Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra wants to be the female Jack Bauer

Posted In : Gossips
(added 29 Sep 2015)

Priyanka Chopra might be the biggest star you’ve never heard of — at least in the US. Many people around the world already know about Chopra — the Indian actress/singer has appeared in more than 40 Bollywood films since being crowned Miss World in 2000 and boasts an impressive 11 million Twitter followers. But the Mumbai native is a newcomer to mainstream American audiences, making her TV debut in “Quantico,” premiering Sunday at 10 p.m. on ABC. Priyanka Chopra, 33, plays Alex Parrish, one of a diverse group of FBI recruits who arrive at the bureau’s Quantico Base for training. Flash forward nine months, and she’s been framed for masterminding the largest terrorist attack on New York City since 9/11. “She’s a little like [“24”’s] Jack Bauer — a fugitive on the run, super- smart and intelligent,” Chopra tells The Post. “She’s ballsy and bold and badass and yet, at the same time, she’s feminine and vulnerable and a celebration of female empowerment.” To clear her name, Alex must figure out which of her fellow recruits — including an observant Muslim with a double life, a pretty-boy FBI legacy and an orphaned Southern belle — is the real terrorist. Think “Grey’s Anatomy” meets “Homeland” with a whodunit mystery thrown in. “It is really a show about human relationships, we just happen to be FBI agents,” Chopra says. “There will be romantic relationships, there will be friendships, there will be enemies.

Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra wants to be the female Jack Bauer

Basically everything that happens in a college — and the college just happens to be Quantico.” The episodes jump in time between the present (the FBI Academy training) and future (the aftermath of the terrorist attack) — meaning Chopra has to play two versions of the same character, often within the same shooting day. “It drives me crazy,” she says. “We go back and forth from future Alex to present Alex and my hair and makeup and continuity department is going in a tizzy. It’s insane. It’s chaos on the set.” Whether the two timelines meet at some point, “is something you’re going to find out as we go along in the season,” Chopra says, before quickly revising her answer. “I actually don’t know. I’m trying to sound cool by saying you’ll find out but I have no idea — they don’t tell me anything!” And that, perhaps, has been the biggest change for this movie actress, who is used to knowing exactly how a script ends. That and the relentless pace of TV, which is amplified by the fact that Chopra is still actively filming Bollywood movies in addition to shooting “Quantico” in Montreal — necessitating occasional long weekend trips back to India (two days of travel for two days of filming). “It’s almost negligible sleep and insane amounts of plane rides, but I’m doing it,” she says. “Your body is screaming out to you to not abuse it so much but I love what I do in my Hindi films, as well as with ‘Quantico,’ and I want to be able to balance both.”

(added 29 Sep 2015) / 885 views

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