Kritika Kamra’s turn as a world-weary but confident single woman in The Great Shamsuddin Family has come in for praise. The Anusha Rizvi directorial, playing on JioHotstar, focuses on a modern Indian Muslim family, dominated by women, where several generations come together during the course of a day that brings in chaos and charm in equal measure. With the film — and her performance — eliciting huge praise, t2 caught up with Kritika for a chat.

The Great Shamsuddin Family released in December and yet made its way to a large number of top 10 films of 2025 lists. You must be stoked...

As an actor, one always hopes that people tune into your work. The Great Shamsuddin Family is such a small film that we have been relying completely on word-of-mouth publicity. We quietly came on a platform and haven’t had a big marketing budget to promote it. Our only hope was that people should watch the film, and thankfully, that has happened.

The kind of feedback I have got for this film, I haven’t ever got in my life before. How people are reacting to it feels very personal. I am getting so many messages, there are so many opinion pieces by intellectuals on what the film means and what it tries to say, without trying hard. People are reading deeply into the politics of the film. It is very interesting to see the kind of investment that many viewers have put into the film.

What is special is that a lot of women have written to me, particularly about some moments in the film, and about how they could resonate with Bani (her character). That truly feels like a win. There have been paragraphs of messages sent to me saying: “I felt that you were speaking my mind” or “I see myself in Bani”.

Such deep resonance and conversation has left me spellbound. The credit goes to Anusha (Rizvi, director) for creating a character which is so real and relatable. As the elder daughter in my house, as the person who is the dependable daughter, as an independent single woman in Mumbai who runs the house and has a career, I could relate a lot with Bani. And I am so excited to see that there are so many other women who also saw themselves in her. There is a particular moment in the film that comes up frequently in conversations and that is the kitchen scene where Bani says she is tired of being strong, of being the one who takes care of everyone. She says that sometimes even she wants to be cared for, and that, I think, hit home for many. This is a feeling that is common to most women today who have a career but also run the house. You may be running a company but you also have to know if there is salt in the kitchen.

In an age of manufactured and manipulative marketing, the fact that the film is growing mostly on the basis of word-of-mouth publicity must be a high...

It is heartening. I always have believed that good work will find its way to the audience, but there have been times when I have asked myself whether I am being too much of an idealist. This is the age of marketing. But the fact that The Great Shamsuddin Family has worked without all of it restores my faith and also emboldens me in making decisions going forward.

I have always made project choices that are slightly off centre and not safe, commercial choices. I have had people telling me that this is perhaps not how I should be navigating my career, but I have always listened to my heart. I feel quite vindicated now.

The representation of the Muslim community in the film is free of the stereotypes that we generally get to see. Was that also a reason that made you want to do this film?

One hundred per cent. Anusha Rizvi has a very interesting voice as a filmmaker. She doesn’t shy away from dealing with certain topics but has a lightness of touch. For me, it was refreshing to get the opportunity to play the central part in a movie by such a prolific writer-director and with so many other women characters. First of all, this is not a ‘safe’ film... people are always like: “So many women in a film won’t work”. And then, it is about an Indian Muslim family, which is shown as just any other family. It was refreshing to read a script with characters that were messy, imperfect, familiar... a story which was trying to say something deep without being loud.

The film does a lot for representation because it breaks many stereotypes. Before this film, one has rarely seen a modern Indian Muslim family represented in such a way — one in which women dress the way all of us do and where you see different generations talking and putting forth their point of view. Since it is personal for Anusha, it comes from a lived experience of an Indian Muslim woman, of an intellectual. So, it also is a fresh perspective. I liked the fact that the film, despite not aspiring to make any big points, still ends up saying so much.

Is there anything from your character Bani you would like to borrow and something of yourself that you would want to lend to her?

I want her books! There were some incredible books in the house that was set up as Bani’s home. Each and every book was handpicked by Anusha. There was a lot of art in the house. There were (S.H.) Raza paintings, there is a piece of art that was loaned from the Kiran Nadar Museum. There were little nuggets that went into building Bani’s world and her home. There is a scene where I am working on my laptop and you get to see Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies... there is the Quran as well as 1984 (by George Orwell). There is nothing like a meaningless prop in the film. Everything will tell you something about Bani or about Anusha.

We don’t see Bani’s father in the story. I would like Bani to have a father like mine who encourages, empowers and emboldens.

Apart from The Great Shamsuddin Family, has there been any other project of yours that has dug this deep in terms of its world building?

The last time I saw this kind of detail done so beautifully was in Bambai Meri Jaan (Prime Video). Since it is a show about gangsters, I didn’t expect the kind of intricate detailing that it went into. It was a show made on a very big scale... there were so many action set pieces. But the attention to detail in the production design, in my costumes... everything was so well thought out. I know it wasn’t as academically discussed as it perhaps should have been. There were details like the size of my nose pin changing for the 10 years that the show spans. As the character got darker, the colour of my costumes became darker. There were also a lot of innovations and immense detailing that went into the props and sets, as well as in how the show was shot. Such things, when done well, give one a peek into the mind of the director and are of interest to me as an actor.

You mentioned earlier that you auditioned for The Great Shamsuddin Family. After being an actor for more than 18 years, are auditions still the norm or was this a one-off instance?

All of my castings have happened through auditions. I don’t have the privilege of things being written specifically for me. That is the dream, that is where one wants to be, but I don’t have that yet. There is still a big section of mainstream cinema that does not necessarily work like this. I am grateful Anusha chose me to play the lead when she could have got anyone else. I don’t think anybody would have said ‘no’ to the director of Peepli [Live], a film that went to the Oscars.

For The Great Shamsuddin Family, she chose to hold auditions. And that is how I got a call and got to give it a shot. It feels very earned and when you get appreciation for it, it is sweeter because you know that this is about my acting capability... it is not about how I look, about how many social media followers I have or who my friend in the project is. It is merit-based and hence the success is sweeter. I am glad that casting has become a formal department and that good filmmakers now want to go down that route. Of course, it is not the norm. There are many stakeholders and decisions are based on commercial viability all the time.

I am trying to build a filmography, the cumulative result of which is better opportunities for me. No one launched me and I anyway came in from television, which meant that I had to constantly keep proving myself. Most people know that I am not interested in the one song-two scenes kind of characters. I don’t want to be a prop in the story, I want to have something to do.

You made your relationship with Gaurav Kapoor Insta official recently...

Honestly, I haven’t ever received so much congratulations on a breakfast post! (Laughs) I was like: “What are people congratulating me for? A nice breakfast?!” (Laughs) I am really surprised. I genuinely did not think that this would be so interesting to so many people, but if it is, then sure be it. Of course, it is on my Instagram page, which is for public consumption but I think it has got more attention than it deserves.