Priyanka Chopra

Priyanka Chopra Jonas ( Chopra; born 18 July 1982) is an Indian actress and producer.

Chopra was born on 18 July 1982 in Jamshedpur, Bihar (present-day Jharkhand), to Ashok and Madhu Chopra, both physicians in the Indian Army.

Her father was a Punjabi Hindu from Ambala.

Her mother, Madhu Chopra was a Bihari-Magahi Hindu from Jharkhand and is the eldest daughter of Dr. Manohar Kishan Akhouri, a former Congress veteran, and Madhu Jyotsna Akhouri, a former member of Bihar Legislative Assembly.

Chopra's maternal grandmother, Mrs. Akhouri, was a Malayali Jacobite Syrian Christian originally named Mary John, belonging to the Kavalappara family of Kumarakom, Kottayam district, Kerala.

Chopra has a brother, Siddharth, who is seven years her junior.

Bollywood actresses Parineeti Chopra, Meera Chopra, and Mannara Chopra are cousins.

Owing to Chopra's parents' professions as military physicians, the family was posted in a number of places in India, including Delhi, Chandigarh, Ambala, Ladakh, Lucknow, Bareilly, and Pune.

Among the schools she attended were La Martiniere Girls' School in Lucknow and St. Maria Goretti College in Bareilly.

In an interview published in Daily News and Analysis, Chopra said that she did not mind travelling regularly and changing schools; she welcomed it as a new experience and a way to discover India's multicultural society.

Among the many places that she lived, Chopra has fond memories as a child of playing in the valleys of Leh, in the cold northwestern Indian desert region of Ladakh.

She had said, "I think I was in Class 4 when I was in Leh. My brother was just born. My dad was in the army and was posted there. I stayed in Leh for a year, and my memories of that place are tremendous. We were all army kids there. We weren't living in houses, we were in bunkers in the valley and there was a stupa right on top of a hill which used to overlook our valley. We used to race up to the top of the stupa".

She now considers Bareilly her home town, and maintains strong connections there.

At 13, Chopra moved to the United States to study, living with her aunt, and attending schools in Newton, Massachusetts, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, after a stop in Queens, New York, as her aunt's family also moved frequently.

While in Massachusetts, she participated in several theatre productions, and studied Western classical music, and choral singing.

During her teenage years in the United States, Chopra sometimes faced racial issues and was bullied for being Indian by an African-American classmate.

She has said, "I was a gawky kid, had low self-esteem, came from a modest middle-class background, had white marks on my legs. But I was damn hard working. Today, my legs sell 12 brands."

After three years, Chopra returned to India, finishing the senior year of her high-school education at the Army Public School in Bareilly.

During this period, Chopra won the local May Queen beauty pageant, after which she was pursued by admirers; her family equipped their home with bars for her protection.

The winner of the Miss World 2000 pageant, Chopra is one of India's highest-paid actresses and has received numerous accolades, including two National Film Awards and five Filmfare Awards.

Her mother entered her in the Femina Miss India contest of 2000; she finished second, winning the Femina Miss India World title.

Her acting debut came in the Tamil film Thamizhan (2002), followed by her first Bollywood feature in The Hero: Love Story of a Spy (2003).

She played the leading lady in the box-office hits Andaaz (2003) and Mujhse Shaadi Karogi (2004) and had her breakout role in the 2004 romantic thriller Aitraaz.

Chopra established herself with starring roles in the top-grossing productions Krrish and Don (both 2006), and later reprised her role in their sequels.

She has worked with UNICEF since 2006 and was appointed as the national and global UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for child rights in 2010 and 2016, respectively.

Her namesake foundation for health and education works towards providing support to underprivileged Indian children.

Despite maintaining privacy, Chopra's off-screen life, including her marriage to American singer and actor Nick Jonas, is the subject of substantial media coverage.

The couple has one daughter.

On Instagram, Chopra is the most-followed Indian actor.

For playing a troubled model in the drama Fashion (2008), Chopra won a National Film Award and a Filmfare Award for Best Actress.

Chopra gained further praise for portraying a range of characters in the films Kaminey (2009), 7 Khoon Maaf (2011), Barfi! (2012), Mary Kom (2014), Dil Dhadakne Do (2015) and Bajirao Mastani (2015).

From 2015 to 2018, Chopra starred as Alex Parrish in the ABC thriller series Quantico, becoming the first South Asian to headline an American network drama series.

Founding the production company Purple Pebble Pictures in 2015, she produced several films under it, including the Marathi films Ventilator (2016) and Paani (2019), and the self-starring Hindi biopic The Sky Is Pink (2019).

In 2016, the Government of India honoured her with the Padma Shri, and Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

In the next two years, Forbes listed her among the World's 100 Most Powerful Women, and in 2022, she was named in the BBC 100 Women list.

Chopra accepted offers to join the Indian film industry following her pageant wins.

Chopra has also appeared in Hollywood films, such as Baywatch (2017), Isn't It Romantic (2019), The White Tiger (2021), and The Matrix Resurrections (2021), and starred in the action thriller series Citadel (2023).

Chopra ventured into music by releasing three singles and into writing with her memoir Unfinished (2021), which reached The New York Times Best Seller list.

Her other ventures include tech investments, a haircare brand, a restaurant, and a homeware line.

She promotes social causes such as environment and women's rights and is vocal about gender equality, the gender pay gap, and feminism.