Is there anything that Priyanka Chopra Jonas can’t do? This was exactly the thought that ran through my mind a couple of years ago when I saw the Indian superstar going from being a guest to taking over the stage during the opening of the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre in Mumbai. Wearing a modern sari in bright colours and shimmer, she danced and lip-synced with ease to the hit song Gallan Goodiyaan from the Bollywood movie Dil Dhadakne Do alongside Ranveer Singh. The crowd, naturally, rejoiced with excitement.
A similar feeling of awe took over when I was preparing for this profile piece and received the first clips of one of Chopra Jonas’s latest Hollywood projects. In The Bluff, she plays the role of an ex-pirate who fearlessly does everything in her power to save her family from a vengeful former captain. It involved very lethal stunts, which she performed herself while filming the project, including bold moves manoeuvring guns and swords. “You are very good at killing people,” one of the characters tells her in the trailer. I had to agree.
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“It was physical and emotional. The Bluff is a hard-hitting drama as well. It’s an action thriller,” she tells me over a very early Zoom call from Los Angeles. “It felt like a big responsibility,
with a heavy part. Personally, as a mother, it’s about how far a woman would go to protect her family. What would you do to protect your children? And that was what really fed me in this part. There’s physicality, but I’ve done action movies before. This was not just about that.” On Amazon Prime Video since 25 February, The Bluff captured Chopra Jonas’s attention immediately. “When I got the script, I read it in one go. As soon as I was done, I was just like, ‘This is incredible,’” she says. “I want to be inspired every time I go to a set. Now, after being in the industry for 25 years, I’m in a position where I am able to choose what makes me want to go to work every morning.”
Looking back, Chopra Jonas started a stratospheric career in India, gaining major recognition at the age of 18, when she represented her country and won the Miss World pageant in 2000. Instantly, she attracted the attention of different filmmakers and producers. For her cinematic debut in 2002, she bagged a role in Thamizhan, while in 2003 she became a part of The Hero: Love Story of a Spy and Andaaz, two projects that premiered in the same month. After she took the trophy for Best Female Debut for her performance in Andaaz at the Filmfare Awards, things moved at the speed of light. “I was thrown into the ground running,” she remembers, with a laugh. “I’m the kind of person that if I have a challenge, I will choose to survive and thrive. I have always been competitive, even with myself. Either in the pageant world or cinema, I wasn’t related to anyone, so there was no one who was going to help me out in this business. I had to learn really fast.”
The actress confides that even when she was not shooting, she would never sit alone in her trailer, using every opportunity to learn and observe from more experienced colleagues, absorbing all their creative choices. However, that was not enough to help her master the art of dancing, a key element in any Bollywood production. “I was a dreadful dancer when I first started,” she points out. “I was not able to act and nail the choreography at the same time, plus coordinate with my co-star. It was just too many things for my 19- or 20-year-old brain!” This led to some stressful situations on set and friction with one particular powerful choreographer. “I was filming with Raju Khan in South Africa and missing my marks. He got so upset with me that he threw the mic down, saying, ‘You might come from a pageant, but learn how to dance before you become an actress. ’ He just walked away and I was so embarrassed," she reminisces. “We are great friends now.” In order to overcome this challenge, Chopra Jonas immersed herself in the art of dancing, studying for six hours a day with Katrina Kaif, another up-and-coming actress at the time, who became a reference point in Hindi cinema.
After taking the lead in multiple big-budget productions in India such as Don 2, Krrish 3 and Bajirao Mastani, in 2015 Chopra Jonas decided to relocate to the United States. However, when she arrived in Los Angeles, she was aware that her status back home didn’t mean she was going to thrive in this new market. “Just because you know you have a certain amount of fame in one country doesn’t mean you should be entitled and expect to be treated a certain way in another,” she defends fiercely. “An audience has to be earned wherever you go in the world. And that’s true for any artist in any medium. I think you really have to work in order to command that kind of respect or love from the people who watch your movies. You can’t just demand it.” Thankfully, it didn’t take long for the actress to meet success. With her participation in ABC’s Quantico, where she played the role of a young FBI recruit, she became the first South Asian woman to headline an American network drama series.
While her transatlantic career blossomed, so did her personal life. In July 2018, the media reported that the actress and Jonas Brothers musician Nick Jonas were engaged after just two months of dating. They married the following December, making global headlines. Just look at the ingredients of this modern love story – fame, an intercultural bond and a much-commented 10-year age gap between the couple, with Chopra Jonas being the older half… Paparazzi jackpot.
What appeared to be tabloid heaven became, instead, a match made in heaven. On social media or red carpets, the couple seems loving, supportive of each other and accepting of their differences with understanding. And as a result of this relationship, baby Malti Marie came into this world in January 2022. When I ask the actress how it feels to be the mother of a four-year-old, she shares that her life gained an entirely new meaning after parenthood. “My whole existence revolves around her, what time she has to go to school… She is the best thing I’ve accomplished in my life and represents the best of Nick and me,” shares Chopra Jonas. “My husband is very hands-on and even today – because I had to jump on this interview – he was the one preparing her for silly hair day at school. He did the cutest lopsided pigtails on her. Our baby is like a magnet to us, and we run to her wherever we are in the world.”
As many parents who raise their children across cultures, I ask how Chopra Jonas maintains a balance at home. After all, she carries an added sense of responsibility as the most visible Indian figure on the global stage – not just the most visible “Indian woman”, as she is quick to correct me. “I’m not a diplomat, I’m an actor, but I try to do my best and use my platform to give a good representation of my culture. I love India, and I’m very, very Indian in my choice of food and so many other things,” she muses. “However, I need to have an understanding that our family is also partially American. While I try to keep my traditions alive in our day-to-day lives, we are in the United States. It’s actually very important for Nick and me that our daughter grows up in this multicultural way. I was more familiar with American culture, so it was easier. For Nick, it was more of an introduction and an education. He loves India and respects it tremendously. He is part of my pujas and religious ceremonies. We celebrate with the same commitment and intention, be it Holi or Thanksgiving.”
More busy than ever, Chopra Jonas is all hands-on across multiple projects. Behind the camera – maybe the less visible layer of her cinema work – she continues to lead her own production company, Purple Pebble Pictures, which has accomplished multiple Oscar-nominated projects since its inception in 2015. On TV, she will come again to our screens as a secret agent for the second season of the action-packed series Citadel. And of course, there’s her important contribution to fashion, with an ongoing five-year-long collaboration with Bvlgari. “I like associating with excellence in everything I do, and I’m a big fan of craftsmanship. In the case of Bvlgari, I have a special connection with the brand as I love the people behind it, and so many of their stones come from India. I just love this idea of wearing something that is multicultural, marrying Indian gemstones and Roman craftsmanship,” she reveals.
However, when asked about the most precious jewellery piece she possesses, her answer is disarming, especially for a woman coming from a country where jewellery equals cultural identity and celebration – and the bigger, the better. “In India, in some kind of astrology, we really believe in the significance of gemstones and how they affect the planets and impact the person wearing them. We are big believers in it,” she explains. “When my father started to feel unwell, he was told to wear an emerald to help ease his pain. I lost my dad in 2013 and after that I’ve always worn this same stone every day of my life. It holds a very special significance. I feel my father is close to me.”
As the minutes go by and our conversation flows, Chopra Jonas speaks with assertiveness and conviction. The same conviction led to her appointment as goodwill ambassador for Unicef, an organisation she has collaborated with since 2010. But this is hardly new. A simple search for “Priyanka Chopra” on YouTube reveals a wealth of archival interviews and panel appearances in which the actress articulates her views with assurance, often returning to themes of female empowerment and the persistent inequalities between women and men. In one widely circulated clip, she takes to the stage of a forum where she is labelled a feminist, the term delivered as though it was pejorative. And yet, what is it that fuels such unwavering passion for this topic?
“Well, a couple of things. I have to preface that question! In the clip you’re talking about, I’m wearing something white, right?” she quickly asks. “This is around 12 years ago. It was before I started working in America. That girl was very different, by the way. She was very feisty and yeah, I would put you in your place almost immediately. I'm different. If you would have asked me that question now, I would probably have given you a little bit of a less angry and more passionate answer. More level-headed. But I think that my passion for wanting to speak my mind will never go away.”
Chopra Jonas tells me that now she fights the feminist cause not only with words, but mainly with her actions. She believes in genuine sisterhood and that women should always uplift one another. In her work, she tries to surround herself with other women, adding new female elements to her team as much as possible, in as many projects as she can. “I feel like this is a tangible way I can walk the walk and not just talk about it… I guess in the past, when I was figuring it out, I didn’t have the same tools I have today, so I was just very vocal about it.” “But please,” she laughs, “let’s just forget about that clip… My husband loves it too. I’m most mortified about it.”
Photography: Emma Summerton
Styling: Patrick Mackie
Hair: Orlando Pita
Make-up: Kabuki
Nails: Maria Salandra
Make-up assistant: Kenzie Richter
Photography assistants: Christian Ern, Andrew Beardsworth and Julia Khoroshilov
Styling assistant: Grace Mcfaddin Young
Lighting director: Nathan Martin
Digi Tech: Matthew Thompson
Movement director: Jacob Larsen
Executive producer: Dana Brockman
Producer: Max Bonbrest
Production assistants: Saul Luzeus and Sam Olsen
Equipment: Milk Studios
Shot on location: Apparatus Studio, New York
This article was originally published in the May 2026 issue of Vogue Arabia.
