by Fiona Underhill, Staff Writer

British actor Dev Patel has had a fascinating career since his breakthrough role in the teen series Skins when he was just 17 years old. While there are certainly some gems to be found amongst his IMDb credits, Patel has arguably not had the kind of career he should have had – considering he’s the star of a Best Picture winner, and is an Oscar-nominated actor himself (for a different movie). We can speculate as to the reasons for this – from his own personal priorities and decision-making, to his race being a significant factor in the kinds of roles he’s been offered. Thankfully, in April 2024, Patel will be taking things into his own very capable hands – as the writer, producer, director and star of the action movie Monkey Man. And Monkey Man is at least partly to blame for him turning down other movies, while he pursued making this passion project across the years. This wide release star vehicle will hopefully see a significant shift in Patel’s career, and set him on a trajectory to even bigger and better things.

Patel was born in London in 1990, to Indian parents who were both from Nairobi, Kenya. In the early 60s, there were around 180,000 Indians living in Kenya, but Kenya’s independence prompted many of them to leave the African country – meaning that by 1980, Kenya’s Indian population had dropped by around 100,000. Most of the Indians who left Kenya settled in the cities of London and Leicester in the UK. Interestingly, one of the best movies that deals with an Indian family from Kenya who then emigrate elsewhere, is Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala (1991), starring Sarita Choudhury in her first ever film role – who would go onto play Patel’s mother exactly 30 years later - in David Lowery’s The Green Knight (2021). Patel has spoken in the past of the common experience of those born in Western countries like the UK or US to immigrant parents – of (in his case) not feeling British enough or Indian enough. With the added complexity of his parents actually being African-born, his immigrant story is even more convoluted, and makes his relationship to his identity even more nebulous and slippery.

Another interesting fact about Patel is that he was born on April 23 – St George’s Day – the feast day of the patron saint of England. But it wasn’t until 2019-2021 (when Patel was desperately trying to get Monkey Man made) that he finally played two quintessentially and iconic English ‘Everyman’ literary characters – Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield (Dickens’ most autobiographical novel) and Sir Gawain (a knight of King Arthur’s round table) in The Green Knight. If you watch the behind-the-scenes documentary on The Green Knight Blu-ray, you will discover that the Green Chapel scene was filmed on Patel’s birthday, and therefore on St George’s Day – which just seems so fitting, it’s as if it were planned.

After appearing in Skins, alongside many other actors who have gone on to become stars (including Nicholas Hoult and Daniel Kaluuya), Patel was chosen by Danny Boyle to star in Slumdog Millionaire – which was a huge box office hit and won Best Picture. Patel unfortunately followed this up by accepting the villain role of Prince Zuko in M. Night Shyamalan’s notorious box office bomb and critical turkey The Last Airbender. This was Patel’s first big action role, and one that used his passion and skills in martial arts. The movie was so disappointing, it has taken from 2010, when The Last Airbender was released, until Monkey Man in 2024 for Patel’s martial arts skills to be utilized once more. Between 2010 and 2015, Patel starred in two Best Exotic Marigold Hotel movies, two ill-advised American indies, played an Indian math prodigy, and starred in the science fiction movie Chappie – which was another critical disappointment, and under-performed at the box office.

2016’s Lion was a big turning point for Patel – he underwent a physical transformation for the film, growing his hair long, growing a beard, and filling out. Now reaching his mid-20s, it’s the first role where he seemed more of an adult and less of an awkward, gangly teenager. It was also a major dramatic role, in which he acted opposite Nicole Kidman and Rooney Mara, and won him an Oscar nomination. In 2018, he starred in what many dubbed his ‘Bond audition’ – the unfortunately underseen The Wedding Guest (directed by the brilliant British director Michael Winterbottom). This role had some action, and some romance, and is something of a road trip movie across Pakistan and India…and is definitely one to watch to get you in the mood for Monkey Man.

The most notable, and perhaps surprising thing about Patel’s career is just how few projects he’s appeared in since his breakthrough in 2007. This becomes clear if you compare his IMDb stats to his Skins co-stars. At the time of writing Nicholas Hoult has 55 acting credits, including 32 movies and 19 TV series. Jack O’Connell has nearly 45 acting credits, including 23 movies and 8 TV series. Daniel Kaluuya has nearly 50 acting credits, including 15 movies and 17 TV series. Coincidentally, Kaluuya has also made his directorial debut in 2024 – in the ‘Black Mirror’ style Netflix movie The Kitchen. In contrast to the other Skins alumni, Patel has just 25 acting credits, including 16 movies and 3 TV series. In the years 2009, 2017, 2020, and 2022 there were no releases of any projects starring Patel at all, and in 2013, he had no movie releases. Apart from two years in which he was more prolific (2015 and 2018), Patel has typically had just one movie release per year, which is not at all typical for his contemporaries. Patel has starred in just twelve live-action feature films during his16 year career – which is not many at all.

While introducing Monkey Man at its SXSW premiere recently, Patel said; “it’s hard being an imposter. I was reading all these things on the internet, like; ‘where are they now? What’s happened to him?’” While it’s heartbreaking that Patel was seeing such articles about himself, it’s also understandable, when his output has been so patchy since 2018. Frustratingly, the pandemic years have produced two of Patel’s best movies and best performances, but were underseen due to when they were released. Patel has played several Indian-born characters – a chaiwala (in Slumdog Millionaire) and then hotel workers in no less than four movies (two Best Exotic Marigolds, Hotel Mumbai and Lion). These characters are mostly humble boys/men who are in service to others (usually white people), and this is something he plays around with in Monkey Man, subverting the expectations of those from humble origins. Within India’s caste system, this is not something to be taken lightly.

With David Copperfield and Sir Gawain, Patel finally got to inhabit two British men very much at the center of their own story, but wrestling with that story before our very eyes. Taking on these two iconic literary characters – who are woven into the history of Great Britain – showed a completely different side to Patel, but it’s fascinating that both of these characters struggle and wrestle with their own destinies and identities. 

Armando Iannucci’s The Personal History of David Copperfield was set to be a 2020 release in the US, but ended up only really being seen once it finally hit Prime Video, due to movie theaters being closed. It’s Patel’s most comedic performance since Skins, in which he uses his gangly frame to produce some brilliant physical comedy, as well as employing a gift for mimicry. In Lowery’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (eventually released in 2021, when movie theaters were still not back to their pre-pandemic attendance levels), Patel demonstrates his range, by employing stillness (something he admits to struggling with, as he calls himself extremely hyperactive) and silence. While the pitch of Patel’s performance as Gawain could not contrast more with David Copperfield, there are so many similarities between the roles and films – it stretches the possibility of coincidence. Both David and Gawain have slippery identities – Copperfield is called every name but his own by his different friends during the film, accepting being called whatever pleases others, not himself. He finally claims some ownership of the self through writing his own story, but he still puts the emphasis on them; “I can easily recall people of strong character and weave their memory into the life I was about to lead” and “I hope I will grow wise and strong in the telling of their story.” 

In The Green Knight, Gawain begins as not yet a man, not yet a knight – he “has lots of time” and “is not ready yet” – he wants to put off any sense of duty to others. That is, until a terrifying quest is thrust upon his young shoulders and he reluctantly accepts the mantle. Many characters in The Green Knight shift their identities around Gawain – from the Green Knight himself, whose faces changes under the dappled light of the Green Chapel, to the Queen who speaks in a voice not her own, to the fox who also speaks with a blended voice. In Copperfield, David mimics the characters in his story (life) while recalling their most impactful words, which he captures on scraps of paper and which eventually he weaves into his narrative. He describes their voices becoming lodged in his head. In both David Copperfield and The Green Knight, women who are important to Patel’s central, titular characters have dual roles. Alicia Vikander plays Gawain’s lover Essel (a sex worker), and the Lady, a seductress who changes his fate. In Copperfield, Morfydd Clark plays David’s mother and also the ridiculous object of his affections, Dora.

The very first lines of The Personal History of David Copperfield are “Whether I turn out to be the hero of my own story…” which is interestingly, a change from “hero of my own life” in the book. Gawain very much goes on a hero’s journey, but it sours at the end, when he foresees what will befall not only himself, but all England if he is successful in ‘defeating’ the Green Knight. Gawain has a similar relationship to claiming his own identity to David, he has to go through trials in order to accept himself and feel worthy. They both have similar throughlines regarding narrating one’s own story as an unreliable narrator, and their relationship with memory, truth and fiction, and fictionalizing one’s own life are both thorny and complicated. In Copperfield, we see amazing theatrical interludes in which David narrates events as if they are scenes from a play or puppet show. One of the best examples of his unreliable memory is when he revisits a happy place from his childhood – the upturned boat on a beach in Yarmouth where his beloved Peggotty lives and the color has literally drained from it. Our perception and perspective literally colors what we see and remember.

During the finale of David Copperfield, Patel’s David speaks to the young boy who plays his younger self and says; “don’t worry, you’ll make it through.” This is so moving, especially considering that Patel has appeared in three movies where young actors have significant roles as his younger self (the other two being his Oscar nominated/winning films Slumdog Millionaire and Lion). Patel has spoken of how important it is to him that young Indian, or British-Indian boys get these roles, as he couldn’t have imagined seeing young Indian actors onscreen in major films, letting alone playing them himself as a child. It really feels like Patel speaking to his own younger self.

One of the most significant moments in The Green Knight is when Gawain is invited to sit at the round table, with Arthur’s knights, despite not yet being a knight himself. He says; “it’s not my place” and “I see legends,” and the Queen warns him; “do not take your place amongst them idly.” Feeling worthy, and struggling with low self esteem and imposter syndrome are all things that Patel himself has struggled with (as recently as in interviews for the release of Monkey Man). Gawain says; “I fear I am not meant for greatness” and it really feels like it’s Patel speaking. By finally taking his career into his own hands with Monkey Man, after what could be considered a career that hasn’t fulfilled his promise or potential yet, Patel is finally saying the last words of The Green Knight – “Now I’m ready. I’m ready now.” Patel, like Copperfield, is becoming the hero of his own story – claiming ownership and autonomy over his own career, and taking the reins in the direction of his own life. And it’s not before time.