Priyanka Chopra

Priyanka Chopra (born 18 July 1982) is an Indian film actress, singer, and songwriter. The winner of the Miss India World and Miss World pageants of 2000, through her successful film career Chopra has become one of Bollywood's highest-paid actresses and one of the most popular celebrities in India. She has won a National Film Award for Best Actress and Filmfare Awards in four categories.

Chopra was born in Jamshedpur to parents who were both physicians in the Indian Army. As a result of their occupations, she frequently travelled as a child but considers Bareilly to be her real home. She also lived for a period with her aunt in the United States. In 2000, her mother entered her into the Femina Miss India contest, in which she finished second and took the Femina Miss India World title. She was then entered into the Miss World pageant, where she was crowned Miss World 2000 and Miss World Continental Queen of Beauty—Asia & Oceania, becoming the fifth Indian to win the competition.

Although Chopra had aspirations to graduate with a degree in engineering or psychiatry, she accepted offers to join the Indian film industry, making her acting debut in the Tamil film Thamizhan in 2002. The following year, she starred in The Hero, her first Hindi film release, and followed it with the box-office hit Andaaz, which won her the Filmfare Best Female Debut Award and a nomination for the Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award. She subsequently earned wide critical recognition for the role of a seductress in the 2004 thriller Aitraaz, winning her the Filmfare Award for Best Performance in a Negative Role. By 2006, Chopra had established herself as a leading actress of Hindi cinema with starring roles in the highly successful films Krrish and Don. After receiving mixed reviews for a series of unsuccessful films, she was praised for her portrayal of unconventional characters, including a troubled model in the 2008 drama Fashion, a feisty Marathi woman in the 2009 caper thriller Kaminey, a serial killer in the 2011 neo-noir 7 Khoon Maaf, and an autistic woman in the 2012 romantic comedy Barfi! CNN-IBN has described Chopra "as one of the most powerful actresses in the current lot and someone who doesn't shy away from experimenting with roles within the realms of popular cinema", thanks to her considerable range of acting roles.

In addition to acting in films, she has participated in stage shows, hosted a reality show on television, and written columns for India's national newspapers. Chopra has engaged in philanthropic activities, and was appointed as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for Child Rights on 10 August 2010. In 2012, she released her first single "In My City", which, although a commercial success in India, was met with mixed reactions from the critics.

Priyanka Chopra was born on 18 July 1982 in Jamshedpur, Bihar (now in Jharkhand), to Ashok and Madhu Chopra, both physicians in the Indian Army. Her father was Punjabi, while her mother is from Jharkhand. She has a brother, Siddharth, who is seven years her junior, and cousins of hers include actresses Parineeti Chopra, Meera Chopra, and Barbie Handa. Due to her parents' occupations the family relocated to a number of Indian cities, including Delhi, Pune, Lucknow, Bareilly, Ladakh, Chandigarh and Ambala. 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. She now considers Bareilly her home town, and maintains strong connections there. Chopra has fond memories as a child of playing in the valleys of Leh, in the cold northwestern Indian desert region of Jammu and Kashmir. She has 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. 

At the age of thirteen, Chopra moved to the United States to live with her aunt, attending schools in Newton, Massachusetts, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. While in Massachusetts, she participated in several theatre productions and studied Western classical music, choral singing and Kathak dance. Chopra was the only Indian in her class to have been selected at state level for the National Opus Honour Choir. However, by Grade 10, she was keen on becoming a software engineer or a criminal psychologist, rather than a performer. During her teenage years in America, Chopra sometimes faced racial issues and bullying for her looks. She has said, "I was gawky imperfect, 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."

Chopra returned to India, finishing her high-school education at the Army Public School in Bareilly. During this period, she won the local "May Queen" beauty pageant, after which she was pursued by admirers, leading her family to equip their home with bars for her protection. Her mother then entered her in the Femina Miss India contest of 2000; she finished second, winning the Femina Miss India World title. Chopra then went on to the Miss World pageant, where she was crowned Miss World 2000 and Miss World Continental Queen of Beauty—Asia & Oceania at the Millennium Dome in London on 1 December 2000. Chopra was the fifth Indian contestant to win Miss World, and the fourth to do so in seven years. She had enrolled in college, but left after winning the Miss World pageant. Chopra said that the Miss India and Miss World titles brought her recognition, and she then began receiving offers for film roles. Manish Telikic Chary said that Chopra's decision to pursue a film career was like many "beauty queens [who] sought careers in movies, setting new standards for beauty in Bollywood."

Chopra has maintained a strong relationship with her family, including her younger brother, Siddharth, and lives in an apartment on the same floor as her family, with her dog Brando. She was especially close to her father, who died in June 2013; in 2012 she got a tattoo reading "Daddy's lil girl", in his handwriting. Having not come from a film background, she describes herself as a self-made woman. Her mother, a well-established gynaecologist in Bareilly, gave up her practice to support Chopra as she embarked upon a successful film career.