Priyanka Chopra Trivia: 38 fun facts about the actress!

Priyanka Chopra is an Indian actress, singer, film producer, philanthropist, and the winner of the Miss World 2000 pageant.

Let’s find out interesting facts about her!

1. Priyanka Chopra was born 18 July 1982 in Jamshedpur, Bihar (now in Jharkhand).

2. Her parents are Ashok and Madhu Chopra, both physicians in the Indian Army.

3. Her father was a Punjabi from Ambala.

4. Her mother, from Jharkhand, is the eldest daughter of Ms. Madhu Jyotsna Akhouri, a former member of Bihar Legislative Assembly, and Dr. Manohar Kishan Akhouri, a former Congress veteran.

5. Chopra has a brother, Siddharth, who is seven years her junior[ and actresses Parineeti Chopra, Meera Chopra and Mannara Chopra are her cousins.

6. Due to her parents’ occupations the family relocated to a number of places in India, including Delhi, Chandigarh, Ambala, Ladakh, Lucknow, Bareilly, and Pune.

7. Among the schools she attended were La Martiniere Girls’ School in Lucknow and St. Maria Goretti College in Bareilly.

8. 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.

9. Among the many places that she lived, 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. We used to race up to the top of the stupa”.

10. She now considers Bareilly her home town, and maintains strong connections there.

11. At the age of thirteen, Chopra moved to the United States to study, living with her aunt, and attending schools in Newton, Massachusetts, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, after a stop in Queens, New York, as her aunt’s family also moved frequently.

12. While in Massachusetts, she participated in several theatre productions and studied Western classical music, choral singing and Kathak dance.

13. During her teenage years in America, Chopra sometimes faced racial issues and was bullied for being Indian. She has said, “I was a gawky kid, 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.”

14. After three years, Chopra returned to India, finishing the senior year of her high-school education at the Army Public School in Bareilly.

15. 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.

16. Her mother then entered her in the Femina Miss India contest of 2000; she finished second, winning the Femina Miss India World title.

17. 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 30 November 2000.

18. Chopra was the fifth Indian contestant to win Miss World, and the fourth to do so in seven years.

19. She had enrolled in college, but left after winning the Miss World pageant.

20. Chopra said that the Miss India and Miss World titles brought her recognition, and she then began receiving offers for film roles.

21. 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.

22. 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.

23. Having not come from a film background, she describes herself as a self-made woman.

24. Her mother, a well-established gynaecologist in Bareilly, gave up her practice to support Chopra as she embarked upon a film career.

25. One of India’s highest-paid and most popular celebrities, Chopra has received numerous awards, including a National Film Award and five Filmfare Awards.

26. In 2016, the Government of India honoured her with the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award, and Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

27. In 2017, she has been honoured with Dadasaheb Phalke Award – India’s highest award in cinema, becoming the first actress to win in the category “International Acclaimed Actress Award”.

28. Although Chopra initially aspired to study aeronautical engineering, she accepted offers to join the Indian film industry, which came as a result of her pageant wins, making her Bollywood debut in The Hero (2003).

29. She played the leading lady in the box-office hits Andaaz (2003) and Mujhse Shaadi Karogi (2004), and earned praise for her breakout role in the 2004 thriller Aitraaz.

30. In 2006, Chopra established herself as a leading actress of Indian cinema with starring roles in the top-grossing productions Krrish and Don.

31. Following a brief setback, she received critical acclaim for playing a troubled model in the drama Fashion (2008), which won her the Filmfare and National Film Award for Best Actress.

32. Chopra subsequently gained wider recognition for portraying a range of characters in the films Kaminey (2009), 7 Khoon Maaf (2011), Barfi! (2012), Mary Kom (2014), Dil Dhadakne Do (2015) and Bajirao Mastani (2015), all of which garnered her several awards and nominations.

33. In 2015, she began starring as Alex Parrish on the ABC thriller series Quantico, becoming the first South Asian to headline an American network series.

34. In addition to her acting career, Chopra is noted for her philanthropic work.

35. She has worked with UNICEF for the last ten years and was appointed as the national and global UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for Child Rights in 2010 and 2016 respectively.

36. She promotes various causes such as environment, health and education, and women’s rights and is particularly vocal about gender equality and feminism. Chopra’s off-screen life is the subject of substantial media coverage.

37. As a recording artist, she has released three singles.

38. She is also the founder of the production company Purple Pebble Pictures, which released the acclaimed Marathi comedy-drama Ventilator (2016).