Priyanka Chopra on Entertainment Weekly/ Newyork Times

Priyanka Chopra's career may be just heating up Stateside, but in her native India her stardom is something akin to Angelina Jolie's " she's one of the country's highest-profile (and highest-paid) actresses and has won a National Film Award " the equivalent of an Oscar " for Best Actress. But being a megastar was never part of her plan " it wasn't until she won the Miss World competition at age 18 that she even thought about acting.

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It turned out she was a natural. Chopra, 33, has since starred in more than 40 Bollywood films, hosted the Indian version of Fear Factor, and released several hit singles. Nabbing the role of FBI trainee-turned-possible terrorist Alex Parrish on Quantico means she'll be the first Bollywood actress to star on American television, but Chopra's not concerned about becoming a household name yet " she just wants a challenging part. "I never thought of my roles as a step to anywhere," she says. "It's not about furthering my career " it's a way of life."

In August, Chopra talked to EW in two separate interviews while filming the upcoming ABC action thriller. Those conversations have been condensed and edited into the Q&A below, in which Chopra talks not only about her background in India " from regular teen to Miss World to Bollywood star " but also about the significance of her casting in Quantico as part of the conversation about diversity on TV. Chopra, poised as always, spoke thoughtfully about how nervous she was and the anticipation she feels for the project:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Before we get toQuantico, I'd like to talk more to you about your career in India. You didn't get into acting until after you became Miss World in 2000. Do you remember that experience, that feeling when you won the crown?
PRIYANKA CHOPRA: When I won Miss World, I wasn't even 18, and I only remember, like, I thought of it as a day in the races or something. It didn't feel like it was Miss World of the Millennium Year, the change of the century. I didn't understand the magnitude of it for at least a couple of years. Like, a couple of months before that, I was in 12th grade in a school uniform and from that I went on to modeling with the biggest designers and traveling the world, and sitting in front of world press talking about the economy of Zimbabwe, and I'm like, what am I talking about?

Do you feel that way now? I'm sure you know you're the first Bollywood actress to lead an American TV show. Has the magnitude of that fact hit you?
[Pauses] I don't know if I see the magnitude of it as much as other people. I hear a lot of people telling me that it's the first time it's happened for an Indian person.

Right, including me with this question, being like, "Are you feelingit?"
[Laughs] No, but it's true. For me, there was never going to be any other way to make an international foray, I was very clear about it. If I wasn't doing this in America, I would have done it in Australia, or anywhere. [Coming to American TV] is just an extension of what I want to do. This is my step forward in trying to do something new. I don't know, I'm excited about it. It's a new world for me, a new culture for me. I want to be true to who I am. I think that's the difference between doing Miss World then and doing this now is that at that time, I felt like I was a kid, and I needed to be what the world wanted to see me as, and now I feel like my flaws are what make me unique. I think the 30s did that to me. [Laughs]

Personally, I remember when I was in Mumbai and I had just become Miss India [World] and I was just starting movies. There was a place in Mumbai called Chowpatty Beach, where there are like six holdings [another word for billboards] back-to-back, where they advertise big movies and big things. I had just come into Mumbai and we had just moved in " me and my best friend " and so one night, we were just walking on the beach, and I remember we sat outside, and we looked up at it, and I had just started doing moves at that time. I was like, "One day, I want to be on all of them." And I was, five years later. I had my movies on each one of them. [Mimes pointing to each billboard] One, two, three, four, five, six. So it feels sort of like a beginning, like that, in a way.

WATCH: Quantico' challenges viewers to keep track of every FBI recruit's secret

What has it been like so far, then, shooting your first American TV show? This isn't the first time you've been Stateside, of course " you launched a music career here a few years ago and you went to high school for a few years in New York.
It's totally new! I had to work on my dialect a lot for the show, and plus, with all the action, I had to do a lot of training for it. I'm on the run, so they literally have me running! [Laughs] No, I'm kidding, I love my job ... The music was new for me, it's not something I always did, but acting is something I've always done. It's in my blood. It's what I know. I've done it since I was 17 years old.

Tell me about how you got involved with Quantico.
I had a holding deal with ABC, to find me a show, and I was very clear about the kind of show I wanted to do, because Indian people have always been seen as, well, we've been put in a box, about who we should be like. There's nothing wrong with [who we are] " both my parents were doctors, and I wanted to be an engineer, but that's how we're seen.

So I wanted to sort of break that box, and I was very sure that whatever part I do, what I said to ABC when they came to me in India to talk to me about the deal, was that if that's something you're willing to see me as, as an actor and not the color of my skin or the way I speak or the accent with which I speak, if that can happen, I'm fine doing the deal. ABC was sure they would find the right fit for me, and I think Quantico is. It's me as an actor. [Alex] wasn't written for someone with my ethnicity, but I am Indian in the show, so I've been rooted with my culture in the show, but that's not what the show is about.

Speaking of Alex, tell me more about your character. What's special about her?
They've written Alex as a female Jason Bourne. She's as smart as that, but she is also vulnerable and soft. I didn't want to make Alex extremely macho, I wanted to celebrate femininity. You can be an absolute woman and also be smart and tough and not lose your femininity. I also love that in the show, Alex treats boys the way boys usually treat girls, as dispensable. She has no place for them in her life.

Were there other shows you considered that ABC offered?
I read 26 scripts, almost every pilot they were planning, and I made a top few list that I liked. Quantico was my first choice. Actually I mean,The Muppets was my favorite, but I was told Miss Piggy won't allow anyone else on her show. [Laughs]

You mentioned you wanted to break the stereotype box in this role. How do you see your casting fitting into the larger conversation about diversity on American TV?
You know, I'm very curious to find out, because there's no reference to say if it's going to turn out well. It hasn't happened before. I'm really looking forward to finding out. Is America ready for it? Are we ready for it? Is India ready for it? [Pauses] Am I ready for it? [Laughs] I have no idea, but I think for me, my Indian movies have never been stepping stones. I love what I do, I'm going to divide my time between my Indian movies, whatever work I get and my show and fly across the world wherever work takes me. That's how I've always treated it.

I really see this as an opportunity. When I grew up I never saw anyone looking like me on TV, you know? I'm so glad to see a lot more of us on television, whether it's Mindy Kaling or it's Irrfan Khan or Freida Pinto. You know, I hope, like, little girls across the world can just look at me and say, "Ah, I want to be that!" Indian or not, it shouldn't matter. It's really cool to see how that will open up.

We're still a few weeks away from the premiere. How are you feeling right now? Where's your head at?
I'm very nervous. I just want to sleep on the 27th of September, I want to be woken up on Tuesday morning, two days later, so I don't have to go through the process of, "Oh my God, it's going to air," and "Oh my God, it's this scene," and "Oh my God, what are people saying?" I just want to sleep through it. I'm definitely not going to be watching. [Laughs]

Photo

Already a celebrated actress in India, Priyanka Chopra, above, hopes to make an impression through ABC's "Quantico."CreditAlexi Hobbs for The New York Times

MONTREAL " The golden hour on this late September afternoon was anything but. The air was hot and hazy, the sky the color of the industrial concrete buildings doubling as the set of the F.B.I. Academy.

Then Priyanka Chopra sauntered out of her trailer, a vision in mirrored shades and towering gold stilettos. And suddenly, as if by divine intervention, setting sunbeams pierced through the clouds.

"The sun opened up, right?" she said with a squeal and a kick. "I said" " she crooked a finger toward the sky " " Come to me.' "

That the sun should oblige this Bollywood actress might not seem unreasonable to her fans in India, where she is one of that nation's highest-profile celebrities. But in North America, she remains a virtual unknown outside South Asian communities. Now Ms. Chopra, 33, is banking on television to help her crack Hollywood.

"After being in movies for 13 years in India, I'm suddenly a debutante all over again," she said. "I'm scared and nervous " petrified, actually."

In ABC's new drama "Quantico," which debuts Sept. 27, Ms. Chopra plays Alex Parrish, a half-Indian, half-white F.B.I. trainee suspected of masterminding the biggest attack on New York since Sept. 11. The series, which has been described as "Homeland" meets "Grey's Anatomy" (with a bit of "How to Get Away With Murder," because of its many flashbacks), places Ms. Chopra front and center in an ethnically varied cast.

It's part of ABC's continued drive to promote diversity on-screen through casting and outreach efforts. In 2012 Ms. Chopra and her manager, Anjula Acharia-Bath, met Keli Lee, the executive vice president for talent and casting for ABC Entertainment Group, at a dinner party. As Ms. Lee named some of the actors she'd helped place through the company's diversity efforts " Sofia Vergara in "Modern Family," Sandra Oh in "Grey's Anatomy" and Kerry Washington in "Scandal" " Ms. Acharia-Bath remarked, "Well, you haven't done a South Asian yet, and we're one-fifth of the population." Afterward, she sent Ms. Lee some of Ms. Chopra's movies, and the next thing she knew, a deal was in the making.

"I flew to India to convince Priyanka to work at ABC," Ms. Lee wrote in an email. "I wasn't going to let distance be a barrier to making a deal." The one-year commitment required ABC either to develop a project for Ms. Chopra or cast her in an existing project. She ultimately read 26 scripts; "Quantico" was her favorite.

Her audition for the role was her first " ever " and Joshua Safran, the show's creator, wasn't sure what character Ms. Chopra intended to read for when she arrived wearing a designer dress and carrying a designer handbag. "She walked in the room, and it was like the molecules shifted in that way that superstars have," he recalled. "I was very confused because I didn't know who she was, but we all sat up straighter."

("Ah, I love that, when it happens at hello," she said, giggling at the anecdote. "I make sure my walk is a good entrance. My heels and my hair.")

Mr. Safran had imagined a protagonist hardened by tragedy and aloof. He hadn't quite envisioned Alex as a bombshell.

"One of the things we talked about was, Is she so glamorous that she can't play this regular person?' " said Mark Gordon, one of the show's executive producers. "What we quickly came to realize is that she's a huge star internationally, but she's actually quite regular. She's very accessible both to women and to men, and that's especially important at ABC, where a large percentage of the audience is women."

Off-screen Ms. Chopra is somehow unthreatening despite an entourage of assistants and stylists. (There are 22 people on "Team P.C.": 11 in Mumbai, where she owns a home and is a ubiquitous presence on the city's billboards, and 11 in North America, where a recent pool party at her rental house here gave rise to a spontaneous Bollywoodesque water ballet to Major Lazer's "Lean On.")

The child of an Indian Army doctor and a gynecologist, Ms. Chopra moved with her parents every two years until 12, when she decided to live with an aunt in the United States, bouncing among Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Queens; and Newton, Mass.

A dutiful daughter, she planned to become an engineer. Returning to Bareilly, India, the end of her junior year, she was studying for her university boards when her mother, pleased by Ms. Chopra's swanlike transformation, sent photos to the Miss India pageant. She won that title and six months later, at 17, was crowned Miss World 2000 " after which her mother wailed, "Who's going to study now?"

In 2002, Ms. Chopra entered the realm of Bollywood, a term she dislikes for its dismissiveness. "Hindi movies are an amalgamation of culture, of emotions, of drama, of music, of dance " which is why Hindi movies are an experience," she said. "We make about a thousand movies a year and are expanding into markets in Japan and Germany and Russia. We premiere our movies at the Berlinale and Cannes. It's an amazing time."

Ms. Chopra has made nearly 50 movies, winning a National Film Award (the Indian equivalent of an Oscar) for her portrayal of a small-town girl turned supermodel in "Fashion" and lesser prizes for her turn as a 19-year-old autistic woman in "Barfi!"

That role, for which she had to prove to the director that she could believably subvert her innate allure, is among those of which she's proudest. "The most challenging thing in India is for her to come out of her glamour zone," said Irrfan Khan, an occasional co-star and the Indian actor with perhaps the most familiarity in America, in films like "The Amazing Spider-Man" and "Jurassic World." "Hindi commercial cinema tries to incorporate a beautiful girl in the same roles over and over, but if you're smart enough you learn to expose your personality. She understands her persona and keeps experimenting in different genres."

Asked where home is these days, Ms. Chopra replied, "On a plane," noting she'd spent Labor Day weekend filming in India and would briefly return in October. "I just want to go where my work takes me."

But for the moment, she's hoping it's in the United States. "I simply want the opportunity to show people what I bring with me. They might like it, they might hate it. I don't know. I just hope that people are inquisitive."