The bespectacled Parvathy is warm and chatty, and it comes as no surprise that her breezy talkativeness played a role in her landing her first film. Her interview flows almost like a narration – replete with wide-eyes, gesturing, and quippish asides. The 29-year-old animatedly recounts her journey to becoming a popular actor in South Indian films, discusses the importance of the newly-organised Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) in creating a space for women’s voices in the film industry, and talks about what it was like working on her upcoming rom-com opposite Irrfan Khan, Qarib Qarib Singlle (QQS) .
Parvathy is known for her offbeat roles in films like the Malayalam Notebook (2004), which looks at teenage pregnancy, the Tamil rural saga Poo (2008), or the Malayalam Bangalore Days (2014), in which she played a paraplegic radio jockey. Tanuja Chandra’s QQS will be her first foray into the Hindi film industry. Despite her successful career, Parvathy admits that she wasn’t inclined towards acting until she did her first film. But she did enjoy the performing arts.
“My mother learnt Mohiniyattam as a child, and my father loved singing,” says Parvathy. Since they both became lawyers, her parents urged Parvathy and her brother to invest time in learning music and dance. “Whenever we had power cuts, my brother would take out the guitar and we would sing,” she says with a smile.
Actress Parvathy @ Bangalore Naatkal Movie Press Meet Stills
As a 17-year-old, the young actor worked as a television anchor for a live show on a Malayalam channel. “It used to be my fun, talkative capsule of the day,” she adds, saying she enjoyed earning her pocket money that way. Having been noticed on the show, she was cast in the Malayalam film Out of Syllabus (2006). What followed were commercially and critically successful performances in Malayalam, Kannada and Tamil films. But in her career that spans over a decade, Parvathy has categorically avoided doing commercial endorsements.
“I did one print ad and thoroughly disliked the experience,” she explains. “I needed to be part of storytelling as an art form.” The actor also believes that increasing her visibility outside of films could hinder the effectiveness of her craft. Parvathy says, “I believe as an actor it is counter-productive for me to expose myself. The more I [do], the lesser the suspension of disbelief when the audience sees me on screen.”
With her debut in Bollywood, Parvathy will essay Jaya, a woman discovering what it is to love and be loved after healing herself from heartbreaks. The actor says that QQS follows Jaya and Yogi’s journey as they encounter the raw emotions of love and forgiveness in this take on modern romance. “There is such insecurity in loving,” she explains, “that we see all the pros and cons and then decide how much we want to invest in relationships.”
When Chandra and screenwriter Gazal Dhaliwal travelled to meet Parvathy to discuss her role, the actor was floored. “An actor, in my experience, is not respected enough to be gone and met with,” says Parvathy, “especially if it’s somebody who is not big here.”
Yet Parvathy is self-assured and the expression of respect seems to play a significant role in her decisions. Take for instance the manner in which she chooses roles. “No matter how big or new they are, I always look for the intention of the filmmaker first. Their intention has to be in the right place,” she says. If she cannot remember the role’s details, she turns it down. Parvathy has spoken about how offers for roles in Malayalam films had fluctuated for her because she was perceived arrogant. “It was about the fact that I say no to films a lot,” she says.
- Dancing her way to cinema
She strongly believes that films must be content-driven, and that comic entertainers often commodify and exploit differences in the name of humour. “It’s not cute, it’s very dangerous,” she asserts. She describes Malayalam cinema as having gone through its own ‘Dark Age’ for trying to churn out “brainless entertainers” in the hopes of creating blockbusters. “But now we are coming back home,” she states, “to stories that are relatable and entertaining.”
The actor speaks passionately about the film industry, describing it as her home. The conversation shifts to the recent incident that recently exposed the oppressive power structures of the regional industry. “Our warrior,” she says while referring to the survivor, “was recently abducted and molested. She wanted to speak up, so we all came together because we needed to have a sisterhood.”
Balanced narrative
The abduction and assault of a fellow actor has led to the creation of the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC), an aggregation of women film professionals from the Malayalam film industry which aims at drawing attention to and addressing issues women face within the industry. “We are creating a space where we give a balanced narrative,” explains Parvathy who is a member. “Chaos is happening now in the Malayalam industry, but everywhere else you see silence – that’s worse,” she argues.
