It took a few years to shed the label ‘Tiger Shroff’s heroine’: Kriti Sanon

After a rather lackluster 2023, marked by consecutive box-office bombs, Kriti Sanon rebounded in a big way this year, with both of her films released in 2024 - ‘Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya’ and ‘Crew’ - becoming major successes. Now, the National Award-winning actress is ready for the release of her third film of the year, director Shashanka Chaturvedi’s ‘Do Patti’.

Kriti takes on a dual role in ‘Do Patti’, while Kajol also plays a prominent character in the thriller. Ahead of the film’s release, the actresses graced The Indian Express’ ‘Expresso’, where they discussed the movie, their film journey, social media and the laughter that brings them together. Kriti also opened up about how, as an outsider with no prior connections to the film industry, it took her a few years and several films to make her face and name known to the audience.

During that time, Kriti was primarily referred to as ‘Tiger Shroff’s heroine’. It may be recalled that both Tiger and Kriti made their Bollywood debut in director Sabbir Khan’s romantic action film ‘Heropanti’ (2014). While Tiger was already well-known as veteran actor Jackie Shroff’s son, Kriti had done only one film prior to that and that too in the Telugu film industry, ‘1: Nenokkadine’.

“It didn’t take me that many years to get my first break. At the time of ‘Heropanti’, though people knew Tiger and that the movie marked his launch, the director and producer treated the movie as launching two new faces. I got the quintessential Bollywood heroine moment too, with songs and everything,” she told film critic and senior columnist Shubhra Gupta and The Indian Express’ National Opinion editor Vandita Mishra.

“However, for a while after that, people referred to me as ‘the one who appeared in Tiger Shroff’s movie’. When you are not from the industry (film family), it takes longer for you to etch your name and face into the minds of people. At that point, the kids of Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, who later directed ‘Bareilly Ki Barfi’, used to call me ‘Tiger didi’. Those were the instances when I realised I would have to work doubly hard to get people to recognise me and know me for who I am,” she said, adding that ‘Bareilly Ki Barfi’ was the turning point when people finally started recognising her for who she was.