While most actors would avoid such a role in fear of judgment, Kritika Kamra says she is unfazed by how her character in the Vijay Varma-starrer Matka King will be perceived. Set in the smoky underbelly of 1960s Bombay, she plays a woman who enters a morally complex relationship with a married man, fully aware of what it entails. It’s the kind of role cinema has historically flattened into labels — the other woman — the one you’re meant to dislike.

“I know that the character is going to be judged. And I’m welcoming that judgment,” she says plainly. “I’m not interested in making a character likeable. That’s not my goal.” For Kamra, the job isn’t to soften a character but to understand her without apology. “Infidelity and jealousy are very human. Relationships are messy. They are not black and white. If we start making moral statements through stories, then we’re simplifying something that isn’t simple.”