Express News Service
Be it her choice of films or the way she carries herself, Parvathy Thiruvothu has been admirably unconventional. Despite having at least one release every year, an illusion of absence occasionally follows her, perhaps due to her minimal presence at public events or on social media, unlike most of her peers.
“There’s this expectation that one must stay busy in a certain manner, which is the only metric with which your value gets decided or your success validated. Thankfully, for the longest time, ever since I started my career, I’ve never adhered to anyone’s definition of busy.”
Parvathy adds she has had awkward instances where someone would ask her, ‘Parvathye ippo kaanunnillallo (We don’t see you nowadays). Where are you?’ and she responds, “I’m working on something you’ll eventually see.” Even funnier, she feels, is the question ‘What are you going to do next?’, when she has just finished a project.
“Look, I’m happy to share that I’ve just finished something and sometimes post a few things about it, but most times, I also feel protective of the process. I’d rather do something than talk about it,” says Parvathy, who returns with two back-to-back OTT releases in a week-span: Dhootha, a Telugu Amazon Prime Video series, and a Zee5 Hindi feature, Kadak Singh, with Pankaj Tripathi, set to stream this weekend.
Edited excerpts:
Some actors talk about the grueling, anxiety-inducing process of figuring out the soul of a character. How do you crack it — and how do you decide whether to play it quietly or loud?
Most of the time, it starts with me asking the director what they want from my character. We can play one in many ways. But I need that clarity from the director on how a character fits into the bigger picture.
Sometimes, it is based on the edit or the effect they want, which is difficult to figure out. At times, I would perceive a character as quiet and meek, and the director would tell me to bring out her chaotic side. But her chaos would be different from mine, and now I got to sit with the director and figure out this chaos they’re aiming at. Once that’s done, it’s a joyride — like being on a Ferris wheel. The process is exciting and scary at once.
I have also worked with directors who completely declined any opportunity to discuss it. That’s just their way of doing it, and it’s okay because it’s a trial-and-error method. I’ll create all the stories from the script, basically the one true blueprint for all of us. And when you get on set and try something and the director is like “That’s not what I want”, I’ve certain options ready in my kitty. “Okay, if that doesn’t work, what about this?”
Have you had experiences where you put so much effort into a role, but the reaction was the opposite of what you wanted, and vice versa?
Isn’t not having control the most frustrating yet liberating part of this job? You can only focus on the choice you can make in front of the camera on that particular day and go to sleep at night happy with the efforts you’ve put in. If I’m not, I’ll do it better the next day. I don’t want to figure out how the audience would perceive it. Each person’s life experiences color their perception of my performance. It’s a pointless, hindering, and anxiety-inducing pursuit. I have managed my expectations beautifully. I have no expectations. I’m in a happy space right now.
Since you’ve been part of a series, do you find the long-form storytelling liberating? How would you compare it to performing for a feature-length film?
I feel it’s the same in terms of performance. The only difference is that when there are eight episodes for a character to have an arc, one can watch—or write—it with patience. With Kadak Singh, I had an ‘x’ amount of days to work, and it’s not much different for a theatrical release, technically and logistically.
But I did observe the leisure with which the character developed in the series and the crispness required for Kadak Singh. Because you also have so many other characters to tell the story in a 2 hr 15 min film, my character can’t take up more space, and, the editing is a little more crisp when it comes to a feature-length film.
Sometimes the time-bound process helps…
Definitely. The funniest part is sometimes I’ve shot for a movie for 80 days and a series for 24 days. The proportion doesn’t matter here at all. But for any project that I do, I would like to know the number of days required from me, just so that I can give my best, and that’s just the logistics part of it.
What were the requirements for your role as a nurse looking after an amnesiac (Pankaj Tripathi) in Kadak Singh?
I play Miss Kannan. She doesn’t have a first name. It’s a mysterious character. I didn’t say ‘Yes’ to it immediately after my initial conversation with Tony Da (director Anirudha Roy Chowdhury, Pink-fame). I was conflicted about letting go of this opportunity because the character didn’t stand out on paper and, at the same time, I wanted to work with him and Pankaj ji, the latter being the only person I knew. I wanted to know what this character’s stake in the story is, and why this role was written.
Then I got to talk to the writer, and Tony Da said something that won me over. He said that if Pankaj ji and I come into this, we can create something that’s way above the page—that we will build everything on the set; all I needed to know is where she is from and who she is in her core.
And, for once, I said to myself I’m gonna believe in this magic. Maybe we’ll fall flat on our faces. But what if we flew? And we did—we soared high! It’s one of the best decisions of my career. Whatever the takeaway the audience would have for me would be a feather on my cap.
How did the discussions go in terms of figuring out the dynamics between your and Pankaj’s character?
He said something interesting, that the exciting part of this relationship is that it’s the only one in the story that’s free of any burden; it’s the most mundane thing you can see. It’s like going to the pharmacist who sells me a painkiller, and there is a human interaction there that doesn’t involve me being invested in his/her personal life or vice versa.
But that’s still a valid interaction, something that’s… part of our life. The same goes for a grocer who knows what I like and will tell me that it will be available next week.
I find those relationships exciting as well—not everything has to be complicated, unlike the other relationships in society that have a label attached. I’ve made films about such people, but there hasn’t been a storyline about a nurse and a patient, and even when we do, we tend to turn it into a love or hate story… we make it complicated. What about something as transactional as it can be—the nurse being a nurse and the patient being a patient? Where can the magic come from?
It seems like such a stale, clinical thing, but it’s not. Because it’s still two human beings with their own life stories, despite them not discussing anything personal about each other or forming a relationship or friendship or whatever. If it were some other filmmaker, I would’ve told them this movie would’ve existed without her too, but when you see the film, you’ll know that it brings a key element that the writer and director believed in, without which the film wouldn’t have existed.
Finally, what can you tell us about Pa. Ranjith’s Thangalaan?
I can say one thing for sure. It’s a personal take that may not speak to the audience’s expectations. It’s a larger-than-life film that I’m in awe of. Of course, we’ve seen many period films, but this film goes beyond something of a certain period, and I got to play a character who has fundamentally changed me forever. This woman came into my life and gave me the honor of being her as long as I acted, and she has brought me home to myself. I think this is a really good build-up. Follow channel on WhatsApp
Be it her choice of films or the way she carries herself, Parvathy Thiruvothu has been admirably unconventional. Despite having at least one release every year, an illusion of absence occasionally follows her, perhaps due to her minimal presence at public events or on social media, unlike most of her peers.
“There’s this expectation that one must stay busy in a certain manner, which is the only metric with which your value gets decided or your success validated. Thankfully, for the longest time, ever since I started my career, I’ve never adhered to anyone’s definition of busy.”
Parvathy adds she has had awkward instances where someone would ask her, ‘Parvathye ippo kaanunnillallo (We don’t see you nowadays). Where are you?’ and she responds, “I’m working on something you’ll eventually see.” Even funnier, she feels, is the question ‘What are you going to do next?’, when she has just finished a project. googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });
“Look, I’m happy to share that I’ve just finished something and sometimes post a few things about it, but most times, I also feel protective of the process. I’d rather do something than talk about it,” says Parvathy, who returns with two back-to-back OTT releases in a week-span: Dhootha, a Telugu Amazon Prime Video series, and a Zee5 Hindi feature, Kadak Singh, with Pankaj Tripathi, set to stream this weekend.
Edited excerpts:
Some actors talk about the grueling, anxiety-inducing process of figuring out the soul of a character. How do you crack it — and how do you decide whether to play it quietly or loud?
Most of the time, it starts with me asking the director what they want from my character. We can play one in many ways. But I need that clarity from the director on how a character fits into the bigger picture.
Sometimes, it is based on the edit or the effect they want, which is difficult to figure out. At times, I would perceive a character as quiet and meek, and the director would tell me to bring out her chaotic side. But her chaos would be different from mine, and now I got to sit with the director and figure out this chaos they’re aiming at. Once that’s done, it’s a joyride — like being on a Ferris wheel. The process is exciting and scary at once.
I have also worked with directors who completely declined any opportunity to discuss it. That’s just their way of doing it, and it’s okay because it’s a trial-and-error method. I’ll create all the stories from the script, basically the one true blueprint for all of us. And when you get on set and try something and the director is like “That’s not what I want”, I’ve certain options ready in my kitty. “Okay, if that doesn’t work, what about this?”
Have you had experiences where you put so much effort into a role, but the reaction was the opposite of what you wanted, and vice versa?
Isn’t not having control the most frustrating yet liberating part of this job? You can only focus on the choice you can make in front of the camera on that particular day and go to sleep at night happy with the efforts you’ve put in. If I’m not, I’ll do it better the next day. I don’t want to figure out how the audience would perceive it. Each person’s life experiences color their perception of my performance. It’s a pointless, hindering, and anxiety-inducing pursuit. I have managed my expectations beautifully. I have no expectations. I’m in a happy space right now.
Since you’ve been part of a series, do you find the long-form storytelling liberating? How would you compare it to performing for a feature-length film?
I feel it’s the same in terms of performance. The only difference is that when there are eight episodes for a character to have an arc, one can watch—or write—it with patience. With Kadak Singh, I had an ‘x’ amount of days to work, and it’s not much different for a theatrical release, technically and logistically.
But I did observe the leisure with which the character developed in the series and the crispness required for Kadak Singh. Because you also have so many other characters to tell the story in a 2 hr 15 min film, my character can’t take up more space, and, the editing is a little more crisp when it comes to a feature-length film.
Sometimes the time-bound process helps…
Definitely. The funniest part is sometimes I’ve shot for a movie for 80 days and a series for 24 days. The proportion doesn’t matter here at all. But for any project that I do, I would like to know the number of days required from me, just so that I can give my best, and that’s just the logistics part of it.
What were the requirements for your role as a nurse looking after an amnesiac (Pankaj Tripathi) in Kadak Singh?
I play Miss Kannan. She doesn’t have a first name. It’s a mysterious character. I didn’t say ‘Yes’ to it immediately after my initial conversation with Tony Da (director Anirudha Roy Chowdhury, Pink-fame). I was conflicted about letting go of this opportunity because the character didn’t stand out on paper and, at the same time, I wanted to work with him and Pankaj ji, the latter being the only person I knew. I wanted to know what this character’s stake in the story is, and why this role was written.
Then I got to talk to the writer, and Tony Da said something that won me over. He said that if Pankaj ji and I come into this, we can create something that’s way above the page—that we will build everything on the set; all I needed to know is where she is from and who she is in her core.
And, for once, I said to myself I’m gonna believe in this magic. Maybe we’ll fall flat on our faces. But what if we flew? And we did—we soared high! It’s one of the best decisions of my career. Whatever the takeaway the audience would have for me would be a feather on my cap.
How did the discussions go in terms of figuring out the dynamics between your and Pankaj’s character?
He said something interesting, that the exciting part of this relationship is that it’s the only one in the story that’s free of any burden; it’s the most mundane thing you can see. It’s like going to the pharmacist who sells me a painkiller, and there is a human interaction there that doesn’t involve me being invested in his/her personal life or vice versa.
But that’s still a valid interaction, something that’s… part of our life. The same goes for a grocer who knows what I like and will tell me that it will be available next week.
I find those relationships exciting as well—not everything has to be complicated, unlike the other relationships in society that have a label attached. I’ve made films about such people, but there hasn’t been a storyline about a nurse and a patient, and even when we do, we tend to turn it into a love or hate story… we make it complicated. What about something as transactional as it can be—the nurse being a nurse and the patient being a patient? Where can the magic come from?
It seems like such a stale, clinical thing, but it’s not. Because it’s still two human beings with their own life stories, despite them not discussing anything personal about each other or forming a relationship or friendship or whatever. If it were some other filmmaker, I would’ve told them this movie would’ve existed without her too, but when you see the film, you’ll know that it brings a key element that the writer and director believed in, without which the film wouldn’t have existed.
Finally, what can you tell us about Pa. Ranjith’s Thangalaan?
I can say one thing for sure. It’s a personal take that may not speak to the audience’s expectations. It’s a larger-than-life film that I’m in awe of. Of course, we’ve seen many period films, but this film goes beyond something of a certain period, and I got to play a character who has fundamentally changed me forever. This woman came into my life and gave me the honor of being her as long as I acted, and she has brought me home to myself. I think this is a really good build-up. Follow channel on WhatsApp
