The Power of Priyan Ka

Priyanka Chopra Was Already a Huge Film Star in India When She Took on Abc’s Spy Thriller Quantico. With This Month’s Baywatch, She’s Set to Conquer America, Too.
 

- Kimberley Cutter

Priyanka Chopra DOES NOT BELIEVE IN PLANS.

When she was a teenager, she planned on becoming an aeronautical engineer, but she ended up becoming Miss World instead. Not long afterward, Priyanka planned to go to college, but Bollywood producers came along and persuaded her to try acting, and pretty soon, Priyanka had made more than 50 movies.

You’d think she would have learned her lesson, but no. A few years ago, Priyanka got restless and went to Los Angeles with plans to record an album. Instead, she found herself starring in the huge ABC show Quantico, with her face plastered all over billboards and buses and YouTube promos. “Yeah, plans and me don’t really work out,” says Priyanka with a throaty chuckle. “I’ve learned it’s better to just go with my instincts.”

We’re sitting in Priyanka’s Upper East Side living room in New York City, where she’s currently shooting the second season of Quantico—a fast-paced spy confection in which she stars as sexy, unstoppable CIA agent Alex Parrish. It’s a miserable January afternoon outside, but Chez Priyanka is a cosy, serene oasis of cream and pale-blue silk in the midst of which sits Priyanka herself, all dark hair and liquid eyes and ripped Levi’s, with her tiny new puppy, Diana, dozing on her lap.

At 34, Priyanka is an interesting combination of princess-like poise and earthy enthusiasm. Her posture is perfect, her head held high—as if she were still wearing that Miss World crown she won at 18. But her voice is a marvel of postcoital huskiness, and when she gets worked up in conversation, she gestures animatedly, like an excited teenager.