Parvathy Thiruvothu on men finding her intimidating: ‘It’s not my problem’ and why she refuses to shrink

Dubai: Award-winning Indian actress Parvathy Thiruvothu has a response for men who find her intimidating, and it does not involve making herself easier to handle.

“I think that’s a therapy question for them. It’s not my problem.”

We are sitting down for Gulf News’ Dine With The Stars With Manjusha Radhakrishnan, working our way through food and a conversation that moves from her latest Malayalam thriller Pradhama Drishtiya Kuttakkar to the exhausting business of being a woman with opinions.

Parvathy is happy to discuss both. What she has stopped doing is waiting for everyone to be comfortable before getting on with her life.

“Now I live my life,” she says.

It is a telling declaration from an actor who says she was warned, within the first eight years of her career, that her shelf life was over. Two decades into that career, she is still here, celebrating a film she describes as her first solo superhit and refusing to apologise for taking up space.

“I’ve worked with wonderful men and women, but wonderful men who are not threatened by your curiosity or your bigness. Now that I have tasted that, I will not shrink.”

This may sound like a sensational headline. But over the course of our meal, the woman behind it turns out to be far more interesting than the familiar image of the fearless actor who can weather anything.

‘Sometimes a girl’s got to cry’

Before we get to patriarchy, there is the matter of lunch. Does she eat carbs? She does.

She smells her food before tasting it, announces that what we are eating resembles a dosa batter taco, and enjoys the way a few approving bites gradually become outright enthusiasm.

The conversation is just as unguarded.

When I ask whether she is the person who holds everyone together, much like her character in her latest film, she recognises the description. At work, she cheers on colleagues and friends.

“I am the hype girl,” she says.

In her personal life, however, she is quite willing to come undone.

“Sometimes a girl’s got to cry. Okay, sometimes strength is overrated.”

For someone so often celebrated for being strong, it is a refreshing admission. Parvathy has no interest in turning resilience into another punishing standard women must meet. She has friends and family who make room for her anger, irritation, tears and meltdowns. She enjoys being looked after.

“You know what’s true strength, Manjusha, is that you trust somebody else to hold you.”

Learning to receive that care took time. She recalls being told by Anjali that she needed to learn to receive love. Her first instinct was to insist that she already knew how. Looking back, she recognises how much energy she spent believing she had to keep everything together.

“Now if I need help, I reach out. I don’t have to take care of everything on my own.”

Even arriving for our conversation involved a small decision to do things differently. Feeling unwell that morning, she asked whether we could begin a little later. She got an extra 20 minutes to nap, put on her makeup and arrived feeling better.

An earlier version of herself, she says, might have turned up regardless, frightened of being labelled tardy or difficult.

“There is so much that we have so many phantom ghosts, patriarchal ghosts that we are fighting,” she says.

Her point reaches beyond film sets. Women should not have to earn rest through exhaustion or justify time alone through their usefulness to somebody else.

“We have to humanize women as people, just that.”

A big personality is not a fault

When I tell her about being described as having a big personality at work, Parvathy has little patience for the idea that women must first negotiate permission to be themselves.

She is open to dialogue. But she no longer feels obliged to settle every objection before acting.

“My thing is that women need to shatter the glass ceilings,” she says.

“If you have a big personality, I would say you roar, you continue roaring, and the ones who cannot handle that, it’s definitely a them problem.”

She has heard the supposedly flattering version too: men who think she is pretty but are frightened of her. She questions what that fear is based on, particularly when they have not bothered to get to know her.

The same dynamic can follow her into work. Asking questions about a character has brought criticism in the past, she says. Yet those reactions also tell her something useful about the people she is working with.

The directors who welcome her curiosity tend to bring out her strongest performances.

“With the directors with whom I have had conversations, who are amazed instead of overwhelmed with my curiosity, that’s where you would have seen the best of my work.”

Creative disagreement does not scare her. She recalls spirited exchanges with filmmaker Mahesh Narayanan while working on Take Off, alongside a collaboration she clearly values. She wants room to question, argue and understand the person she is playing.

That is the working relationship she now expects.

Why this box-office win matters

Her latest thriller, Pradhama Drishtiya Kuttakkar, gives her plenty to examine. Parvathy plays Aleena, a police constable whose fear of losing her family drives the character’s choices.

What interested her was the woman beneath the uniform. Aleena does not have everything figured out. She reassures others even when she has no certainty herself.

“Aleena is definitely not Parvathy,” she says, distinguishing the character’s insecurity from her own access to family, friendship and support.

Her performance required her to inhabit someone constantly seeking connection and frightened of losing it. That vulnerability matters as much to her as the mechanics of the thriller.

Comparisons with Drishyam do not offend her. She remembers being thrilled by that film herself and considers it an honour if audiences experience a similar excitement watching hers.

But the conversation becomes more charged when we discuss commercial success.

For Parvathy, a box-office hit has consequences beyond her own career. She speaks of the abuse, harassment and banning of women who spoke up in the industry, and of the predictions that her own career would not last.

“Here’s what matters: it’s not just my win.”

Success, she argues, can help other talented women be trusted with bigger films and budgets.

“Every time one of us women wins, I win.”

Critical acclaim matters too. She believes the trust audiences place in her choices helps bring them back to the cinema. A film that delivers both a satisfying performance and commercial success is something worth celebrating.

She does not see why she should have to choose between them.

‘I’m not the one who’s happy with crumbs’

That sense of a shared victory runs through her account of the Women in Cinema Collective. Parvathy is quick to credit her “sisters in arms” when I thank her for speaking up.

She describes the collective as her longest relationship, one that has changed her and required her to reconsider her own understanding of feminism.

Our conversation also returns to a question she once encouraged me to ask producers: were their sets compliant with requirements to prevent sexual harassment, and did they have a committee in place? It is a question I have continued asking.

Has enough changed?

“I feel like we have a long way to go, and I’m not the one who’s happy with crumbs.”

She sees greater acceptance of basic expectations and younger women becoming more outspoken. But she is clear that this should not be confused with every demand having been met.

“Do we have everything that we asked for from the government? Not even close. Do we have everything that should have ideally come out from Hema Committee report? No.”

The shift she values is also in women’s confidence: their willingness to speak out and challenge behaviour they might once have felt forced to accept.

“A lot of us went through enough for this to happen, and this is exactly what we want.”

‘I am made of titanium’

Towards the end of our meal, Parvathy returns to a memory that has stayed with her.

During what she describes as an intense smear campaign around Koode, she was in Canada when someone sent her a photograph of a small group of women outside a cinema. She cannot remember whether it was in Kochi or Thiruvananthapuram. What she remembers is their banner and their decision to show up for her.

She wants those women to know she saw them.

“I love them, and the more you give me that support, the more I’m emboldened and empowered to do my work where we can all be together, living a better life.”

She reads the comments, she tells me, including the ugliest ones.

“I am made of titanium at this point, thanks to the bad guys.”

Then comes the part that makes the declaration more than a tough line for a headline.

“But I’m also so tender at my heart because I felt the love.”

For all the talk of intimidating women and big personalities, this is the Parvathy who stays with me: someone who remembers the women outside the cinema, lets her friends hold her when she cries, and still insists on asking questions at work.

As we finish, she offers a toast.

“Cheers to having big personalities.”