Actress Parvathy Menon is not the typical heroine that the South film industry is used to. While actors her age would be busy making hay while the sun shines, she chooses to stay away from the limelight and take her own time to select projects.

The Notebook actress, who has done only 12 projects in the last six years, reasons, “I don’t mind going out of the scene. I prefer to do something substantial; otherwise, I’d want to sit home and find another job. That’s why I take it slow. The typical rat race just doesn’t work for me.”

While Parvathy didn’t take up any projects last year, this year, she has worked on three — Kannada movie Andar Baahar with Shivrajkumar, and two Tamil flicks, Chennaiyil Oru Naal and Mariyaan opposite Dhanush. “Some people get a kick out of doing many projects at the same time; they like to keep themselves busy that way. I appreciate that. But I don’t belong to that school of filmmaking. I have to experience one film for 60 days, be in that character and then get out of the film, take a break for a month and then do another job. That gives me a psychological high,” she says.

Interestingly, Parvathy’s performances in her last flicks in Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu — City of God, Poo and Prithvi respectively — were critically acclaimed. It’s then hardly surprising that the 24-year-old actress, who had a dream debut in Kollywood with Poo, took four years to sign her next project in the industry. Parvathy points out that it wasn’t a conscious gap and she was definitely on the lookout for good projects in different genres.

“After doing Poo, people were very appreciative of what I did and I got about 15-odd offers to do similar projects, which I wasn’t keen to take up. I wanted to do good projects and also work in different genres; so, I waited,” she says.

On receiving the offer to act in Mariyaan, Parvathy says, “I was pretty fortunate not to be around for four years and then to be contacted by a stellar production that included director Bharat Bala, Dhanush and A R Rahman. That was flattering. Though, it’s the character that I was offered which pushed me to take up the project,” she says, adding, “Bharat Bala Sir strives to bring the best visuals; cinematographer Marc Koninckx’s way of looking at our culture is different, and that adds a fresh approach to the film. As far as Dhanush goes, he’s a professional, no-nonsense actor.”

Parvathy has also finished filming the Tamil remake of Traffic, titled Chennaiyil Oru Naal, in which she plays the role of Aditi, which was played by Sandhya in the original. The actress also informs us that she’s in discussion to star in a Malayalam project, after she winds up filming Mariyaan.