Tiger Shroff Says Vanity Can Creep Into His Performances, Reveals His Family Calls It Out

Tiger Shroff is used to being watched. As an actor, that is the job. As a star whose brand is built on physical precision and control, it is also the expectation. But Shroff says the sharpest eyes on him are not in the audience. They are at home.

Speaking about feedback, the actor revealed that his mother, Ayesha Dutt, and his sister, Krishna Shroff, are “brutally honest” critics. Their honesty, he said, can sting—but it also keeps him grounded in what matters. “When they say the script has failed you, it hurts, but it’s a compliment as well,” he said, explaining that they are not blaming his effort as much as calling out a larger problem.

But the feedback that has changed him most is not about a bad film. It is about a bad habit.

Shroff admitted he still has to learn “to internalise things” and “not be as superficial.” He offered an example that is almost uncomfortably specific, revealing how vanity can quietly creep into performance.

“If I’m shooting a song—a romantic song—I need to be invested in my co-actor as opposed to being invested in myself,” he said. “A lot of times I’d be angling my face in a certain way while looking at her, just so I get the light hitting my jawline properly or taking the light into my eyes a little better, as opposed to giving her that energy.”

It is the kind of confession most actors avoid, because it pulls back the curtain on the calculation behind a “perfect” frame. But Shroff described it as a creative failure, not a cosmetic one. If the attention is on one’s own face, it is not fully on the other actor. If it is on angles and lighting, it is not fully on emotion.

That is why his family’s feedback lands. They notice the shift instantly. Asked if they can point out exactly where vanity creeps in, Shroff agreed. “Because they know me. They know me so well,” he said. When it was put to him directly that he is thinking about himself in that moment, he did not deny it. “About myself, yeah.”

His sister’s version of the note is even blunter. “My sister says you need to be a little less selfish at times,” he said, accepting the criticism with a shrug. “Which is fair.”

Shroff also acknowledged the irony. Acting is one of the few professions where appearance is part of the performance. “It’s our job, in a way, to focus on the aesthetic part of it as well and to look a certain way,” he said. “It does have its pros and cons.”

The growth, he suggests, lies in knowing where that awareness ends. There is a difference between being camera-ready and being present—and his mother and sister, he says, keep reminding him to choose the latter.