‘I have no regrets, every character has contributed to my growth’
It has been a busy week for actor Parvathy Thiruvothu. Her latest Malayalam film, Aarkkariyam, released on an OTT platform last week to a positive response and she has been overwhelmed with the praise coming her way.
Recalling what attracted her to the project, Thiruvothu cites her immense faith in director Sanu John Varughese’s sensibilities, in terms of how he views things. “There’s a neutral space that Sanu comes from. For him, people can be anything at any given point of time; there’s no certainty to how they evolve and what they’re capable of. He doesn’t put them into boxes. I got all of that by just reading the script from the absolute non-judgmental space from which he wrote these characters and the story,” the actor tells us.
Having completed 15 years in the film industry since her debut with the Malayalam film, Out of Syllabus (2006), the actor is content with her journey and the career choices she made. “There have been no regrets at all. Every single character has contributed to my growth internally. I don’t feel terribly overworked or that I’ve done less, I feel I’ve done just the right amount of work,” she shares.
As someone known for doing a lot of background research for the characters she plays, Thiruvothu reveals that it helps her live out the role in a way that it benefits her as a person too. She elaborates, “It’s great that it adds to the movie and the script, but what I personally benefit from it [the process] is that it makes me introspect and helps me become as non-judgmental as possible.”
And do her political and personal views also influence her decisions of associating with a project? “I don’t look for my character or the story to align with everything I believe in... I don’t think I know enough about everything. I’d like to grow with each project. But there has to be a basic set of values aligning to some degree,” says the actor, adding that if she comes across anything in the script that glorifies toxicity, she flags it to the makers. “If I find they are sticking to that thought, then I don’t think there’s a bridge to be built and it’s about me leaving that space,” she states.
On the work front, the actor has a couple of films lined-up including web film Navarasa, which she calls a “beautiful project”. Without divulging details, she says, “I got to work with director Rathindran R Prasad and Siddharth. I got to dabble with an emotion that I haven’t done before. That’s one of the reasons why I jumped at the offer...”
Besides acting, Thiruvothu also plans to don the director’s hat. “There are two directorial projects, one of them will be announced soon. But again, Covid had thrown everything off the charts. So, there are performance projects that’ll take precedence because I’ve said yes to them. Hopefully, by the end of this year, there will be a proper announcement as to what my directorial will be,” she signs off.