As 2025 draws near, actor Priyanka Chopra Jonas is all set to celebrate a remarkable milestone — 25 years as a public figure, since her appearance in the Miss India contest in 2000. Talking to us, Jonas shares, “I have just finished shooting for the last bit of Citadel (second season).”

Looking back, the 42-year-old acknowledges the hurdles she’s overcome to carve a place for herself in the global entertainment landscape: “But I feel blessed that I was not completely alien to working in the US. My schooling as a teenager happened in America, so that really helped. The process of filmmaking is the same everywhere. It’s the cultural differences that make them different industries. I can’t expect it to be Hollywood-like in Bollywood, or vice versa. I feel you should be like water, and not rigid. I’ve been like that my whole life... keep quiet, listen and find your place. I was thrown into it to figure it out.”

After making her Bollywood debut with The Hero: Love Story Of A Spy in 2003, she delivered hits such as Fashion (2008) and Bajirao Mastani (2015), among others. In 2015, she shifted base to the US and became the first South Asian actor to lead in an American network drama series, Quantico.

Ask her about the challenges she faced while finding her footing in the West, and she says, “I have been a public person for more than half my life. I am extremely private. So, the hard part is to manage expectations.”

“I have changed a lot. Being a professional, being able to deal with failure and change... that’s the hardest part. I am not someone who talks about my vulnerabilities or hardships very much. There are some people who do, and I find it very... inspiring. I was raised to be tough,” adds Jonas, who’s part of the campaign Can’t Stand Still by Johnnie Walker Refreshing Mixer.

She further says, “I am someone whose ethos in life is to keep walking, moving forward. When this campaign was brought to me, it was a no-brainer. I just had to keep walking — in my life and career. I am not daunted by ambition. I’ve always said everyone can have big dreams. You have to just keep moving forward.”

While Jonas makes frequent trips to India, we are yet to hear about her next Hindi project after The Sky Is Pink (2019). So, is a Bollywood outing in the pipeline? “I meet many filmmakers here, read scripts. I have actively been looking for something I want to do in Hindi. This year was busy for me. But I have something up my sleeve, I will leave it at that,” she chuckles. Is that “something” a hint that Jee Le Zara is on the cards? She says, “You will need to speak to Excel (Entertainment, Farhan Akhtar’s production house) about that.”