Priyanka Chopra
Priyanka Chopraborn July 18, 1982is an Indian film actress and former
Miss World, who acts in
Bollywood films.
After winning the title of
Miss India World and later becoming
Miss World 2000,
Chopra made her acting debut with the Tamil film
Thamizhan (2002). The following year, she made her
Bollywood debut with
Anil Sharma's The Hero: Love Story of a Spy.
Priyanka had her first commercial success with her second release,
Andaaz from the same year, for which she won a
Filmfare Best Female Debut Award. Becoming the second woman to win the
Filmfare Best Villain Award for her critically acclaimed performance in
Abbas-Mustan's Aitraaz (2004),
Chopra later went on to deliver commercial success with films like
Mujhse Shaadi Karogi (2004),
Krrish (2006), her biggest commercial success so far, and
Don - The Chase Begins Again (2006), thus establishing herself as a popular actress.
She was born in
Jamshedpur, Jharkhand to Ashok Chopra and Madhu Akhauri, both doctors by profession.
Chopra spent her childhood in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, in Newton, Massachusetts and in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Her father was in the army and thus her family moved quite frequently. Her father hailed from a family of Punjabi origin, settled in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh and her mother comes from a Bihari Kayastha family settled in Jamshedpur. She also has a brother,
Siddharth , who is seven years younger than her.
Chopra studied at St. Maria Goretti in Bareilly and La Martiniere Girls' School in Lucknow as a young girl. These frequent re-locations took place as Ashok was a doctor in the Indian Army. She subsequently re-located to the U.S. where she studied in Newton's Newton South High School in Newton, Massachusetts and then in Cedar Rapid's John F. Kennedy High School in Massachusetts and Iowa respectively. She returned to India and did her high school at Army School in Bareilly. She began college at Jai Hind College in Mumbai but left after winning the
Miss World pageant.
Chopra was crowned
Miss India World and later
Miss World in 2000. In the same year,
Lara Dutta and
Dia Mirza, both also from India, won the
Miss Universe and
Miss Asia Pacific crowns, in a rare triple victory for one country.
When
Chopra won the
Miss World crown, she became the
fifth Indian woman to win the title, and the fourth Indian woman to win in a span of seven years.