Twenty years apart, Parvathy Thiruvothu was booed twice on a stage, once in a film, and another time in real life. In that 20-year-old film, she appears as a minuscule young girl singing on stage, as she gets booed by men in the audience. Years later, the grownup version of her, now an acclaimed actor of Indian cinema, would narrate a similar experience from her own life.
Parvathy completed 20 years of acting in February 2026, and in a recent interview that skimmed through her myriad experiences of life in cinema, she spoke about being booed on a stage where she was receiving an award. It was another February, nearly a decade ago, shortly after her critique of a superstar film had brought on massive cyber harassment against her. Amid rape and death threats, the booing must have paled in comparision.
In the interview, Parvathy described how every moment seemed to slow down as she walked up to receive her award and heard the jeers from the audience. She coached herself to make her speech and go back to her seat. Twenty years earlier, when she, as a 17-year-old, made her debut in Out of Syllabus (2006), young Parvathy had similarly stood on a stage, playing a college fresher who goes on to sing her song, unnerved by the shouting of her seniors.
In that first film, she played a nursing aspirant who survives a terrible assault — not a small way to begin a career that would be marked by unforgettable characters. Parvathy, at 17, was not unfamiliar to television viewers, who had watched her anchor shows on the entertainment channel Kiran TV, endearing herself to the audience with her refined Malayalam. That she could handle languages with ease was evident even then. Today, she hops across film industries, chattering away in Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, and English, as fluently as she does Malayalam.
She might frown if you use an epithet like “strong” to capture her range — from the bold nursing student of Out of Syllabus to the haughty lesbian in Her (2024). Yet Parvathy is more than often recognised as an actor with a penchant for bold roles. Characters like the opinionated radio jockey in Bangalore Days (2014), the flamboyant wanderer in Charlie (2015), the acid attack survivor of Uyare (2019), and the widow bonding with her mother-in-law in Ullozhukku (2024) would only have cemented that image. Add to this the real-life figures she has portrayed: as the eternal lover Kanchanamala in Ennu Ninte Moideen (2015), the nurse leading women to escape war in Take Off (2017), and a determined medical officer in Virus (2019).
And this is just in Malayalam. In Tamil, she has appeared in Poo (2008), Maryan (2013), and Thangalaan (2024) — three acclaimed films, among others. In Hindi, she had Qarib Qarib Singlle (2017) and Kadak Singh (2023). She has delivered several widely admired performances in Kannada, and has also appeared in a handful of Telugu films.
Yet her filmography stands at just over 40 works, counting upcoming films and anthology shorts. She has clearly been selective, but then, she has also been a victim of lost work opportunities, thanks to the parallel life of activism she leads.
Parvathy may squirm at the use of an epithet like “activist” as well. Regardless of what label you use, her outspokenness has often brought her trouble, but not enough to silence her. To cite a few instances: an interview in which she said, “of course there is casting couch (euphemism for asking sexual favours of female actors) in Malayalam cinema”; her comments on glorified misogyny that came in the context of the Mammootty film Kasaba (2016), her unwavering support for a colleague who was sexually assaulted; as well as her key presence in a collective of women that consistently fights for women’s rights within the industry.
Her journey in cinema is an interesting study, especially when you look at how organically it began and then veered into unpredictable directions. She was barely more than a child when she debuted in Out of Syllabus, and soon after chose to play a schoolgirl with a negative tinge in Notebook (2006) — not quite the conventional choice for a newcomer who’d want to make it big as a star. This was a time few women opted to begin their careers in characters of grey shades. But Parvathy kept veering off course, from a minor role in Vinodayathra (2007) to a full-fledged lead with mental health issues in Flash (2009), to the young Maari in eternal selfless love in Poo (2008).
A more surprising turn came with Maryan (2013), where she reappeared after a gap, transformed, effortlessly speaking strong Nagercoil Tamil to a typically rooted Dhanush. Before you could begin to pin her down into that rustic look, Parvathy would shed her long hair for short curls, hook on a pair of dorky glasses, and speak amusedly to a smitten Dulquer Salmaan in Bangalore Days (2014). That she leapt from rustic to sophisticated from one movie to the next, or pulled off the RJ in a wheelchair with such ease, would by then seal her unpredictable choices.
The oversized frames became her signature. She made spectacles look fashionable, comfort look cool. At a book launch for her teacher from college, author Khyrunnisa, Parvathy ran around with her curls bundled into a knot and her large glasses on, looking more the girl-next-door than the new celeb on the block.
By then, she had completed her master’s degree in English Literature, and without trying to, made clear her literary tilt, quoting characters from books she’d read and loved, and expressing her desire to play them. She once spoke to this writer about wanting to play characters in Madhavikutty's books, Scarlett O'Hara from Gone with the Wind, or the sister characters Susannah and Magdalene in Alice Walker's By The Light of my Father's Smile.
What came to her instead were real life characters. In 2015, her portrayal of Kanchanamala, a character very dear to Malayalis, won her immediate recognition, reviewers labelling her as an actor with a lot of promise. The following year, she won her first state award, for Ennu Ninte Moideen and Charlie.
That same year, she also took part in a 'Women in the World' summit, attended conferences on gender equality, and spoke to college students on the International Day for Elimination of Violence Against Women. The parallel line of activism, or just being part of a cause, had inadvertently begun. Only that her words and actions got more attention when they were dragged into a controversy.
Kasaba was not in the plan. At the International Film Festival of Kerala in 2016, Parvathy was part of a panel when she was prodded to talk about the movie. The one line she said about the glorified misogyny in Mammootty’s film sparked one of the most sustained online attacks against an actor in Kerala, and it lasted months.
But what really shook Parvathy was something much bigger. One of the most heinous crimes in Kerala’s recent history was committed on a woman actor in February 2017. She was abducted and sexually assaulted in a car in Kochi, while she was on the way to work. The industry itself erupted. Women flocked to the survivor’s side. Within months, the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) was formed, as a criminal case that would stretch over eight and a half years began. Parvathy was among the vocal members of the WCC. And just as with feminist organisations world over, members of the WCC faced relentless attacks for their stances, for their voices, and for their very existence. They also began to lose opportunities at work. However, they did not stop talking. Parvathy, among others, continued to push for change within the umbrella body of actors, the Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes (A.M.M.A.), until she resigned in 2020 in protest against derogatory comments about the survivor.
The women of WCC and their allies began creating work for each other. In 2018, Anjali Menon, filmmaker and another key member of the collective, made Koode, with Parvathy among the lead actors. In 2019, Parvathy worked in Virus, directed by an ally of the WCC, Aashiq Abu. That’s also the year she got Uyare — produced by three women: Shenuga, Shegna, and Sherga — which portrayed an acid attack survivor’s comeback to life.
Uyare brought Parvathy a lot of renewed recognition. She had, in 2017, already won her second Kerala State Award for Take Off, as well as a special mention at the National Awards. None of these roles looked anything alike. The bold nurse in Take Off turned into a widow dating again in Parvathy’s Hindi film with Irrfan Khan, Qarib Qarib Singlle. The quiet, abused woman in Koode turned into an aspiring pilot in Uyare, and to a hardworking medical officer in Virus.
In a few years, the Kasaba controversy died down, the last embers fading away as Mammootty and Parvathy came together to play siblings in a dark drama called Puzhu (2022). There would still be the occasional row that Parvathy was dragged into, like the skin colour for her character of Rachiyamma in the anthology Aanum Pennum. A fictional character from a story by Uroob, Rachiyamma was written as a dark-skinned woman, but Parvathy appeared in her paler skintone. She did not want to apply dark makeup after doing that for Poo, when she had just begun acting as an 18-year-old. She said in the wake of the Rachiyamma row that she would not play a real life character who is dark-skinned.
Parvathy has not explicitly declared political affiliations, but she has often commented on various discourses happening in the state. She said, after Take Off, that islamophobia existed in Kerala and she was aware that her own films could contribute to that narrative. In 2018, after the Supreme Court judgement allowing women’s entry to Sabarimala created a political storm in Kerala, Parvathy was among those who supported the verdict. During Uyare, speaking to TNM during an election season, Parvathy’s advice to young people was to listen, have conversations with friends, and participate in the process, not stay away from it.
Clarity is not always easy. It would seem Parvathy’s wobbly ride through her 20 years in cinema has given her that, and she no longer worries about every syllable that slips out of her, unlike many of her contemporaries. A clarity that allows her to pick her films wisely, take her mini breaks, speak her mind without a lot of censoring, continue her literary pursuits and journeys on the road, and live with her art.