Shatrughan Sinha has this huge reputation of always being late on the set. Another hero who is accused of that often is Govinda . Many of Sinha's co-stars have spoken about his habit of being late on the set. This was also true for Rajesh Khanna though. When Poonam Dhillon had appeared on Kapil Sharma's show, she was asked about her co-stars.

When she was asked about the tardiest hero she has worked with, Poonam said, "There were two top heroes; Govinda and Shatrughan Sinha. I’ve worked often with them both. With Shatru ji, I did five or six films. I think I’ve wasted half my life waiting for him. He would show up at 4 pm for a 9 am shift.”
In an interview, Chunky Panday had revealed that Sinha was actually always late on purpose and he had also advised the same to him. Chunky had spoken in an interview with Radio Nasha, "Shatru ji told me something very nice, which I follow to date. He said, ‘Son, whatever you do, never arrive on time anywhere. If you are punctual, no one will value you. Even if you happen to be early somehow, stay in the car for 15 minutes or so. Make people wait.’ That was the old-school method — people eagerly waiting for a star. Once the star arrives, what’s the point."

Amitabh Bachchan on the other hand was known for being very punctual. Sinha and Big B shared screen space in many movies. Once Bachchan took a jibe at Sinha's habit of coming late. He said at a book launch event, "Back in those days, we were working together on two films, Shaan and Naseeb. We used to do three different shifts on the same day, but for different movies. We used to shoot for Shaan from 7 in the morning to 2 in the noon. At 2, we both used to leave the set in our respective cars to reach the set of Naseeb. I would reach the set by 2:30 pm, but Shatru used to reach after 5-7 hours. Yeh bhai sahab kaha gayab hojate the, aaj tak humein nahi pata (Till date, we don’t have a clue where he used to disappear).”