Until recently, North America remained about the only spot on the globe where Priyanka Chopra wasn't well-known. Then, the Oscars happened. Google released a list of the most searched at the Oscars. Priyanka, who had been given the honor of presenting at the ceremony, came in second in searches. She only ranked behind Leonardo Di Caprio, who won the Best Actor Award, which will no doubt be a noted entertainment event for this year. It seems with her television show, Quantico, and now the part in the upcoming Baywatch movie, that Hollywood has really taken a shine to the Bollywood queen.
Priyanka denies any calculation involved in her American success. According to The Guardian, she had this to say on the subject: "People think I had this big plan to break America, but I never did. I never had a plan when it comes to my career. America came to me with an opportunity. She is talking about her television show, Quantico, which she agreed to do after signing a holding deal with ABC. This means she got her choice of pilot scripts to read, and chose Quantico. It was a new thing to feature an Indian woman as the lead on American television; add to this, that she already was an established Bollywood star, has guaranteed a lot of attention. That she was even invited to present at the Oscars surely is an industry stamp of approval.
As a women who is very proud of her ethnicity, Priyanka was asked how she felt about the overly white Oscar controversy and whether she considered boycotting, too. "I am too new in this industry to be taking extreme decisions like that. When it comes to India I am very vocal about how I feel, but I am just six months old here, and honestly I want to go and see what will happen at the Oscars, especially as there is a huge debate. I think it will be a very interesting evening.
The former beauty queen has her incidents, too. One involved her recording career and the use of one of her songs on Thursday Night Football. "My song replaced one from Faith Hill, who is like the all American girl and suddenly there was this brown girl and the NFL got so many e-mails from fans saying, 'Who is this Arab terrorist? I got so much of it, too. I called them out. I said why is every Arab person a terrorist, and why am I an Arab terrorist just because I am brown."
