Priyanka Chopra dons the role of a FBI recruit in TV series Quantico. She tells Rupinder Kaur that it took a few episodes to get used to the TV shooting pace
Versatile actress Priyanka Chopra is on a roll. In a few days, you will see her playing a hard core FBI trainee on the American primetime series Quantico; a few days ago she was nominated by VH1 at the 2015 Europe Music Awards under the Best India Act category; she will be seen in Sanjay leela Bhansali’s magnum opus Bajirao Mastani and also in Jai Gangaajal.
Our obvious question is how, and Chopra responds with, “I don’t sleep a lot. It sure is physically difficult hopping from one continent to another but I guess where there is a will, there is a way. I do manage to find a couple of hours to myself.”
The actress, who was last seen in Dil Dhadakne Do, shares that the Hindi film projects are important and wants to balance between her work in Bollywood and other career choices.
Talking about her half-Indian-half-Caucasian character Alex Parrish, she says, “Alex is an incredibly empowered and a modern day character. She, at the same time, is extremely flawed and has her issues.” Her character is suspected of masterminding one of the biggest terror attacks on New York after 9/11 so “it gets tense and she has to figure out what really happened.”
But does Chopra relate to her on-screen character and she responds, “Overtime she’ll become like me. Right now, I call Alex my alter ego. I’m very shy and introverted in life but Alex lives life on her own terms.”
She further shares that the character of Parrish was not written while keeping any particular ethnicity in mind. Creator Joshua Safran found her to be “perfect” for the role in the ABC thriller.
The Mary Kom actress says that she’s been fortunate enough to receive the creative freedom she needs from whoever she’s worked with over the years. “It’s about respect and rapport. I’ve had a lot of freedom and it’s been fun.”
Her first single In My City (2012) featuring rapper will.i.am was also the anthem for NFl (National Football league) and she is also the first Indian actress to be cast in a leading role of an American series. “I always liked coming first,” she laughs, “but I don’t think about that. I just go to work.”
It took her two-three episodes to catch up with the pace of shooting a television series. “It was different. You would shoot one scene in like two days for a film but here, there were nine scenes being shot in a single day. I got used to it,” Chopra tells us.
(Quantico will simulcast on Star World, Star World HD and Star World Premiere HD from October 3, every Saturday at 9 pm)