Washington’s Olivia Pope (Scandal).

And the praise is still pouring in. The New York Times has called Priyanka ‘the strongest human asset in