In October last year, Dev Patel, 26, strolled into the Odeon Theater in London with his mother, father, sister and grandparents in tow. Patel’s face (“my goofy mug”) was on posters all over Leicester Square.
After The Man Who Knew Infinity and Lion, it’s clear the 26-year-old actor is
among Hollywood’s hottest new leading men.
In October last year, Dev Patel, 26, strolled into the Odeon Theater in London with his mother, father, sister and grandparents in tow. Patel’s face (“my goofy mug”) was on posters all over Leicester Square. Just eight years earlier, a pre-Slumdog Millionaire Patel had waited in the same square for Will Smith to emerge after the premiere of Hancock. He was hoping to catch a glimpse of Smith, or maybe even score an autograph.
Patel was at the Odeon for the London premiere of his new film, Lion, based on the true story of Saroo Brierley. Lion is a 21st-century odyssey, and the ending a cocktail of elation and misery that left all but the true stoics teary-eyed at the London screening. “My mum, she was a wreck,” Patel recalls, but he was especially touched by his grandfather’s reaction to the premiere. “‘My boy! I was pinching myself watching you. You, talking to everybody outside! I was so proud!’” says Patel, laughing. “He was just overwhelmed with pride that there were all these people there, shouting my name and having these pictures taken. I had to get him a whisky afterwards to calm his nerves.”
Patel recalls arriving at the red carpet of a major screening of Slumdog Millionaire in a suit bought off the high street and his school shoes, alongside an immaculately put-together Freida Pinto. “‘We can’t have this kid walking the red carpet with her! He’s spoiling the whole picture!’” he said in an interview to W magazine recently, “so they gave me a new suit and fixed me up. It was a bit like Pretty Woman.”
He likes that his presence in the industry gives hope to other people who don’t look like Zac Efron (“Poor guy, everyone just rains down on him because he’s handsome, but he’s incredibly talented, too”). He likes the lighter that Dave Chappelle gave him after last year’s Oscars, which says ‘Chappelle’s Lighter’. Beyond that, he’s pretty ambivalent about the blessings and trials of fame, with one caveat: “I don’t want to end up naked in a Kanye West video.”
Next, you’ll see Patel in Hotel Mumbai, based on the 2008 terror attacks, where he plays a young waiter who’s working in the hotel when terrorists storm in. Patel’s also writing an action film, based on Hindu mythology and also set in Mumbai. It’s clear: Patel is on a roll. Not too shabby for a self-described Indian dude with wonky teeth, a lazy eye and floppy hair from Rayners Lane, London.
– Courtesy: GQ India
