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Dev Patel

Dev Patel

HE NEEDS no introduction as his body of work as an actor speaks for itself. Dev Patel continues to sparkle.

The British actor, with no prior acting experience made his screen debut in the 2007-08 British television teen drama, Skins as Anwar Kharral.


But his acting career really kicked off in 2008 with his portrayal of Jamal Malik in Danny Boyle’s drama Slumdog Millionaire, which later went on to bag eight Academy Awards. Patel, himself, was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor.

From having no clue on the first day of his shooting in Skins, Patel’s growth as an actor has been tremendous and this year should him making his directorial debut in Monkey Man. He will also star in this production. It bagged a $30 million film deal with Netflix in March 2021 and expectations are high.

Set in Mumbai, it has something of a highoctane action thriller feel to it, with one insider describing it as “John Wick (after the action hero of the 2014 film) in Mumbai.” While the film was originally set to be shot in India, filming took place in Indonesia because of Covid restrictions and contains both a Western and an Indian cast.

Inspired by the Hindu deity, Lord Hanuman, it’s about a man who’s released from prison and seeks to root out wrongdoing. The film does not have an official release date and is expected to drop sometime this year.

Patel’s most recent big screen role was in The Green Knight. He played the central character of Gawain who in 14th century England has to face the Green Knight and show his strength and courage. The film did well in the US where it had a cinema release in July 2021. Featuring an all-star cast, including Alicia Vikander and Joel Egerton, and Sarita Choudhury, Patel drew rave personal reviews for the David Lowery directed film.

His BAFTA in 2017 came for his role in Lion. It charted the real-life story of Saroo Brierly – he had been adopted by an Australian couple and grew up in Hobart, Tasmania, and to all intents and purposes he thought of himself as Australian, simply with Indian ancestry. As the film showed, it was a relationship with a white Australiam woman and friendships with other Indian Australians at university that triggered latent memories of being lost in India. He had vague recollections of being in and around train stations and then took famously to Google Earth to try and identify what part of India these experiences were located in. He discovered that aged five he had inadvertently taken a train from central India to Kolkata in the east and had been separated from his older brother who also used to scavenge from trains, as their single mother could not provide for all the family. He eventually was reunited with his biological mother in Khandwa and his experiences were first chronicled in a book, A Long Way Home in 2014. Patel won the BAFTA for Best Supporting Role playing Saroo in the film. The Australian Garth Davis directed movie was both a box office and critical smash. Patel also said it was the first that he had felt a particular kinship with a character.

Patel too did a successful romantic comedy The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012) and again its sequel in 2015, then acted in a science fiction film Chappie (2015), and the HBO drama series The Newsroom (2012-2014). If Slumdog Millionaire put Patel in the spotlight, two movies in 2015 and the year after – The Man Who Knew Infinity and Lion – in a way gave him a chance to showcase his craft.

For his role in the drama Lion, he won the BAFTA for best supporting actor and was nominated for the Academy Awards to become the third actor of Indian descent to receive an Oscar nomination.

In one of his recent works in 2019, Patel starred as David Copperfield in Armando Iannucci’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’ The Personal History of David Copperfield – in another case of colour-blind casting.

Born in Harrow to Gujarati Indian parents, who had emigrated to England separately in their teens, from Nairobi (Kenya) and first met in London. Patel’s ancestors have roots in Jamnagar and Unjha in the Indian state of Gujarat. He attended Longfield Primary School and then Whitmore High School, where he got initiated to stage performances. During his time in school, Patel played his first role as Sir Andrew Aguecheek in the school’s production of Twelfth Night. He was presented the best actor award for his performance.

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