Priyanka Chopra Just Signed a Major Deal with Amazon

From Harper's BAZAAR

Priyanka Chopra has signed a major deal with Amazon, meaning she'll be in front of and behind the camera on many new projects for the streaming site.

The deal, which is rumored to be a "multi-million dollar" deal for two years, will allow Chopra the creative freedom to star in and produce shows focusing on issues important to the former Quantico star, such as improving diversity and south Asian representation on mainstream TV.

Chopra is one of a few actresses to successfully straddle Bollywood and Hollywood throughout her career, becoming the first Indian actress to lead a prime TV show.

Speaking to ELLE UK last year when she graced the August 2019 cover, Chopra discussed her passion for increasing representation on Western TV. She explained, "My life’s dream is to be able to make or produce a movie that has a predominately South Asian cast. I’m so glad that I’ve been put into the position where I have the ability to open those doors."

She continued, "I want to do it because no one was able to do it for it for me. That’s my life now. To develop characters that normalise different cultures. Everyone’s talking about diversity, but it’s not a check in a box. I see so many amazing South Asians: Aziz [Ansari], Mindy [Kaling]… But there’s still maybe 10 of us, max, that have actually 'made it.' That number needs to increase."

This new platform via Amazon could certainly allow those dreams to become a reality.

Speaking to Variety about the deal on Tuesday, Chopra said, "As a teenager, I didn’t see representation of myself in American pop culture or even global pop culture outside of the stereotypical caricatures of South Asians."

The global deal will also allow Chopra to produce and work on content in multiple languages, something that greatly appealed to her. "I can do Hindi language, I can do English language, I can do whatever language I want," she added.

Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke also told the industry publication that she and Chopra bonded over "a shared passion for diverse global storytelling."

Projects already in the pipeline include a TV series with Chopra's husband Nick Jonas based on an Indian pre-wedding tradition, called Sangeet. The couple famously had a lavish multi-day ceremony in December 2018 in India.

She is also set to star in spy series Citadel along with The Bodyguard's Richard Madden, and Sheela where Chopra will depict Ma Anand Sheela, the spiritual adviser and a convicted bio-terrorist who was behind a series of food poisonings of hundreds of people in Oregon in 1984 in an attempt to interfere with a local election.

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