Priyanka Chopra: Sacrificed a lot to achieve what I have

Priyanka ChopraQ Its crazy how in the past twothree years your careers taken a completely new trajectory breaking into the American mainstream in particular I know you keep getting asked if you feel like Alice in Wonderland But is there a turning point fresh beginnings kinda story here say when the ABC vice presidentcasting Keli Lee met you for the first time and then what happenedA I dont think Im a discovery Im an experience Ah shes interesting lets launch her Thats never happened to me People had to experience me from the beginning of my career to now whenever they had to cast me and things have changed for me every twothree years right from the beginning Even the reason I was cast at ABC the network that produces Quantico was because I was told that would be an easy introduction to America for an Indian actor I can just transform myself to play an American FBI agent No Indian actor has been able to play a part like thatQ They got acquainted to you through your music with william Pit Bull that you launched in the USA No I just met her at a partyPriyanka Chopra in Emmy and OscarQ See thats a turning pointA But it wasnt a discovery She started talking to me and said You dont sound like a Bollywood actor I said What do you mean my accent No just the way you speak talk about cinema and actinghellip I said How many Bollywood actors have you met But you know What people say about Bollywoodhellip I said Exactly you have no idea So the conversation really started from there It wasnt like wow youre so beautiful exotic and I must cast you It came from the way I see talent crossing over to global cinema Even the reason I was signed up as a recording artiste isnt because I can sing Everyone can sing But I was told again that I was an easier fit somehow I dont know what that means because Im just being me mdash the same there as I am here So I dont know what worked But clearly something I did rightQ And you get there and youre on your 30th birthday at Bonos house or the White House Correspondents Dinnerhellip You didnt see these moments as whoa whats upA When I was 17 I became Miss World and then was thrown into this world of Hindi cinema I had met major global leaders when I was 1718 So the shock of meeting celebrities went away at an early age Now at least in the business whether in India the US or UK I meet people as colleagues I come from a place of someone who knows her job rather than a place of awe Musicians I get awestruck by still I was so starstruck at the Billboard awards mdash Oh my god thats Sting Also I didnt grow up on movies My teenage years were about Oh that album is dropping This year though every twothree weeks something new would happen the kind of receptionPriyanka Chopra in Billboard Music AWwards and Peoples Choice AwardsQ Well we were sort of awestruck mdash oh shes on the Time 100 Most Influential cover ah at the Oscars oh making headlines twirling at the EmmyA Well what I would do at the red carpet like last night at Stardust awards hanging out with the press was exactly what I was doing at the Emmy mdash twirling with my dresshellip I go as me And Im so grateful that people react to me being me Which is why it is easy Because Im not trying to be ambassador of Indian cinema or anything Im just an actor So what was happening this year to my mom my team was just like mdash Okay what next and what next Im working and results are bound to come but it was just about the kind of acceptance in a different country My show started airing September last year So Im just a year old I dont even have a movie released just yet Sure normal network audiences on the streets know me in the US because of Quantico But dekha jaye toh technically its just been a year And there are only 14 people who present at the Oscars so that was very coolQ Your year and half in the US was also an important year and half for the US itself given the elections Youve spoken before about having lived in the US Iowa Newton Queens between 12 and 16 and you returned because of mean racist teens in your class What did you make of Trump winning the electionA I only work there Who am I to see anything in Trump winning But yes I saw a lot of disappointment among friends colleagues I sensed confusion among people over what had happened Every country has its issues We have ours they have theirs You have to accept where you are This is it now You have to focus then on how to bring your country together than dividing it furtherPriyanka Chopra in Time Mag 100 Most Influential BashQ What does Trumps election say about the America you had to leave as a kid because of racist jibesA When I look back I know that the Mean Girls happened to me in high school because it was high school I dont think that girl who was an AfricanAmerican herself came from a place of hate It was just hitting me where it hurt because of competitiveness In retrospect I realised school is mean Especially high schoolQ Even with your music appearing on NFL Thursday night there was trolling where you got called an Arab terrorist Does that reflect Trumps AmericaA I think its unfair to judge Weve all voted some impractical leaders all over the world Its up to us to find out what this will end up being One thing we forget to do as nations around the world is work with each other We spend much time throwing stones at our government or wondering what has this country done for us Truly what have you done for your country humanity and each other Im not trying to sound like some Miss World laughs But its true If were so swayed by what one government leader says and dont hold on to what we believe in then theres no prospectPriyanka Chopra in Instyle AwardsQ Workwise how have things been for you when youd flit between Quantico and a film like Bajirao Mastani or Jai GangaaJal which are diametrically opposite worlds and you shot for them at the same time rightA Yes Baywatch Season 1 of Quantico Bajirao and GangaaJal were shot at the same timeQ Thats nuts You were flying down every weekend to shoot in IndiaA To Wai not even Bombay I would land in Bombay Saturday night Sunday morning take a chopper to Wai shoot the whole day take a chopper again and fly back to Montreal to shoot Monday morningsPriyanka Chopra in 102nd White House Correspondents Association DinnerQ What does that do to your worklife balance Do you have a life at allA Laughs I mean yeah I do have a life But Im also on the cover of Time But you know what there is no such thing as free lunch I havent said this before I have truly sacrificed a lot in life to achieve what I have and I am okay with it Because Im one of the very few people in the world to get the opportunities and acceptance I have I dont think about taking those two months offQ Forget two months off do you even get time to go on datesA I generally dont understand the concept of dating Ive said this before and people thought that I meant Id never dated Which is not what Id said In India we dont date na You meet friends of friends you vibeDonald Trump Q This is clearly a prehistoric preTinder India youre talking aboutA Okay maybe I havent Tindered yet laughs Ive never been out on a date with a guy to be in a relationship Ive always been in relationships because you end up meeting people So yeah I do get time to do that kind of thing I make time for itQ Are you dating someoneA Wow Thats straight up Hmmm long pause Thats for me to know and you to find outQ That long pause was for this answerA Laughs Yeah because I really think that you are single until you are marriedQ Fair enough Now when you were working on Bajirao at the same time as Quantico what did you have to do to enter such different head spacesA Yes theyre two different people completely in terms of body language voice dialecthellip Ones a Maharashtrian queen from 1700s the other a modern brash American girl whos bold brave brazen But Im an instinctive actor and this may not sound as glamorous as method acting But my method that I sort of learnt myself is to understand the character or what kind of person she is really well She then becomes my best friend or someone I live with I know Alex in Quantico that well so you can throw me into any scene and I will know the peripheries between action and cut of what she will do This helps me do multiple characters Thats why I do three to four films at the same time and can pull them off My instincts kick in Its not like I become Kashi from Bajirao I lose Priyanka completely Im not taking on shades of somebody else as an actor I step out of me and step into someone else Thats primarily what acting actually is If I have to pinch myself and say Im in pain then Im not actingQ Does the switch in language in your case from Hindi to English come easy Do you think in Hindi or EnglishA Im not sure I can think in both Hindi and English have both been like my first languages I do Hinglish also And now Im trilingual because I speak American which is a completely different language Its not English at all So the language doesnt make it difficult the dialect does I had a dialogue coach in Bajirao as I did for Quantico I had to learn body language Doing both together was an incredibly beautiful challenge On the plane I had to switch It was funQ In any country we often change our accent to be understood better Do you go through the same thing Is your English accent in India different from when youre in the USA Im sure but I dont do it consciously I try to speak coherent English Its probably the global accent at the moment When Im in America I have an Indian accent apparently And when Im in India I apparently have an American accent It really depends on the ears of people hearing me I just talk like me There is no deliberate changeQ Thats the one stereotype you broke I think mdash an Indian on American television parodying the headbobbing Indian accent as it wereA It was my pet peeveQ Like the Delhi boy Kunal Nayyar on Big Bang TheoryA Kunal and Ive met him still has a decent normal Indian accent He sounds a lot different to us because he is in an American environment I play a proper American girl not even IndianAmerican like Mindy Kaling The hardest part for me was to convince America that Im American like it was to convince Maharashtra that Im the wife of a Peshwa Thankfully they were both convincedQ Will that apply to Baywatch your Hollywood debut as wellA Baywatch is completely different Ethnicity has nothing to do with my character I could be whatever I wanted to be So I dont know how Ive spoke in the filmQ But youre in America or Miami in the film thoughA Yes She is a businesswoman of Indian descent in America but that has nothing to do with the story She is just this rich ostentatious bomb chick who wants to kill these guys My accent is sort of Queens English I think Im confusedQ Man Baywatch used to be huge back in the day in India Most kids lost their virginity to that showA It will be good fun Its rated R so I dont know what will happen in India makes a scissor with her fingers referring to the Censors But itll be a goodQ Now theres Deepika Padukone in XXX with Vin Diesel Of course you were the first But do you see doors opening up as a resultA As it should We are onefifth of the worlds population and were only talking about me in Quantico in 2016 and going Oh my god First Indian actor to break into the mainstream Of course the door should open and onefifth of the world should have representation in global entertainment And why havent we been able to do that Why should the conversation about diversity be only about black or white people What about the rest of the world You just basically have to be the best for the job to fight this battle for diversity You cant have characters written for your ethnicity or the way you look In India it is different Because we all look the same So we dont have that fight With heroines we just say Haan thodi sundar aur gori honi chahiye laughs thoda aur makeup laga do They used to do that with me in the beginning What Im saying is I really hope all actors and talents from India really do it mdash Deepika Sonam Kapoor has signed up with UTA United Talent Agency nowhellip I hope some of the boys do it too They have to come out of their comfort zone Its very different from doing one film sometime Thats not consistency Our films already go across the world and theyre in Hindi which is spoken in one country and yet we compete with HollywoodQ Anushka Sharma in a recent interview told us how proud shes of you and the key to your confidence is that youre an Army kid like many female actors in Bollywood No doubt your confidence levels on some of Americas top talk shows weve seen is commendableA The best thing I wear is my confidence But I was raised like that Not too many girls are privileged to get that My parents never differentiated between me and my brother We were told that its a good thing to be outspoken mdash which is the opposite of what girls had been told And a lot of confidence does come from discipline of Army life and that we grew up in a middle class family and were never made to feel entitled It taught me never to take my work for granted Ill never come late for work be unprofessional or not arrive at all Actors earn so much money and one feels that it must be an easy life Its not It involves a lot of sacrifice and dedication Like an athlete you just keep going wearing blinkers and in the right direction all the time Otherwise you will never have a legacy And Im talking about actors who are remembered Thats where I want to end upQ As an outsider always moving up rather than looking back you appear to have the same drive as Shah Rukh Khan Hes been your costar but the reason Im saying this is because I saw a quote of yours I wear my success on my Tshirt rather than tuxedoA A tuxedohellip Yes it was quoted from him It wasnt my quoteQ Has he been a huge inspirational figure for youA Well I have derived inspiration mdash and have said this many times mdash from most of my colleagues I didnt know anything when I joined the industry So I cant isolate one person But inherently as a child I have always been driven competitive wanting to come first in class debates elocution plays sports everything I was that kid So I guess the inherent nature of the person stays the same I always wanted to be an achiever I didnt know what that meant mdash being a musician doctor or what