Ever since she made her debut with the film Bob Biswas, Samara Tijori has been a talent to look out for. The actor says she will “never forget” her debut. “The responses I got after Bob Biswas were insane, whether from the industry or from the audience. They told me they loved the character and really wanted to know what was happening in her life. That was so exciting as I played a character that wasn’t leading the film, but it still stuck with people,” she says.

Talking about her latest release, Masoom, she shares that it was challenging as well as fun. Tijori shares how the cremation scene really got to her, as it felt like her own mother’s last rites. Director Mihir Desai came up to her, laughed and asked her to “look at herself”, which snapped her back to reality.

While she’s the daughter of actor-filmmaker Deepak Tijori, her career was built with her own hard work. She auditioned for roles and was even out of work right after Bob Biswas. “I shot it at 24 and it released when I was 26. In that gap, I just auditioned and there were no [work] calls for months at a stretch,” she says.

Initially, she was confused between pursuing psychology and acting, and what helped her realise that acting was her true calling was assisting on Dishoom (2016). She was also inspired by actor Vicky Kaushal while assisting on Bhoot – Part One: The Haunted Ship (2020): “He was doing multiple things and still giving it his best shot. I learnt that determination from him.”