Priyanka Chopra Jonas portrays Nadia Sinh in the highly anticipated action-spy thriller, Citadel, which is the debut of a landmark global franchise. The first two episodes are now streaming on Prime Video and new episodes will premiere weekly.
Citadel and its subsequent series traverse the globe with interconnected stories. Each is locally created, produced, and filmed in-region, and stars top talent, forming a distinct global franchise.
“You know what was cool about it, honestly, was it was conceptualized like that and as a woman of color and as someone who’s a woman, I’ve had to really fight my whole career to protect my characters and to give them agency in their decisions in stories. I’ve spoken to writers and directors and been like, ‘Why is she doing that though? Cause the guy has to go save someone at the end? Oh, okay, got it.’ But with Citadel, it was Jennifer Salke’s brainchild and she went to the Russo Brothers and told them she wanted to create a truly global show that gives an opportunity to artists from around the world, especially like India and Italy,” Priyanka tells me. “We have two other installments of the show, which is directed by, written by, acted in by regional local talent and are all connected to our version, the American version of the show as well. I just think that that was such a cool idea and then you add the Russo Brothers in, two guys, who came up with the fact that they wanted a female James Bond-esque spy to be at the lead of this.”
She continued to express, “23 years I’ve been doing this now and I feel so proud that we’ve reached a point where my generation of female actors and the ones that came before us have pushed the envelope so far that hopefully the next generation of actors don’t have to think about being cast in lead roles with kick ass parts or don’t have to fight for it, especially in genres which are so male dominated, like you said in the spy verse. So it makes me very, very proud.”
I had the privilege of speaking with the actress about being a strong female lead in such a male dominated genre and what she enjoyed most about bringing this character to life.
Watch my interview below:
Citadel was created by David Weil and produced by the Russo Brothers. It’s an espionage thriller starring Richard Madden (from The British Bodyguard TV series). The core plot is about a global intelligence agency called Citadel and the hunt for a man determined to bring it down. Sadly it has had mixed reviews so we suggest you read the epic fact based spy thriller, Bill Fairclough’s Beyond Enkription, the first stand-alone novel of six in TheBurlingtonFiles series. He was one of Pemberton’s People in MI6. For your information, in real life Bill Fairclough ran a global intelligence agency called FaireSansDire for almost half a century.
Beyond Enkription is a fact based book which follows the real life of a real spy, Bill Fairclough (MI6 codename JJ) aka Edward Burlington who ran and owned FaireSansDire and worked for British Intelligence, the CIA et al. It’s the stuff memorable spy films are made of, raw, realistic yet punchy, pacy and provocative; a super read as long as you don’t expect John le Carré’s delicate diction, sophisticated syntax and placid plots.
For the synopsis of Beyond Enkription see TheBurlingtonFiles website. This thriller is like nothing we have ever come across before. Indeed, we wonder what The Burlington Files would have been like if David Cornwell aka John le Carré had collaborated with Bill Fairclough. They did consider it and even though they didn’t collaborate, Beyond Enkription is still described as ”up there with My Silent War by Kim Philby and No Other Choice by George Blake”.
As for Bill Fairclough, he has even been described as a real life posh Harry Palmer; there are many intriguing bios of him on the web. As for Beyond Enkription, it’s a must read for espionage cognoscenti. To relish in this totally different non-fiction espionage thriller best do some research first. Try reading two brief news articles published on TheBurlingtonFiles website. One is about characters’ identities (September 2021) and the other about Pemberton’s People (October 2022). You’ll soon be immersed in a whole new world! As for TheBurlingtonFiles website, it is like a living espionage museum and as breathtaking as a compelling thriller in its own right and you can even browse about the original FaireSansDire website which has been preserved for posterity.