ABC Is Banking on FBI Drama for an International Hit

On its own, ABC’s Quantico is pretty unremarkable. It’s a salacious, binge-watchable show that will feel instantly familiar to anyone who’s seen more than five minutes of any other ABC drama in recent years. Want distractingly good-looking young people thrown together in a high-stress work environment, in this case the FBI National Academy? Quantico’s got ’em. Frenzied, ersatz Homeland plots resolved by end-of-episode twists? Yup. Love (OK, lust) triangles? Roger that.

But Quantico has one important asset that’s putting it ahead of just about every other new fall drama: its lead, Priyanka Chopra. Relatively unknown in the U.S. before now, Chopra is a former Miss World and one of the biggest stars in Bollywood—two of her films are among the highest-grossing in Indian history.