India, June 25 -- Actor Priyanka Chopra has spoken out about how Indian cinema has continued to prove naysayers wrong in its global expansions over the last couple of decades. The actor, one of India's most successful in the West, said she was told Indian cinema could not be global because of the language divide.

Speaking at the Cannes Lions conference in France earlier this week, Priyanka talked about her early years in the Indian film industry and how she navigated it as an outsider. "My parents were doctors, so none of us had any idea how to navigate film. It used to be such a niche industry when I first started. If you wanted to get into filmmaking, you had to figure out what department you wanted to be in," she said.

Priyanka was 1...