Kritika Kamra’s intimate, no-frills wedding in March to cricket presenter and entrepreneur Gaurav Kapur reflects her belief in living life on her own terms. The actress rose to TV stardom at 18 but soon stepped away to explore more meaningful acting opportunities. After 20 years, her performance in The Great Shamsuddin Family (2025) brought renewed critical acclaim. In a candid chat, she reflects on her marriage and evolving approach to work.

He’s the life of the party, while I’m more of a quiet, corner or bar-seat person. It balances out perfectly. He has always been funny, and I love his humour, but he has this deep, sensitive side to him. What really surprised me about him was his emotional intelligence. Women are often conditioned to be the anchor, the wise one while men aren’t as emotional or expressive. But with Gaurav, that couldn’t be further from the truth. He’s deeply attuned to the feelings of others. To me, that kind of emotional intelligence is a true sign of kindness, taking the time and effort to understand what someone needs and then showing up for them, often without being asked.

It’s been quite seamless. Just a week after our wedding, we were both back at work. We’re both mature, self-made individuals, so it doesn’t feel like a big adjustment. It’s more like living with my best friend. We both understand how a household runs and what it takes to manage everyday life. Earlier, we were doing everything on our own. Now there are two of us, and that just makes things more efficient. There are no rigid roles or fixed rules in the house. It’s very fluid, whoever has the time takes care of what needs to be done. Nothing is left pending because it’s ‘someone’s job’. I joke that my deliveries don’t get sent back anymore if I’m not home!

I’ve been privileged to choose my own timeline. There was never any pressure from my family. I stayed single until I wanted to and got married when I felt ready. Financial independence and living on your own shield you from societal noise and are incredibly empowering.

We’ve both been in Mumbai for a long time and have mutual friends. It really started with some online banter, and then we met and kept meeting after that. It grew quite organically from there, beginning as a friendship. We were also familiar with each other’s work through social media. While I’m in films and he’s deeply rooted in cricket, there’s actually a lot of overlap in our interests. I’ve always enjoyed watching cricket, even before I met him. And he, on the other hand, is a complete film buff. He remembers the most random film dialogues. Sending reels and memes to each other is our love language.

Both Gaurav and I are huge fans of The Office, so we had the Jim and Pam wedding song playing at ours. It was completely last-minute and unplanned. Someone just asked what we wanted to play, and we went with that. Suddenly, all of Gaurav’s friends were walking us up to the terrace. No one really knew what was happening or what they were supposed to do, but that’s what made it so special and memorable.

No, not at all! He was actually quite lazy about it but I’m okay with that (laughs).

It’s one of the best things that I have ever done. People discovered it on their own through word of mouth. The performance demanded a certain restraint. In a scene, my character, a single woman, says how she doesn’t want to be strong anymore. Many could relate to that. I didn’t approach the film thinking it would change my career trajectory. I wanted to be a part of it because I miss these slice-of-life films that were made by Basu Chatterjee and Hrishikesh Mukherjee in the 70s. Shoojit Sircar’s Piku briefly brought that sensibility back, but such storytelling has largely been absent. Being part of a film that revisits that space was nice.