Dev Patel birthday special: Fun facts about the actor

This week, on April 23, British actor Dev Patel will turn a year older and celebrate his 29th birthday.

The Hollywood star has delivered stunning performances in award-winning movies and will next be seen in Hotel Mumbai, which is released in the UK next month. Eastern Eye presents some fun facts about the London-born actor and his films.

Dev landed the role in Skins as a 16-year-old after his mum saw an advert in a newspaper for a casting call and dragged him along to audition for it.

He has a black belt in taekwondo. It was also his mother who enrolled him into the classes as a youngster because he had ‘excessive energy’.

Blockbuster hit Slumdog Millionaire was nominated for over 160 awards and won more than 100 accolades including eight Academy Awards.

His films Chappie and The Last Airbender were proposed trilogies, but the ideas were dropped because both underperformed. Dev later confessed how much he disliked The Last Airbender and the experience of working on it.

Dev’s role in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was originally written for a middle-aged man and he fought to get it.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel grossed more than £100 million at the box office. The sequel The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel had a box office collection of more than £61m.

The actor wanted to play the lead role in Life Of Pi, but wasn’t allowed to audition for it because producers thought he had been ‘overexposed’ after the hit film Slumdog Millionaire.

He spent eight months preparing for Lion, which is a movie adaptation of India-born Australian businessman Saroo Brierly’s novel A Long Way Home. The preparation included a physical transformation and perfecting the Australian accent.

Lion received more than 70 award nominations, including six at the Oscars and won over 20 accolades.

The self-confessed technophobe isn’t on any social media platforms.

The talented actor will direct revenge-thriller Monkey Man and play the lead role. He has also co-written the modern-day India-set story steeped in mythology.

Critically-acclaimed classic 1991 animated Japanese film Only Yesterday was re-released to mark the 25th anniversary and Dev Patel provided one of the lead voices for the English dubbed version.

Dev is an executive producer of Hotel Mumbai and asked for his character to be written as a Sikh man to be more versatile as a performer and to break down stereotypes. He spent a lot of time with the Sikh community to prepare for the role and feels it greatly elevated his character.

Hotel Mumbai was partly filmed at Adelaide Studios in Australia, which was transformed to become the interiors of Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Hotel.

A number of commercial Indian producers have approached the British actor to star in a Bollywood film over the years, but he has turned down the offers despite having great respect for the medium.

His favourite film is Enter The Dragon and the one historical figure he would love to meet is Bruce Lee.

Dev collected Burago cars as a kid and today he likes collecting random Bruce Lee stuff.

If not an actor he would have become an architect or would have worked in real estate.