Chopra enjoys being an agent for change
Heroic star of the TV series Quantico has fun playing the ‘fabulously absurd’ villain on Baywatch reboot
Zac Efron and Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson take turns showing off their ripped upper bodies in the remake spoof of the show Baywatch.
OK, the movie offers more than that, but there’s no denying the chiselled shirtless frames of Efron and Johnson are a double-bill attraction.
“I think the best part about Baywatch is the objectification of men,” says Quantico star Priyanka Chopra, who plays the villainess in Baywatch. “It’s like payback for so many years of exploiting women.”
In the R-rated laughfest, Johnson portrays zealous lifeguard Mitch Buchannon, famously defined by David Hasselhoff in the old series. Efron is Matt Brody, a disgraced Olympian assigned to Buchannon’s team as a public relations gesture.
The macho males clash often, but eventually join forces when they confront Victoria Leeds (Chopra). She’s an international woman of intrigue responsible for drugs and dead bodies on the beach.
Alexandra Daddario, Kelly Rohrbach, Ilfenesh Hadera and Jon Bass round out the lifeguard cast, but Efron, Johnson and Chopra establish the heightened reality of the proceedings.
“That was very important to me,” Chopra says of finding the correct tone for her performance. “You have to know the world you are in, so to me Victoria is fabulously absurd.”
That’s confirmed with her introduction “when she refuses to take her (high-heeled) shoes off when she’s in the sand at the beach so somebody has to put a stool down for her to stand on.”
Adds the 34-year-old; “This is her normal — it is so delectable to me.”
Performing opposite Efron and Johnson turned out to be just as pleasant despite their distracting physical shapes — “when don’t they look like that,” she says.
Still, Chopra understood — despite the not-so-serious spirit of the picture — she had to put a femme fatale edge to her Victoria persona.
“I had to make you believe Victoria was capable of anything,” she says. “There was no other way to take on The Rock and Zac and the whole team of Avengers at the beach, which is what we called them.”
Collaborating with Baywatch director Seth Gordon, best known for Horrible Bosses, was another plus.
Gordon was instrumental in the pursuit of the Indian actress because she had “the presence and talent” required to portray the antagonist, which is in sharp contrast to her heroic Quantico role.
“I didn’t have time to audition because I was filming Quantico in Montreal,” Chopra says. “We did a Skype call, which was supposed to be 20 minutes and it ended up being 21/2 hours.”
She got another call from Gordon 10 minutes later asking her to join the cast. It meant the complication of shooting her series in frigid Montreal during the week and Baywatch in hot Miami on weekends.
“Dwayne would always joke with me that I was coming from Montreal to Miami only for a vacation instead of work,” she says. “But I would sit on the beach for the rest of the day after we had wrapped.”
It might be her only break for a while since ABC has renewed Quantico for a third season. The series is in 65 countries across the globe. “It’s received such amazing response from everywhere,” Chopra says.
The international success of Quantico might not be a coincidence.
Before introducing herself to North America, Chopra became one of the most popular and highest-paid performers in India. She’s been showcased in more than 50 movies, some setting South Asian box office records.
Her 2015 debut in the U.S. with Quantico playing agent trainee Alex Parrish marks the beginning of what looks like another career in North America.
“I do like to shoulder the responsibility of the show,” she says of Quantico.
In the meantime, Chopra is in talks to do a few more U.S. and Indian films.
“I just love my job and I am a greedy actor,” Chopra says. “I want to do different things and everything.
“So my schedule might be crazy this year and next, but it really is a champagne problem.”