“After being in movies for 13 years in India, I’m suddenly a debutante all over again,” she said. “I’m scared and nervous — petrified, actually.”

In ABC’s new drama “Quantico,” which debuts Sept. 27, Ms. Chopra plays Alex Parrish, a half-Indian, half-white F.B.I. trainee suspected of masterminding the biggest attack on New York since Sept. 11. The series, which has been described as “Homeland” meets “Grey’s Anatomy” (with a bit of “How to Get Away With Murder,” because of its many flashbacks), places Ms. Chopra front and center in an ethnically varied cast.

It’s part of ABC’s continued drive to promote diversity on-screen through casting and outreach efforts. In 2012 Ms. Chopra and her manager, Anjula Acharia-Bath, met Keli Lee, the executive vice president for talent and casting for ABC Entertainment Group, at a dinner party. As Ms. Lee named some of the actors she’d helped place through the company’s diversity efforts — Sofia Vergara in “Modern Family,” Sandra Oh in “Grey’s Anatomy” and Kerry Washington in “Scandal” — Ms. Acharia-Bath remarked, “Well, you haven’t done a South Asian yet, and we’re one-fifth of the population.” Afterward, she sent Ms. Lee some of Ms. Chopra’s movies, and the next thing she knew, a deal was in the making.

“I flew to India to convince Priyanka to work at ABC,” Ms. Lee wrote in an email. “I wasn’t going to let distance be a barrier to making a deal.” The one-year commitment required ABC either to develop a project for Ms. Chopra or cast her in an existing project. She ultimately read 26 scripts; “Quantico” was her favorite.