Priyanka Chopra will be back in Bollywood, say sources

The Indian actress may be living the Hollywood dream but she won't be forgetting her roots, claim reports

CANNES, FRANCE - MAY 18: Priyanka Chopra attends the screening of "Les Plus Belles Annees D'Une Vie" during the 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival on May 18, 2019 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Antony Jones/Getty Images)
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Priyanka Chopra is now one half of one of Hollywood's leading celebrity couples since marrying Nick Jonas at their much-publicised wedding(s) and seemingly endlessly Instagrammed receptions. She's also a bona fide Hollywood star in her own right, having appeared in TV shows and movies such as Quantico and Baywatch.

That doesn't mean she'll be turning her back on Bollywood, however, at least not according to sources quoted in the Indian newspaper The Asian Age. The paper quotes one source close to Chopra as claiming that she is already involved in discussions with a number of Bollywood directors, including Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Siddharth Roy Kapur, Aditya Chopra, Karan Johar and Vishal Bhardawaj over future projects.

The problem for the actress going forward, the paper says, citing an unnamed director who has worked closely with Chopra in the past, is the sheer size of her international profile: “Priyanka can’t take any Bollywood assignment just because it has a big hero’s or a big director’s name attached to it. Her role has to say something. She’s being watched very closely by fans across the world,” claims the director.

This also apparently explains why the actress chose a low-profile indie project in the shape of Shonali Bose's The Sky is Pink as her next Hindi film project, rather than a big blockbuster like Bharat, the Salman Khan-starrer that Chopra was initially slated to co-star in.

The paper also cites industry insiders as predicting that Chopra may opt to produce her next Indian film herself through the Mumbai production house she already owns. This would give the 36-year-old total control over her portrayal in the next project, whatever it may be.

Meanwhile, back in the West, Chopra is reportedly attached to a project directed by Rain Man and Wag the Dog director Barry Levinson. The film will be a biopic of Ma Anand Sheela. Sheela is a convicted attempted murderer, member of the controversial Rajneesh Movement, and co-conspirator in the first recorded incident of a bio-terror attack on US soil in 1984's Rajneeshee Bioterror Attack.

The incident saw almost a 1,000 people in a small town in Oregon given food poisoning with the intention of preventing them from voting in local elections, thus ensuring that the movement’s own candidates would win the available positions.