Pop Culture Confidential

Episode 16: Priyanka Chopra - From Bollywood Superstar to Hollywood Rising Star

Guest: Priyanka Chopra This week we interview one of the world’s biggest movie stars. She acts, she sings, she dances, and as an FBI agent in the new ABC drama “Quantico” she kicks some serious butt! Priyanka Chopra, the Bollywood superstar has over 50 films on her resume, and is now taking Hollywood by storm – and making history by being the first South Asian woman to headline a US network drama. Priyanka Chopra was born in Jamshedpur India, but as a teenager she lived for some years with her aunt in the United States. She returned to India in her late teens and at 18 she won the Miss World Title, an event that helped start her film career. Today Chopra is one of Bollywood's highest-paid actresses and a vocal advocate for women’s rights. She has shown herself to be extremely versatile by playing a range of unconventional characters, including a serial killer, a glamorous femme fatal, India’s real-life boxing champion Mary Kom and an autistic woman in the internationally acclaimed romantic comedy Barfi!. In “Quantico”, helmed by Joshua Safran of Gossip Girl fame, Chopra plays Alex Parrish, a new FBI recruit in training who is accused of a terrorist attack as the series begins. The series premiered in September on ABC and airs on Sundays. In Sweden it premieres October 19th on Kanal 5. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Duration:: 24m
Broadcast on:: 20 Oct 2015
Audio Format:: other

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you think about businesses that are selling through the roof like skims or all birds, sure, you think about a great product, a cool brand, and great marketing. But an often overlooked secret is actually the businesses behind the business, making selling and for shoppers buying simple. For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. It's home of shop pay, the number one checkout in the world. You can use it to boost conversions up to 50%, meaning way less carts going abandoned and way more sales going through to checkout. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout all birds uses. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com/income, all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com/income to upgrade your selling today, Shopify.com/income. This week on Pop Culture Confidential, one of the world's biggest stars, Priyanka Chopra, Bollywood superstar is taking Hollywood by storm in the new ABC hit drama, Quantico. It was only an hour ago that an explosion brought to the entire city. We got a tip right before the explosion, that it was an inside job at one of our own ages. It's crazy. How old do you know these people? Are you telling me you think one of these people is a terrorist? I never thought before I could save our country. Do you think I had something to do with this because if you do, I got- Hey, stop now Asian Parish, we know it's you. I'd have to save myself. Hi, I'm Christina Yerling-Biro. I will admit, I'm Starstruck. At 33 years old, Priyanka Chopra has already acted in over 50 films. She's the third highest paid actress in Bollywood. She has a huge singing career. She's collaborated with Pitbull among others. She's a vocal activist for girls and women's rights. And now she's a breakout star in the US on the new television series Quantico. Priyanka Chopra was born in Jamshadpur, India, to parents who were both physicians in the Indian Army. She spent her high school years in the US and returned to India in her late teens. At 18, she had won the Miss World title and her movie career took off. As a leading actress of Hindi cinema, she's shown herself to be extremely versatile, playing many unconventional characters, a serial killer, glamorous femme fatales, an autistic woman, and India's real life boxing champion, Mary Comme, in the biopic of the same name. Now Priyanka Chopra is starring in ABC's new drama Quantico by creator showrunner Joshua Saffron, who is formerly showrunner on Gossip Girl. She plays Alex Parrish, a new FBI recruiting training accused of a terrorist attack just as the series begins. Priyanka Chopra is making history as the first South Asian woman to headline a US network drama series. Miss Priyanka Chopra, thank you so much for joining me. And first off, congratulations on Quantico getting a full season pickup. Thank you. We're very excited. I've been looking at your schedule while waiting for this interview. Just flew in from India. You're filming on weekends there and weekends in the US. I mean, is that even physically possible? Well, I guess since I've been doing it, it must be. I didn't know it was before that and noted my co-actors, but you know, you have to do what you have to do, you know, those words are bombed and I had to finish my movie there and I have to finish Quantico as well. And the best way of doing this was to be able to fly out for the weekend and shoot Quantico in the weekdays. Are you one of those people that's not affected by a jet lag and stress and things like that or are you exhausted? I think my body is given up on jet lag now, but it does cream out once in a while and say that I want my bed, but you have to power through it, you know, drink lots of coffee and just arrive to film. Well, I understand that ABC Network, they sent you like 26 scripts to read and Quantico was your first choice. Why? I think I'm a huge fan of pop entertainment and that's kind of like the I am, I'm an entertainer and no matter where in the world I go, that's what I like to do. And the Quantico is that kind of show, you know, it was a word on it, which is my favorite. It keeps you on your toes, but at the same time it's not screaming that I'm out to take me seriously. You know, it doesn't take you intelligence around it, it keeps questioning everything that you know and asks you to be smarter than the writers. And I think that's really cool for a TV show. Quantico, they say it's the toughest bootcamp grad school all rolled into one. Now, let's see if you can survive. Nice to meet you. We had sex in your car six hours ago. Didn't think you'd want everyone to know that. Why not? And I love Alex's character. I think, you know, she's just a smart, modern woman of today and she's intelligent, she's sexy, you know, at the same time she's, you know, someone who's ahead of the game all the time, she's, you know, the best student in her class and at the same time tragedy strikes. So it's just a, it's just a great part and a great show and out of everything that ABC was making, Quantico was my favorite and I guess the rating for my decision. It's true. Did you do a lot of training before the filming started? There's some pretty impressive action. I know, but unfortunately, I've been trained in one of the most prolific film industries in the world, which is the Hindi movies and I've done a lot of action movies. So that really helped me. I didn't have to do much. In fact, it made Quantico a lot more easier for me. I didn't have to. I mean, every time I went into rehearsal, I would, I would get what I, you know, the action scenes and stuff faster because I just, I know and sometimes you have to shoot without your health skills because you don't have time or racing against time to make every episode. So I think it was easier for me to do it because of the experience I had in the Hindi movies. I understand that the Americans, the ABC network, they flew to your home to India to convince you to come over to the Hollywood and the network offered you those 26 scripts and you're one of the biggest, biggest stars in India with over 50 films. Is it been like starting over? In a way, I have to admit that ABC gave me the respect of being the international actor that I am and being in the position that I am, but it didn't look at me as if I was a new actor when it came to giving me the choices and that I got while I was doing this show. So I have a lot of respect for them for that. Usually, you know, when people look at actors from around the world, especially in a different industry, it's almost as if you're treated inferior, but ABC didn't do that. And I was very grateful for that, they listened to what I wanted to do. I was very clear that I didn't want to be cast for the color of my skin. I wanted to be cast on merit and I didn't want to do a stereotypical show where it was about where I come from, but I just am an actor and I wanted to be taken seriously for that. And they gave me that. I told that we're not written for an Indian girl, but it was still given to me and then conformed to who I am and the story was tweaked for me to be able to play it. So, you know, I think ABC took a chance on me just as I took a chance on them and it's something that's not been done before. And we both kind of walked into uncharted territory and it seems to have worked so far. We didn't know it would, there was no security. You must be so huge in over, I mean, you must be recognized the minute you put your foot on on the street from your home and in a way you're sort of introducing yourself again. Is that true? Yes, absolutely. And it's extremely disconcerting to be a newcomer after working in almost 50 movies and to introduce herself all over again to the world or to the other parts of the world that don't know me. And it's a bit disconcerting, but it's also exciting and thrilling because I'm doing it on my own terms and that's why I guess it makes me a little bit more comfortable. And if I'm introducing myself to the world and I have to be judged, then I might as well be judged on something that I believe in and Quantico is definitely something that I believe in. I get the impression that you've been very ballsy and you're acting choices back home in Bollywood. You've made some really interesting female characters and challenged yourself and the industry over there as well. Is that true? Well, that was not the reason why I did it, but I guess maybe my choices did. They have been, let's say they've been, they've not been the normal choices for a female actor. I always like to play empowered women, even if it's a small part or a big part. And I've been very fortunate that I've had film makers make or write characters which are empowered enough for me. So it's been great. Yeah, I've been allowed to make my choices and I've been allowed to play really powerful women and that's a really good feeling. I'm talking about one you played, Mary Comme, which is a biopic of an Indian female boxer and it looks just incredibly kick-ass. If I understand correctly, this is the first Bollywood film about a female athlete. Was that daunting? It was scary. It was a little bit scary, especially because Mary is almost my age and she's a living breathing person. Usually when you tell stories of people or you do biopakes, it's after they're much older, they're retired, but this is a living breathing person who is still a boxer and is still training for the Olympics and a huge asset to our nation. So that was the bigger challenge and plus I looked nothing like her. So I had to embody her spirit a lot more. So that was kind of interesting for me to do. It was a huge challenge and I'm glad to see that. I understand that as you seem to do, you make many movies at the same time and at one point while you were making that, you were so trained that when you went back to another movie, your arms were much too big. Yeah, I was filming Bill direct me though almost 10 days after I finished Mary Common for the first one month of the movie. I think I had to be given heaves because my shoulders were like a boxer and in that movie I played a really fragile, feminine girl who was stuck in, she's ambitious and she's extremely professionally successful but in a personal situation, she's just extremely fragile. So my director was just like, "Oh my God, with these arms, you're never going to look fragile." So she had to cover my arms for like at least a month. What would you describe now that you've been in Hollywood as the biggest difference for you as an actor between Bollywood and Hollywood? The fact that the language is different in English, we speak English here, we speak Hindi, but the madness and the chaos is the same. I think on any set, whether it's TV or there's always chaos, there's always 80s screaming for the actors to come on set, there's always directors saying what you have to do and you know you're always running against time, that's always the same. The big difference for me was TV versus feature because in features, we're a lot more language that we do like one scene in two days or three days, here you're doing 10 scenes in one day for the pace or something that was hard for me. I don't think it was as much of a difference between Bollywood and Hollywood for me. I mean, of course, except for the fact that we have music which plays a really important part of our film in India, but so does Quantico. Quantico has incredible music which is supported, which supports the screenplay and Josh Saffron was very short of that. But I guess the only difference for me was really the TV in the theatre. And you're making history as the first South Asian woman to headline a network drama series. I interviewed another South Asian actors, a daily show correspondent, Asif Manvi, and he was talking about sort of the U.S. stereotypes that it was for him while he was getting his career going in the state's cab drivers and such. Is it the same for you? Do you feel as a woman? Well, you know, when I came into doing this holding deal with ABC, I didn't have a point to prove. And I was very clear about the kind of part that I would do to ABC and to myself. I just knew that I've been given a certain position as an actor in India. And that's the kind of position I would like to take internationally to, whether it was America or any other country that I went in. So it wasn't an effort that I was trying to break American entertainment or the American industry. I just, I tried to reach out. I mean, I was trying to just expand myself as an actor and ABC gave me the ability to do that by putting me in the platform, which puts me in the same position as I was in India, you know. So I was very clear about that when I came in. And yes, of course, there are stereotypical parts made all over the world. And a lot of them came to me here as well. But I think I sat my ground and I knew that I wanted to break a stereotype if I ever did a bit about America. I, when I was growing up here in high school, I was very, I couldn't, I didn't see anyone on the front of me. And even if they did, it was usually approved from the Simpsons or, you know, who spoke a certain way or, so I knew that that was not something. I didn't want to be put in a box because of the way I know. I think I just wanted to be cast on my merit as an actor and that's what happened with Quantico. There must have been quite of an effort. I mean, you had already established many years of work to get these great roles in India before you came over here. Was it, was it, did, did you feel that it took many years for you? Did you have to prove something? Yeah. Well, it did take a couple of years to prove. I mean, I didn't come into the movie business already as an actor. I didn't know anything when I joined movies. I was 18. My film school has been my career. I've done films and parts, which helps me reach a point where people took me seriously enough to give me roles, which could embody empowered women. But it took a couple of years, obviously, I had to figure out what it takes to be an actor. I had to be an actor, which was worth my salt, to be able to do those roles. And it takes time to do that. I was just 18 years old when I started. Because I was quite touched because a reoccurring theme that you can see, I mean, I'm even in the gossip things here, but also in India was that there's, oh, the women of Bollywood are always fighting or this one is that one. But then when a couple of weeks ago, when you went over to Quantico or when you got it, there was this incredible show of solidarity from the women in Bollywood who sent you all these, I mean, I'm supposing very famous women who sent you all these messages of congratulations on social media and go get them over there in the US. And I thought that was quite an amazing show of solidarity. Absolutely. First of all, I think it's a myth and it's sort of a stereotype again, again, female actors because when two boys do a movie together, it's called a bromance, but when two women do a film together, it's called a cat fight. And I think that's something I've been trying to fight for a very long time. I get along with most of my female actors, in fact, a lot more than I do with the boys. And I think it's a new generation. It's a new breed. I think female actors are not insecure and we need to stop being stereotyped in that. I've always had so much support from my female contemporary co-actors in everything that I've done because I do all these. I push me on the lope and they're always like my champions. So I've not experienced that kind of ... I've not experienced that and I don't think it just happens with females, but I think it's just easier to make headlines when you say two female actors are quarrelling or jealous because that's what females are attributed with. But I don't think anymore. I think we've been very empowered and they're happy in their own space. My career has never been dependent on the failures and success of anyone else. It's always been my own and I don't think for anyone else either. So it was amazing to see the show of support from the Indian film industry, not just the women, but just everyone who came out and stood by me for this. It meant a lot. Switching gears a little bit. Last year you wrote a piece for The Guardian regarding, as UNICEF National Ambassador for India, which you are. You wrote about female genital mutilation and child marriage or destroying childhoods. I was stunned by the numbers that you quoted in your piece. I hadn't realized that it was 700 million women worldwide married as children and 130 million girls and women being cut. How should we start dealing with this? I think it's basically a mindset thing. We've been for eons, we've been told worldwide, not just in a particular few countries, worldwide we've been told that women should be a certain way or women need to speak a certain way or dress a certain way or behave a certain way. There have always been guidelines for women, but none for men. I think that's the stereotype that needs to be changed first, a mindset of the fact that women are asked to be able to make their choices and have opinions than to be subjugated and be submissive. Equality is a long way away and I'm a huge feminist when it comes to believing the fact that women need to be given the opportunity. We're walking in the direction of change. It'll take a long time, but I think people need to start sitting up and talking about opportunities and people need to start sitting up and talking about rights, basic human rights for women across the world. We sit in comfortable positions and I'm talking about you and me, not just in America, even in India. In a lot of countries in the world, we've been given the privileged position to be sitting in the comfort of our homes and talking about the rights of women, but at the same time, if you look around you and if you look around the globe, there are millions and millions of women who don't even have the right to speak or leave their homes. I think those are the women that we need to champion for as free women who have been raised to have my parents raised me to have opinions and to be able to say what I want. We need to champion those women who don't have that. And a quick question, because we haven't got a chance to talk about your big music career, you're singing with Pitbull, but you really wanted to be Mrs. Tupac Shakur, I understand. Oh, you know, teenage crushes, what do I say? As a teenager, everyone has their moments and mine was Tupac, I really, really loved him and his music and I was a '90s kid and hip-hop was a big part of who I was at that point. And yeah, that's what I wanted to do, but I guess as a teenager, you know, you have various choices. And Tupac was mine. It was as well. You must have been crushed when he died. Yeah, I wore a black for like a month to school with my hair down, I was in mourning. Well, will you continue working both in Hollywood and in India, you think? Yes, that's the plan. Hollywood was never a stepping film for me. It was always my career, it was always something that I did and I want to do. I have a draw since when I don't do a big song with a million dancers behind me. So yes, I intend to balance both. It will take a lot out of me for sure. It's exhausting. It's exhausting. It keeps flying back and forth. It's the choice that I've made and I want to be able to give both the film industries that I'm working in as much importance as I can. Any travel tips that we don't know since you seem to be living on an airplane? Don't do it because it's extremely brutal, but you have to do what you have to do, I guess. I hydrate a lot, that's what I do on planes and I try and sleep for the entire journey because I usually go from set to set and I think also what I do very importantly is that I moisturize a lot. I don't know that is something you want to know, but that's really important to keep your skin hydrated because these slides just take it out of you. You must be walking on sets and getting extreme movie makeup and then back on a plane and then of course that's it. Yeah, and I usually leave from set, get into a car and go to the airport, land and from the airport, but it was set, so yeah, you know, you have to find a way of keeping your skin going. What kind of like you've done now? Thank you so much for taking this time to talk to me and congratulations on the series of the show and everything else that you're doing. Thank you so much, Christina, lovely speaking to you. I hope you get a chance to see the show. It's starting there October 19th, right? On Monday, it's starting on the first week of the show, yes, so I'm sure it'll be just as big here, I'm sure. I hope so. I've received, my movies have always received so much support from you guys in that part of the world and so is my music actually and I just hope that, you know, people in Sweden like the show as well. Thank you so much and I hope you are off to a new set already now. I'm already in my makeup and hair chair. Okay. We'll have a really good day. Thank you so much with you, I love you speaking to you. Thank you to Priyanka Chopra. So Quantico premieres here in Sweden this Monday, October 19th on Canole Femme channel 5 and in the US, Quantico is on Sunday nights on ABC. And thank you for listening. Keep in touch. Give us a message on Twitter, the handle is @PODPOPCulture or send it to me @yurlingbiro, J-E-U-R-L-I-N-G-B-I-R-R-O. I'd love to hear from you. This episode was edited by Tom Hanson, music by Call Boy and produced by Renee Vitechett and myself, Christina Yurlingbiro. Thank you very much for listening. Hello podcast fans, it is I, Bruce Valanche. For over 25 years, I worked on the Academy Awards, so you didn't have to. Even that time, I've seen and heard things that should not be seen or heard or certainly felt. And now, for the first time, I'm sharing all my behind the scenes stories and firsthand knowledge about the Oscars, the blood, the sweat, the tears, the slap, all the things you didn't see. So join me as I use humor and insight to break down the Oscar Awards of the past to explain how and why your favorite movie didn't win. Why some actors and some directors had to fire their agents and how the whole process works or sometimes doesn't work. This is the Oscars, what were they thinking? Available wherever you get podcasts. [BLANK_AUDIO]