South star Prithviraj wants to give more time to Bollywood

Mumbai: South star Prithviraj Sukumaran, whose ‘Aiyyaa’ opposite Rani Mukherjee is set for a release this week, has decided to slow down in south cinema and focus more on doing Bollywood films. Prithviraj has done more than 80 films down south in different languages —Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu. He is best known for films ‘Vaasthavam’, ‘Indian Rupee’, ‘Classmates’, Mani Ratnam’s ‘Raavanan’ and ‘Urumi’, among others. [caption id=“attachment_485621” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Prithviraj in Aiyyaa.[/caption] “I think down south I am at a stage where I am looking forward to slowing down on work. I have done so many films in the past 12 years. I want to take it easy and slowly now and do one or two films a year,” Prithviraj told PTI in an interview. “So in south especially, two films in Malayalam means three months of your time and the remaining nine months of the time I plan to dedicate for my new-found Hindi (film) career if there is going to be one at all, which I should hopefully know by October 12 (release date of ‘Aiyyaa’),” he said. Presently, Prithviraj also has Yash Raj Films’ ‘Aurangzeb’ in his hand, in which he will be seen alongside Arjun Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor, Jackie Shroff and Amrita Singh, among others. “All the films that I have signed or I intend to sign are purely on the basis of merit of what the films are about. As long as interesting work will find me, I will love to do more Bollywood films,” he said. However, Prithviraj clarified that doing a Bollywood movie was not always on his radar. “I never went and searched for a Bollywood film. It just happened naturally… it was a natural course. But there were offers from Bollywood before. ‘Aiyyaa’ was not the first film that I was offered in Hindi… it was the first film that I wanted to do in Hindi,” he said. PTI