BURBANK, Calif., Sept. 11 — Parminder Nagra is a new addition to NBC’s long-running “ER,” playing a medical student who isn’t afraid to express her own opinion.

In a scene filmed for the 10th season of the hospital drama, which premieres Sept. 25 (10 p.m. ET), her character, Neela Rasgotra, challenges a superior to heed a youngster’s claim that her grandmother has requested a “DNR” — do not resuscitate.

“The child wouldn’t know that term unless it had been discussed,” says Rasgotra as she swabs the arm of an unconscious elderly woman who is breathing through an oxygen mask.

Nagra, best known to American audiences as a soccer-playing teen in the British film “Bend It Like Beckham,” now finds herself playing a doctor-in-training in the emergency room of a Chicago teaching hospital.

Still wearing yellow plastic gloves — “I haven’t quite learned how to snap them off fast” — the 27-year-old introduces herself with a polite handshake.

She didn’t know much about playing soccer when she got the role of English-born Jesminder Bhamra, who defies the conventions of her orthodox Sikh heritage to become a soccer star in “Beckham.”

“When I picked up my first stethoscope, it was like football (soccer). I want to do it and I’m going to do it, so deal with it. For me it’s like tackling Shakespeare,” she said.

Princess of Snakes

Nagra was born and raised in central England, in the city of Leicester. She’s been billed as Parminder K. Nagra — “K” for Kaur (or princess), the middle name of every Sikh girl. Her full name can be translated as “Supreme Goddess Princess of Snakes.”

She was surprised that “ER” executive producer John Wells already had her in mind when she walked into his office for what she believed was a “general chat” — part of a series of meetings to introduce her to American producers.

Wells offered her the job right then and there — or, as she puts it, “pulled out this double whammy!”

“John already had in his head generally sketched out the basics of the character,” she said. (Her character, Indian-born and British-raised, studied molecular biology and biophysics at Yale University before joining County General.)

Laura Innes, who plays Dr. Kerry Weaver — newly elevated to County General’s chief of staff — says Nagra has “a real gentle spirit and a very evocative face and presence.”

“She’s very steady and graceful, but strong at the same time, and, obviously, the fact that she’s East Indian is accurate to the life of the hospital and also to the diversity of a community,” Innes said.

“That’s always an important part of the show, so I think it’s a really smart choice.”

Nagra’s pleased that the writers are asking questions about Anglo-Indian culture to avoid cliches and stereotypes in developing her character. “They’ve even asked me what she possibly might have in her music collection.”

She bridles when anyone tries to type her, like one journalist who described her as not looking big enough “to hit a fly, let alone a football.”

“Grrr,” she said with a laugh. “That’s like a red rag to a bull . . . that petite Asian girl, very demure . . . that isn’t what I’m about.”

MISSING THE RAIN

Nagra started acting in local semipro youth theater, including musicals. Her first London gig was as the princess in the pantomime “Sleeping Beauty.” Her first television role was on the popular BBC medical series “Casualty.”

Her recent credits back home in England include Viola in a television version of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” and a Cordelia-like daughter in “Second Generation,” a TV series inspired by the bard’s “King Lear.”

When she went to the Indian city of Calcutta to film scenes for “Second Generation,” she suffered self-described culture shock.

“I realized how very English I was. I went, ‘I’m not leaving my hotel room’ . . . but then by the end of the week I was in a rickshaw, on my own, giving the driver the what for!”

She laughs at how soon “the Indian side of me” came to the fore. But she found it odd that in Calcutta “they thought I was an upper-class Bombayite” because at home in England she’s from “a working-class background, now living a middle-class lifestyle.”

The abrupt move to Los Angeles finds Nagra very excited by her new role, but missing family and friends. She also misses a good cup of tea.

“And rain. I actually miss rain. . . . I actually laugh at the forecast here every day when it says ‘sunny and gorgeous.’”