Priyanka Chopra working toward equality for women

“Quantico” returned with its third season, taking over the time slot previously held by ABC’s “Scandal,” which officially signed off after seven seasons on air.

Stepping into Kerry Washington’s void on network television does not go unnoticed by Priyanka Chopra, who became one of the first South Asian actors to lead a U.S. broadcast show with “Quantico,” which debuted in 2015.

“It seems a little late, considering it happened in 2015,” Chopra tells Variety, referencing the milestone of an Indian actress toplining an American show. “But then even Kerry Washington was the first African-American woman to lead a network TV drama in 2012,” she mutters.

“It’s really funny that ‘Scandal’ just went off air and we’re actually taking their slot on Thursday nights .. ... I was a huge fan of Olivia Pope and Kerry, herself,” Chopra says. “Kerry is so wonderful in what she managed to do for women of color coming into mainstream network television, and I do think ‘Quanitco’ is a really big step in that direction, as well for expanding the parameters of women of color and also immigrant women who come into the country and want to be part of global entertainment.”

Chopra recalls her early meetings with ABC when she first signed a talent deal with the network, ahead of being cast to star in “Quantico.” At the time, Chopra — one of the biggest Bollywood stars of all time — told executives she did not want to play a stereotypical Indian character.

“My only thing was that I wanted to play a part that was ethnically ambiguous because what happens with a lot of South Asian actors or actors who come from different countries is you get stereotyped into just what studio execs think that Indians should be,” Chopra says.

“So I told them I wanted to play a part where I, as an actor, could deliver my job, and it had nothing to do with my color or my ethnicity. That’s how they found me for ‘Quantico,’ which was a huge win for me being a South Asian actor, but for me, it was a personal win because I went to high school in America, and I grew up in a time where the only South Asian representation that I saw on television was Apu on ‘The Simpsons’ — and he was annoying as hell because not all of us speak like that. It just made you feel really small.”

Now that she has a global platform as the star of a major network TV show, Chopra is working toward equality for women in entertainment.

“We’re getting there, but there is still so much to do,” she says. “I now am a producer, and I want to be an instrument in that change. With all the films that I’m doing and all the work that I’m developing, I am creating a lot of parts for women,” she explains, referencing jobs ranging from female directors to technical staff, which are predominantly filled with men on TV and film sets.

“I want to be that instrument, I want to talk about it, even if it’s shaming Hollywood into creating opportunities for women — whatever it takes so that I hope that in my lifetime or in the next generation, young girls won’t even have to think about it,” Chopra elaborates. “It dwindles down even more with women of color — the opportunities are even less. So I want to be able to create those opportunities and talk about them and make people admit that yes, it’s a problem.”

As for “Quantico’s” upcoming third season, Chopra describes the onscreen themes as “very diverse and extremely global” with scenes that were shot everywhere from Italy to Ireland to New York City.

But Chopra promises the campy drama is still present: “Alex, this year, has a lot of man drama,” she says of her character.