Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra will soon be joining the ranks of Hollywood TV superstars Sofia Vergara (Modern Family), Sandra Oh (Grey's Anatomy) and Kerry Washington (Scandal). The actress in a hush hush meeting signed a deal with American studio ABC's Executive Vice President of Casting Keli Lee. A source reveals that Keli and Priyanka had a meeting where they discussed the way forward and how they will showcase her in Hollywood.
Priyanka first met Keli at the SAMMA (South Asians in Media, Marketing & Entertainment Summit) conference and later stayed in touch through their agents. The two were headline speakers at the summit. Lee is a big name in the West for scouting talent and casting female leads in strong roles in shows like “Scandal” and “Grey's Anatomy.”
Priyanka will make her debut in the upcoming ABC drama “Quantico,” centering on the FBI, and featuring an international starcast of other established actors. How big or central Priyanka's role in “Quantico” is not known. According to reports, she will play the role of Alex, one of the leads who discovers that the romantic interest she met on a flight (Jake McLaughlin) is actually an FBI agent. The serial itself centres on the life of agents at FBI (Quantico in Virginia is the HQ of FBI and also has a marine base), among whom is a sleeper terrorist who played a role in 9/11.
If Priyanka's role stretches deep into the drama and the serial gets extended into future seasons on the lines of franchises such as “Homeland,” “24,” “The Americans,” and similar thriller dramas, she'll be onto an epic journey in entertainment. Although several Indian-origin actors have begun to appear in TV serials (Dev Patel in Newsroom, Sakina Jaffrey in House of Cards, Annet Mahendru in The Americans, Kunal Nayyar in The Big Bang Theory, Mindy Kaling in The Office, Aziz Ansari in Parks and Recreations, Senthil Ramamurthy in Heroes and Covert Affairs, Parmindar Nagra in ER, Anil Kapoor in 24 and Archana Panjabi in The Good Wife, among others), no Bollywood star has made the cut in a sustained way.
