Priyanka Chopra’s dog is jetlagged.
Diana, a small chihuahua-terrier mix, is meandering around this lower Manhattan apartment, occasionally glancing up as if to say, “You can stay, but I just need to lie down.” What Diana wants is to sit down with her mom and recuperate, but that’s not on the agenda right now. Right as Diana licks my hand, Chopra swings through the door in a green dress and big sunglasses, welcomes everyone to her home, and lets out a big laugh. She apologizes for the place being a mess (it isn’t) before disappearing into a backroom with a couple of stylists.
The whole moment happens in a whirlwind—a pace Chopra seems to prefer. She flew in from Ireland on Sunday, and Monday started a press extravaganza to promote this week's season premiere of Quantico. The Tonight Show on Tuesday, Good Morning America on Thursday. Then tonight at 10 P.M., Season Three will finally be underway.
It’s a three-day schedule that would make Jesus tired, but Chopra is down. When she reemerges from her room, she’s changed into a furry purple sweater that matches Diana’s harness. She mentions that even though she’s running on no sleep, she’s good to go. “This is when everything starts being funny,” she says.
In some ways, the Indian actress isn’t too different than her character, FBI-turned-CIA-turned-FBI agent Alex Parrish. They are both poised, intelligent women who seamlessly jump from one country to the next. They each radiate an impossible beauty under moments of intense stress, and both know a number of different languages—including American Sign Language, which comes in handy as Oscar-winner Marlee Matlin joins the cast this season.
But that’s about where the similarities end. In between on-set stories and talking about her upcoming films, Chopra teaches me how to say “bitch, please” in ASL. Agent Parrish would have no time for such nonsense. She has enough to worry about.
When Quantico returns this week on ABC, the series will have jumped three years into the future. After last season’s finale, in which Alex broadcasted classified information to the public, she has been listed as a fugitive. She’s on the run in Italy, having started a new life. But while Alex has become accustomed to, in Chopra’s words, “being in the Tuscan sun, glorious hair, slit up my thigh, with a gun,” that all quickly comes to an end. This season’s first crisis involves Shelby (Johanna Braddy) who has been kidnapped by a new antagonist known as “The Widow.”
While the show is happily settled into its third season, this year feels like a whole different beast. With a new showrunner and only five remaining original cast members (in addition to Chopra and Braddy, Jake McLaughlin, Blair Underwood, and Russell Tovey will return), Quantico has undergone a bit of a reset. “I guess coming into Thursday night and taking Scandal’s spot shows the network’s confidence in the show,” Chopra says, “I hope that people will love it. This year’s a very different tone—you don’t have to watch Season One or Season Two to start this season, because everything has changed.”
The premise of Quantico, however, continues to be the same. The show that started with terrorist attacks, racial profiling, rogue leaders, and international relations remains true to form, no matter how uncomfortably close its own storyline gets to reality. (Last season dabbled in Russian collusion and a Muslim registry.) Below, Chopra sits down with me (on her very comfortable white couch) and explains what’s coming for Quantico’s third season, how the show isn’t afraid to steal from the news, and how she’s always going to keep one foot in India.
After jumping three years into the future, where does that leave Alex and the rest of the cast?
The beginning of this season, which brings us all together, is that Shelby gets kidnapped because I have a code that this bad guy wants. Her name is The Widow. And I am hiding in my idyllic life under the Tuscan sun until Ryan comes and gets me to say, “We need you. We need the code.” She comes into New York and she realizes she'll always be an agent. That was the reason she joined the FBI, to serve. She’s very patriotic; she loves her country. As soon as she sees that her country needs her, she leaves and starts living here.
And she’s not with Ryan right now?
Her relationship status is complicated.
What’s it like moving to a 13-episode season, as opposed to doing 22 before?
We had such a revamp this year, and I love that the season is 13 episodes now. It’s a whodunnit show—you don’t want to wait 22 episodes for the answer to a whodunnit kind of show. Plus this year, we’ve really gone global. The show goes to about 64 countries around the globe, so I think it’s great for us to be able to cater to all of that. We start in Tuscany, we end in Dublin, and within this season, there are countries that liaise with America. We have a lot political dealings that come with that—the FBI and our black ops team comes into play.
A lot of shows have shied away from storylines that hit a little too close to home. It’s hard keeping up with the headlines.
[Chopra laughs, as she puts her face into the couch.]
What’s it like covering stories that align so closely with the news?
I love that we rip headlines off of newspapers for the theme of the show, especially this season. Every episode this season has a button to it—a case that will end with each episode. The drama between all the character continues, but the show is so topical and relevant. When you take entertainment and relevant things that need to be spoken about and mix them together, that makes for good TV. That’s the recipe of this show. We always talk about that. We take on the relevant [topics]—this year, they're global political problems with reference to America. And while we do it, you have really good looking people showing you your point of view.
Speaking of the cast, what’s it like working with Marlee Matlin?
Oh my God, I adore her. Initially, you know, I was a little bit nervous. I know a lot of people from the deaf community, but Marlee is such an accomplished actor that I didn’t know what that would mean. She came in and taught me so many bad words in ASL. I love it. I really do. She’s just such a cool chick. She brings in a Big Mama vibe on set. When we were in Ireland, she would insist everyone go out together. You know, she’s just amazing on set.
Now that you’ve wrapped Quantico, do you have anything lined up elsewhere?
I have two very active, very relevant careers on two different continents. For that, I need to be able to balance both, strategically, because I don’t want to have to choose. And I don’t think it’s mutually exclusive either. The world is such a small place. It takes a 16-hour flight: I can get to the other side of the world, and it’s not a big deal.
So far I’ve been able to do it, and I want to continue to do it. But doing a 13-episode show helps me a lot. Last year I couldn’t do that many movies. I did two though, even though my hiatus was just two months. I want to be able to do features. I want to be able to do Indian movies. I want to be able to do fun, cool things, with a lot of the philanthropy that I do. And producing, I produce so much.
And you have a film called Bharat coming up, right?
I’ve finished up two films: A Kid Like Jake, which comes out in June. And Isn’t it Romantic?, which comes out Valentine’s Day 2019. I play a spoiled rich woman who is a yoga guru, which is not a thing. [Bharat] is the Indian movie I signed this year. It’s the quintessential Bollywood movie, which I haven’t done in many years. A lot of them were dramatic and thematic. This one’s going to be out and out entertainment. I’m excited! I haven’t been back to do a movie in two or three years now.
The last time you spoke with Esquire, you said that Bollywood was just a corner of what you do.
I can explain that more. When people say, “You’re doing a Bollywood movie,” they only think of Bollywood movies being synchronized song and dance. Bollywood is the name for an entire industry. Those aren’t the only kind of movies we make. We have every other genre. Yes, music is a very important part of it, but we don’t have synchronized dancing in everything we do. Plus, Bollywood is not a place.
Every country and every culture has its stereotype, I get that. Here, everyone has superpowers and aliens only land in America. I just really want Indian cinema to break through that and for people to be introduced to the other forms of Indian cinema we have.
You’ve had a heavy hand in starting to change that conversation around Indian and South Asian artists.
We were laughing at the Emmys two years ago when Riz Ahmed won his Emmy for drama for The Night Of. Aziz [Ansari] and I were laughing, saying, “There are six South Asian people at the Emmys! Yes!” Which is a big number from a few years ago when there were like, two. So we’re making a dent. But I hope globalization and global entertainment means representation in the right way, and I hope that happens in my lifetime.
With Quantico potentially getting a fourth season, where would you want to go next?
I’m an actor and an artist, and I want to go where my work takes me. I don’t want to settle for one or two countries, I want the world. I’m very clear about it. As long as people want to watch me, I want to entertain.
To me, being an Indian actor, or an actor of South Asian descent, or a woman of color, or an immigrant—whichever title you like—being all of those people and being in America and getting the kind of welcome and love I’ve gotten within the industry, it feels like a sense of acceptance. I hope with me getting that acceptance, it opens up the floodgates for more people who look like me. I hope that sort of makes the conversation for actresses or people of color to get more opportunities because it’s the opportunities that lack.
Lead photo: Sweater by Eleanor Balfour
