It was high time to jump back into Bollywood: Ashutosh Rana

Mumbai: Actor Ashutosh Rana has completed shooting for four films in the past six months, making a grand comeback of sorts into Bollywood. He says it was high time he returned as people had started questioning him about "vanishing" from the industry.

Ashutosh has been working a lot in the southern film industry for the past few years. Now he has seven big Bollywood releases in a span of the next two years. The projects include Dharma Productions' "Dhadak", Anubhav Sinha's "Mulk", Abhishek Chaubey's "Sonchiraiya", Tigmanshu Dhulia's "Milan Talkies", Rohit Shetty's "Simmba", Ismail Darbar's "Tigdum" and Shekhar Sirrin's "Chicken Curry Law".

On working in back-to-back projects, Ashutosh said in a statement to IANS: "In a party, I met someone who said that I have vanished from the industry, and it wasn't like that. I have been working in the south industry and a film in Bollywood at regular intervals.

"I guess that comment hit a nerve and I decided to make an imprint here again and I took up the projects. There is lot of work in the south, but I guess it was high time to jump back. So, I completed everything in one shot."

Perhaps he found a comfort in southern film projects.

"Directors in the south industry don't typecast you and let you explore as an actor. And along with us, they also think out-of-the-box and are keen on exploring and pushing you beyond the limit. Whereas here (in Bollywood), after doing larger than life characters in 'Sangharsh' and 'Dushman', people couldn't think of anything else for me," said the actor, whose last Hindi film was "Brothers".