Priyanka Chopra's Baywatch villain originally written for a male

Actress Priyanka Chopra's upcoming role in the big screen adaptation of Baywatch was initially written as a male villain.

The Quantico star recently wrapped shooting on the film, based on the hit 1990s TV series, in which she plays the antagonist to the team of good-looking lifeguards, led by Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Zac Efron, Alexandra Daddario and Kelly Rohrbach, among others.

While details on Chopra's villain called Victoria have yet to be revealed, she did divulge to W magazine that she initially didn't audition for the role, since it was originally written for a male.

Chopra explains, "They were speaking to me about playing one of the lifeguards in the film Baywatch and I had a Skype call with (director) Seth Gordon, which was supposed to be 15 minutes and it ended up being two hours. The character that I’m playing, which is the antagonist in Baywatch, was written for a man, and then he just changed it and thought that a woman would be really interesting and I ended up playing Victoria."

The producers' decision to switch up the sex of the villain echoes the same diversity sentiments the Bollywood beauty recently spoke about to Flare magazine.

In the candid interview, she urged casting directors to be colour-blind when it comes to picking actors and actresses for movie roles, and instead focus more on the substance of a character.

She told the publication, "Casting needs to happen based on the best person for the job, not the Indian girl or the black girl. The girl next door is no longer blonde-haired and blue-eyed, nor is she brown-haired and brown-eyed. She's not one person. And our entertainment needs to be a representation of that."