From an army kid in Jamshedpur to a crossover icon in the west, here are some interesting facts about desi girl Priyanka Chopra

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Happy Birthday Priyanka Chopra: Interesting facts about the global star

Team CE

Published:18th Jul, 2020 at 12:26 PM

Priyanka Chopra was born in 1982 in Jamshedpur

Her parents, Ashok Chopra and Madhu Chopra, were both physicians in the Indian army

Priyanka did her schooling from La Martinière in Lucknow. She considers Bareilly as her hometown.

Priyanka is the cousin of actors Parineeti Chopra, Meera Chopra and Mannara Chopra

Priyanka won the Femina Miss World title in 2000.

She was crowned Miss World 2000 in London, becoming the fifth Indian to win the title

The first film she ever signed was Good Night Princess, directed by Atlee Brar. The film was later shelved.

Priyanka was cast as the female lead in Humraaz (2002). The role eventually went to Ameesha Patel.

Priyanka made her Tamil debut in Thamizhan (2002) opposite Vijay. She also recorded her first song for the film.

In 2003, she made her Bollywood debut in The Hero: Love Story of a Spy.

The same year, she starred in the romantic drama Andaaz, winning the Filmfare Award for Best Debut. She has won five Filmfare Awards so far.

Priyanka won the National Film Award for Best Actress for Fashion (2008)

She played 12 characters, one from each zodiac sign, in Ashutosh Gowarikar’s What's Your Raashee?

She was praised her performance as an autistic girl in Anurag Basu’s Barfi

Priyanka was named a global UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for child rights in 2010 and 2016. She has been working with UNICEF since 2006.

She released her first single, In My City, in 2012. It was followed by Exotic with Pitbull.

She got the tattoo ‘Daddy's lil girl’ while her father was battling cancer. He passed away in 2013.

She was honoured with miniature dolls of her likeness by the UK’s Spin Master Toys as part of the Bollywood Legends series.

Priyanka voiced the character Ishani in the Disneytoon studios film Planes (2013). It was a spin-off of Pixar’s Cars franchise.

Priyanka essayed Olympian boxer Mary Kom in her biopic. The film marked her Hindi playback debut (for Chaoro)

In 2015, Priyanka was cast as Alex Parrish in the ABC series Quantico. She became one of the first South Asian actors to lead a major studio series in America.

She founded her production company, Purple Pebble Pictures, in 2015. Her Marathi production, Ventilator, won three National awards in 2016.

Priyanka has also produced films in Bhojpuri, Assamese, Nepali, Bengali and Hindi.

She was honoured with the Padma Shri in 2016.

She presented the award for Best Film Editing at the 88th Academy Awards

She made her Hollywood feature debut with Baywatch (2017), playing the antagonist Victoria Leeds

She also appeared in the American films A Kid Like Jake and Isn’t It Romantic?

Priyanka appeared with Nick Jonas at the 2017 Met Gala red carpet. They were married in 2018.

Her memoir, Unfinished, will hit stands this year.

Priyanka recently inked a multimillion-dollar deal with Amazon studios to produce diverse content

She is appearing alongside Rajkummar Rao in the Netflix adaptation of The White Tiger