Priyanka: Will mainstream America be open to discovering me?
Queen Priyanka did a new interview with Cosmopolitan about her soon to be smash TV show Quanitco. Here are some excerpts:
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You're one of the biggest stars in the world but American audiences without access to Bollywood are going to see you as a newcomer. Has that been an adjustment for you?
Not for me ... This [will be] an interesting experience for me to figure out if the mainstream American audience is open to discovering me. I was a little skeptical, I'll be honest, because it's such a long commitment and it's television. But they came to me with such an incredible script that it became a no-brainer.
What were other roles that Hollywood had offered you before?
There were a bunch of movies, but I'm always playing the Arabian princess and stuff like that, so I wasn't interested. Indians, so far, with an exception of very few actors, have always been put into a box. This is all that we can do and all that we can play. I want to be able to play, I guess, any role, which has nothing to do with anything else except for the fact that I'm an actor. Alex [my character on the show], to me, is anyone who looks like anything. So any nationality can be Alex Parrish, which is important to me because I love her. She's badass, but at the same time, she's smart, intelligent, feminine. I think that's, in a way, breaking the kind of stereotype that I expected and I was getting from [American movies].
Does race play an issue in the plot as it unfolds?
It could, it couldn't, but you have to find that out. I think it's extremely interesting that a brown girl, which is me, has been framed for a terrorist attack. Eventually, you have to figure out on your own whether I did it or not, [or] if that was a big reason for why I was framed, because I'm a brown girl.
What would your advice be to people who don't want to assimilate or be seen as "ethnically ambiguous" in their roles? They want to be who their identity says they are but also don't want to be typecast. Do you think Hollywood can make roles like that?
They can absolutely make roles like that. I think that I am a huge example of that. [My character] happens to have a name like Alex, but I am absolutely Indian, a modern Indian-American girl. I wear Om bracelets. I have a mandir in my room. I went backpacking in India and Pakistan. I just feel like as a people in the world, we've created too many boundaries. We need to be really proud of where we come from but not expect to only be that, because the world is a global place right now.
That could work because some Arabs are black-mixed like French Montana, but I get what you mean. Like it's not really hard to get some Jewish actor to play them...
Priyanka could slay America I think especially with Quantico. Everything she has done so far I think was a misstep not so much on her or even her team's part but mostly the public's fault. When she did the 'Thursday Night Football'', a lot of football fans attacked it to fact she was an Indian woman.
This might be hard, but let's try to spot the difference.
Again, close enough to be believable to the audience. If anything you'd limit roles South Asian actors have available to them if it had to be that specific.
From what I know, she's at RedOne's label and he didn't released any albums of the acts he has signed there so don't expect one anytime soon...I think even they gave up on their albums
After listening to In My City, are you sure you really want one?
An album full of Exotics a few years ago would have been nice
Excited for her show though! I think in general mainstream media is more open to diversity in television more so than they are in music. (when it's offered to them)
Again, close enough to be believable to the audience. If anything you'd limit roles South Asian actors have available to them if it had to be that specific.
Anyone with functioning eyes can see that it's not anywhere close. The Middle Eastern man looks like a Semitic white person (like a Jew)while Priyanka looks she's from deep into Asian subcontinent.
It's only believable to the American audience because of their perception, not reality. Most Americans genuinely believe that South Asians look Middle Eastern. They picture an Indian face and clothes when they hear "Middle East," but actual Middle Eastern people don't look like most Indians at all. In fact, an Arab ATRL user visited California on vacation and a woman asked him "if you're Arab, why do you look white?"
He does NOT look Indian!
As for limiting what South Asian actors can play, seriously? That's like saying it's limiting an East Asian actor like Lucy Liu from roles by saying she doeen't look black.
Here is the trailer for the show. From the trailer, Priyanka seems to be the main character. She has the voice-over and it is from her character's perspective. Also Taylor Swift's impact on popular culture continues as she gets referenced. LOL
Close enough. You don't have to exactly look a certain way for it to be believable.
Actors don't have to be an exact ethnicity of a character, but they should at least be accurate and convincing. South Asians don't look Middle Eastern (no, not close) despite many ignorant people believing so. Tony Shahloub does not look anything like Priyanka Chopra. They look like two different races. The former will easily pass as white and the latter cannot.
I feel like I had this same conversation with you last year. At least this time you're not saying that Tony Shahloub types are an exception when they're actually the norm. And there are actually a lot of Indian and Pakistani immigrants in Middle Eastern cities like Dubai and they stick out like sore thumbs and looked down upon.
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Originally posted by Opium
From what I know, she's at RedOne's label and he didn't released any albums of the acts he has signed there so don't expect one anytime soon...I think even they gave up on their albums
She's actually signed to Interscope and has joint deals with RedOne's label, DesiHits and Universal. The album has been delayed so many times because her singles bombed. Even her fans are not interested.
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Originally posted by LadyGagaStan93
Excited for her show though! I think in general mainstream media is more open to diversity in television more so than they are in music. (when it's offered to them)
That's because TV shows are like girl groups. There's an ensemble so there are multiple people that can appeal to the audience. With music, it's usually one person who has to appeal to everyone and that's difficult for non-whites (see: Nicole Scherzinger with and without the Pussycat Dolls).
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Originally posted by revel8
Here is the trailer for the show. From the trailer, Priyanka seems to be the main character. She has the voice-over and it is from her character's perspective. Also Taylor Swift's impact on popular culture continues as she gets referenced. LOL
She's the lead. She's billed first and they're using her name/face in the billboards for it:
Will you be watching, ATRL?
so don't expect one anytime soon...I think even they gave up on their albums
