Tiger Shroff says his action star image made it difficult for his fans to accept him in the character of a student who gets bullied and beaten up in Student of the Year 2.

The Karan Johar-backed sequel last year, set on a fictional college campus, also featured Ananya Panday and Tara Sutaria but did not do well at the box office.

The actor said he understood why the audience couldn’t connect with the film. “I got a lot of feedback from my fans as well, saying, ‘We used to see you as this one-man army take down machines single-handedly and here you’re getting beaten up in college, we couldn’t digest that.’ I guess it’s my fault and my failure to not do it convincingly,” Tiger, starring in this week’s Baaghi 3, said.

The actor said a good action film needs an emotional story, without which all the stunts in a film would appear as a showpiece. “If there’s no emotion or reason in an action movie, then that action just becomes a showreel and feels like a decoration. Once the action has a reason then that action multiplies and the audiences also feel connected and more engaged,” he said.

The action has been scaled up for the third movie in the franchise, directed by Ahmed Khan and co-starring Shraddha Kapoor, Riteish Deshmukh, Ankita Lokhande, and Jackie Shroff in a cameo.

“It’s man vs man, man vs machines and man vs nature, quite literally. I’m fighting helicopters and tanks. All the action that is seen in the trailer is all live. Very little VFX has been used in this film. I give all the credit to Ahmed sir and Sajid (Nadiadwala, producer) sir.”

For the longest, the actor has been attached to star in the Hindi remake of Rambo, which reunites him with his War director Siddharth Anand. There has been no movement on the project so far but Tiger said the film has not been shelved. “It is still happening. It is pushed right now. It doesn’t make sense doing two back-to-back more or less Rambo-like films,” he added.