Interview: Parvathy (Puzhu)

The interview is up.

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kaizokukeshav

No interview with Mahesh Babu ?

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SorenKierky

Not sure why, but feels really difficult to sit through her interviews. Maybe there’s a certain degree of pretentiousness, hard to put a pin on that. There’s a lot to unpack re: her point about “wrong”ness in writing certain characters and how she would like to tell them while turning down because she felt that event Take Off was apparently Islamophobic (which was anything but that, I loved how her character was etched out in the film). Anyhow, that’s for another day.

Loved her performance in Aarkkariyam, one of her best in quite a while (and I hated her cameo in Halal Love Story, the film itself was super underwhelming), looking forward to Puzhu! Excited after watching the promos 🙂

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Enna koduka sir pera

Agreed with the comment that there is something pretentious in some of her answers that throws me off. Not sure what. Probably the way she speaks..

Nevertheless, I really liked her answer about the process she took for her role in Aarkariyam and there were similar interesting bits in the interview. But certain of her answers like the gendered gaze on movies were hard to understand.

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ivan

She speaks in a convulated manner and comes across as ‘woke’. She’s been this way since forever. You can watch her earlier Tamil interviews on Sun TV, where she appears philosophical, way beyond her age at that time. Like with anything, some people aren’t straight forward by default, others try to appear intellectual/pseudo intellectual. I don’t know which category she falls into. I see a trend among celebs and to quote a youtube comment “if you’re not hot, be woke”.

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Rahul

What a lovely conversation, thanks BR . though I suspect you are as pretentious and woke as she is, as you seemed to be getting along rather well with her, conversing in that convoluted language called English.
I loved where she went with your questions – the one about playing a religious character as an atheist , and the one about male and female gaze. Specially her response to the latter one blew my mind. “I am very wary to put a gaze into a gender bracket” !!
Ill probably return to this interview later on to listen to some of the portions again.

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Rahul : Count me in the pretentious club too, then! Eh, seems like slightly affecting Queens English pronunciation and having contours in your speech rather than a monotonic delivery is enough to label you pretentious and… woke! Like anything righties dislike the SOUND of is woke. Everything is just an aesthetic or not even that, just a tone nowadays. There is actually no substance to the deep ideological divisions people profess to have because they haven’t even thought about ideology in the first place, from the looks of it.

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If people think this sounds pretentious, they should listen to Simi Garewal interviewing Aishwarya Rai. Double whammy of affected pronunciation! Or maybe they should have had my seat in my Virgin Atlantic flight from London to Chicago a few years back where I had the misfortune of being close to where an airhostess was seated and chatted away incessantly in a posh accent to her colleague. I guarantee that an experience like that will make you hate British accents with every fiber of your body. Give me ‘dumb’ American accents anyday.

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SorenKierky

@Madan:

At least my pretentious comment wasn’t pertaining to her faux accent or whatever. I have the same feeling when it comes to her Malayalam interviews. It’s more about the contents of her interviews, there’s some sense of performativity to a lot of what she’s saying. Again, perhaps just me.

Although I liked her response to the atheist-Christian question, especially since I loved her in that role – and she really disappeared into it (pretty much everyone ruled in that film though, what an absurdly good and low-key gem).

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vijay

Soren, do you follow Malayalam or had to rely on subtitles for Aarkariyam? I am not a fan of having to rely on subtitles to watch films like these..feel it robs you partly of the intended experience. But then the flip side is missing out wholly on such films.

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Enna koduka sir pera

When I meant ‘Probably the way she speaks..’, I didn’t mean her accent, but something else intangible, not sure what it is. And it was only in some parts of the interview. Btw, this is the first interview of hers that I am seeing.

Just to compare, when I listen to a person like Nithya Menen, her responses don’t come across as pretentious, but very honest, although sometimes politically incorrect.

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soren/enna koduka sir pera: I borrowed your word ‘pretentious’ but I was really referring to ivan’s comment who suggested that because her way of speaking is convoluted, she must be trying to sound ‘woke’.

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ivan

Madan: I didn’t imply that. Convoluted speech and woke are mutually exclusive here. One can speak in a convoluted manner yet not appear woke. She appears woke to me because she’s been particularly vocal about the social/political/cultural unfairness.

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Well your quote “if you’re not hot, be woke” seems to imply that it is a pose and a performance rather than what she believes. And I don’t think any part of this interview came across as particularly woke except the parts where she was addressing questions put forth to her on such topics. Not like she was trying to insert it in the conversation. Hence why it seems like there is a trend of people assuming someone is woke if they sound convoluted or some other disagreeable way.

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ivan

Oh I see now, you took offense in that quote. She’s not hot, so she’s selling herself on her wokeness. Nothing wrong in that.

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TamilThanos

@Ivan – I find her hot and she might be woke – but not in this interview. Jeez, do people even watch the interviews ? Or simply throw around judgements based on promos?

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ivan

TamilThanos – bro, calm down. Why are you getting agitated.

I didn’t mean to ‘attack’ her. A conventionally hot actress like Katrina Kaif might give a simple reply to deep questions whereas a conventionally not hot actress like Parvathy/Vidya/Nandita Das might have wokeness embedded in their replies. I’m not making this up. In general, conventionally not good looking celebs prefer sounding intellectual/woke to compensate their lack in the looks deparment.

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Jayram

Just finished watching the interview and I don’t find/have never found Parvathy to be pretentious at all; she’s open, frank, well read and heartfelt. And she is a good looking actress with brains. More power to her and I look forward to her future films as well as her directorial debut.

Unlike Soren, I enjoyed her cameo in Halal Love Story which showed off her comic chops. I’ve only seen part of Aarkariyam and I need to watch Varthamanam.

@Enna koduka sir pera, Nithya has always been like this from the beginning; brutally honest and sometimes “politically incorrect”. I remember the IFFI2019 Goa Second Day In-Conversation with BR and Rashmika where she responded to an audience member (who was an aspiring actress)’s questions about acting; she said something like “If you don’t have confidence and faith in yourself, you won’t survive in this industry or anywhere.”

Which reminds me of my birthday tribute to both Parvathy and Nithya: https://baradwajrangan.wordpress.com/2018/04/07/readers-write-in-38-a-fans-birthday-tribute-to-two-captivating-classy-actresses/

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“She’s not hot, so she’s selling herself on her wokeness. ” – Um, that’s the thing. Wokeness is not a shtick. And it’s not like you have to pursue it because you are not attractive enough to get roles. If you are saying an actress has to be either hot or woke to get roles, that sounds, yes, sexist.

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“In general, conventionally not good looking celebs prefer sounding intellectual/woke to compensate their lack in the looks deparment.” – I think Peter Hitchens, Roger Scruton, Thomas Sowell, Glenn Loury not to mention departed souls like Hayek or Friedman would find the hyphenation of intellectual and woke quite, um, interesting. So you ARE doing what I said you did. You are saying anybody who dares form a few full sentences in their interviews is doing ‘wokeness’. Now I have seen Aishwarya Rai do that in her Simi Garewal interview. Are you saying she is not attractive because you might find yourself a little alone there.

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ivan

There are surely exceptions to every rule. Madan, if you’re not good looking, my heart goes out to you.

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Rahul

Ivan is a troll. Would be better to ignore.

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Man, count me among both pretentious and woke then because I find her interviews fascinating. It is unfortunate then, that female actors who possess a modicum of brains and can articulate their sentences have to be derided as ‘not hot’ or ‘not pretty’, (In fact, when Katrina is asked a serious question about her profession, she’s more than capable of giving a more complicated answer than her ‘hotness’ demands.) And man, what an actor Parvathi is!

Also, who says Vidya or Parvathi or Nandita Das are not pretty? It seems that if a woman expresses an opinion, she has to be condemned as woke (with its corollary of ‘perhaps she’s not conventionally good-looking’).

I know Soren is not a troll, so perhaps it was the cadences of her voice that threw you off?

@Madan, agree with everything except your preference for the American drawl. Give me received pronunciation any day! 🙂

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(In fact, when Katrina is asked a serious question about her profession, she’s more than capable of giving a more complicated answer than her ‘hotness’ demands.) – Exactly what I wanted to say.

Scarlett Johansson addresses this at the 1:34 mark.

Maybe if people (men) were able to think beyond Katrina’s looks, they would be able to ask intelligent questions or at least questions that merit a good answer. And even if someone either doesn’t speak much or is not very well spoken, it doesn’t necessarily mean she is not intelligent. There is this presenter Reema Tendulkar on CNBC TV18 who has a cringey accent and used to struggle a lot. Well, guess what, she’s a CFA and if you don’t know how tough the CFA exams are, ask your friends in finance. Even many of us CAs don’t dare to tread CFA territory. And you don’t get to stick full length photos of yourself in the answer sheet for the CFA exams so I am pretty sure it was her brains that helped her pass.

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SorenKierky

Good lord, this really went downhill with the absolutely shitty comments about her “hotness”. What nonsense smh. Really got the whole thing off track.

//I know Soren is not a troll, so perhaps it was the cadences of her voice that threw you off?//

Nah, I’ve been following her for ages – and I love several of her performances as I’ve already said. It’s just the stuff she says, re: about making the directors understand what’s “wrong” for instance (again, I lost a lot of respect when she called Take Off “Islamophobic”), and in her interview with Vishal, a bunch of things she says didn’t really feel.. um.. real? The stuff about nightmares (Vishal’s interview), watching the crowd in NY Square, etc. I mean, I am no one to judge, to each their own, it’s just my perception, just throws me off. I mean, to each their own, it’s pretty subjective.

Contrast that with, let’s say, BR’s interview with Rajisha (who’s pretty underappreciated IMO) – she gave a lot of insight into how she molded her performances. I really enjoyed that.

//Unlike Soren, I enjoyed her cameo in Halal Love Story which showed off her comic chops.//

@Jayaram, what comic chops?! God, the whole thing was one of the most unconvincing performances I’ve seen in recent times (from actors whom I really think are good, obviously) – I was cringing hard through her portions.

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@Soren, hmm… I haven’t watched the interviews you mentioned, and so don’t know about her calling Take Off Islamophobic (did she really say that?), but I fail to see why watching the crowds in Times Square is an issue. People gazing is a thing, and NY certainly has a vibe. But like you said, it’s a subjective reaction so no quibbles about that.

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Madan, the problem for women is two-fold – one is, to counter the ‘dumb-blonde’ stereotype that if you are beautiful, you must be dumb. And therefore not worthy of having an intelligent conversation. The second is that if you are intelligent and possess a modicum of opinion, then you must be ‘woke’ because otherwise, women just shut up (a.k.a ‘know their place’). And of course, it then follows that you are not ‘hot’ (said ‘hotness’ to be judged by men, of course) because if you were, why would you have an opinion?

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SorenKierky

@Anu, //but I fail to see why watching the crowds in Times Square is an issue.//

Again, I wasn’t singling that out, that was just an example of what I felt off. I mean, if I say something sounds pretentious, then that’s almost always not justifiable in any objective way, surely. it’s (in most cases) Inherently subjective. That’s just a feeling I get when I watch her interviews 🙂

Re: Take off (partly in Malayalam):

PS: I didn’t like ENM at all, but I really don’t know how it’s Islamophobic – it’s mostly a biopic, and I fail to see what’s Islamophobic in that film! Take Off had one of the best representations in Malayalam, I can’t remember a mainstream film with a Muslim woman as lead at all, let alone a film with such a well-etched character. It’s hard to take such takes seriously * smh*

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hari

What – Parvathi is not conventional beauty? Bangalore days oru film podhum.

I liked the interview, few points went over my head, but altogether a good conversation. Some of the questions and some of her answers have made me think about my journey in life. These people are “lucky” that they get to enact different roles. She was very comfortable with BR.

One question I had, did she take even 1 sip from her cup? Did she get to finish it hot?

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