It’s past midnight and Priyanka Chopra is trying on a hat fitted with a visor

Priyanka Chopra's playlist - It’s past midnight and Priyanka Chopra is trying on a hat fitted with a visor. The inveterate star steps forward to fix the camera with her gaze.

Priyanka Chopra

We’re in Mumbai’s Film City studios to catch Chopra just as she returns from a day trip to Los Angeles. There are still a few more shots to go, and Chopra has her game face on. She could easily decide to call it a day; instead she goes that extra mile, slips into a couple more dresses, experiments with her hair.

It’s easy to understand why she claims, “Sundays are still a luxury.” Everyone wants her on their team now, from Sanjay Leela Bhansali who has her chiselling herself to play Mary Kom in his biopic of the Indian boxer, to Apoorva Lakhia who has cast her as the female lead in his remake of the 1973 classic, Zanjeer.

The camera loves her. But she’s quite a dynamo off it as well, breaking as she does into an impromptu jig between shots, laughter rolling easy around her. “If I stopped to care about what people are saying about me, I’d never be able to get out of bed,” she grins.

The haters “could be anywhere -- on Twitter, at a shoot, at a party,” but she remains seriously, shockingly unflappable.

This is just how we find her at the cusp of a new career in music: brimming with moxie. It has meant several of these day trips to Los Angeles (yes, she proves it can be done), hours of vocal training, more time in the recording studio and co-writing songs.

The plunge has paid off.

Within two days of releasing the video of her single ‘In My City’ featuring Will.I.Am, in January, it crossed more than 2,70,000 hits on YouTube.

Her track hit triple platinum in the first week. Now, in the midst of the hysteria that swirls around her, she looks back on some of her milestones through a new lens, songs which have defined moments that changed her life.

‘Mere Khawabon Mein Jo Aaye’ from Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge

It was the tune that had her dancing before the mirror as a teenager. “I loved that song! When I was in school, some people told me I looked like Kajol. My hair was kind of like hers back then. Every day, before I’d leave for school, I’d steal a few minutes to play her in front of the mirror.”

‘Hypnotize’ by Notorious B.I.G.

“Let me put it this way, my teenage anthems were all pretty gangster [laughs]. When I was in Boston, I was hooked to hip-hop and went through this phase of listening to Biggie and Tupac, especially ‘Hypnotize’. I used to make my own mixtapes, recorded straight from the radio.”

‘I'm On Fire’ by Bruce Springsteen

“I won’t say who it was, but this person introduced me to the Bruce Springsteen song,” she confides, adding that it will always remind her of that someone special. ( Vogue News )