Proud to have earned a pivotal role in the political thriller Tandav, Kritika Kamra opens up on the inherent prejudices against television actors in Bollywood
Kritika Kamra in Tandav
Television actors have often highlighted how Bollywood is unwelcoming of them. With web platforms democratising the game, telly stars have found a new avenue to showcase their acting talent. Kritika Kamra, who features in Ali Abbas Zafar’s Tandav, considers it a big win for actors who are striving to be fluid and work across all mediums.
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Talking about the inherent prejudice against actors who hail from television, she begins, “I have faced it a lot. The kind of work happening in television gives content creators the authority to assume that TV actors overact or will be loud. After screen tests, directors have told me that they were surprised by my understated work. Many producers have also candidly told me that they want a film face, and I am overexposed due to television. This, after I have nailed the auditions. There are actors who transitioned after a show or two. But once you’ve become a popular television face, it’s a tough road ahead. The good thing now is that the audition process has become streamlined. The bias will exist, but I will battle it out with good work. As long as the process is fair and square, I can live with that.”
Kritika Kamra
As she charts her career ahead, Kamra wants to break the perception about her. “I am choosy. I have always been so, even with my television work. I owe the medium a lot. It gave me face value, popularity and financial freedom to say no to things that don’t gratify me. Having said that, I hit saturation. There was little diversity, and after a point, it wasn’t fulfilling me emotionally as an actor. There was a distance between what I wanted to do and what I was doing.”
With films, too, the actor faced her fair share of struggles. After Mitron (2018), she was lying low before returning with the Amazon Prime Video series. “Big films came my way, but I wasn’t okay playing a prop in a man’s world. TV actors are spoilt because the shows are women-oriented. I signed some films that didn’t materialise,” she recounts, hoping that the political drama unfolds a new chapter for her.
Preparing for her role was not easy for Kamra, who plays a Kashmiri student politician in the series. “It makes sharp commentary on scenarios that will resonate with people because they hit too close to home. This character was not relatable to me; I had to empathise on a deeper level with her trials. It helps that the show is so well-written [by Gaurav Solanki]. My character’s conflict was well-etched. Plus, Ali has incredible clarity on his creative vision.”
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