Priyanka Chopra Jonas winces — only slightly, but unmistakably — when the word “crossover” enters the conversation. It’s a frigid January afternoon in Manhattan, but the Hudson River gusts can’t penetrate the interior of the Upper West Side high-rise apartment she shares with husband Nick Jonas and their 4-year-old daughter, Malti. It’s warm and cozy inside the dimly lit room, with plush velvet walls and a poker table at the ready in case anyone is feeling lucky. Even so, Chopra Jonas keeps a black wool overcoat draped across her lap.
Chopra Jonas has been chronicling her unlikely trajectory from highest-paid actress in India to Hollywood action heroine; somewhere in between, she tried to launch a pop music career. “For a hot minute — and then quickly realized I should go back to acting,” she says with a self-deprecating laugh. It’s easy-breezy, but then the C-word hits like an arctic blast.