Actor and Director Dev Patel is a Leading Man
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Pushkin.

Hey, it's Sam. Before we get rolling, this month actually marks the eight-year anniversary of Talk Easy. I think we've done nearly 400 episodes in that time with people I had long dreamt of sitting with when I first started the show back in 2016. People like

Tom Hanks, Margaret Atwood, George Saunders, Questlove, Jhumpa Lahiri, David Byrne, Ethan Hawke, Zadie Smith, Oscar Isaac, Margo Jefferson, David Sedaris, Stacey Abrams. The list really does go on and on. I should also add, both my mother and father have come on the program. If I don't mention them, I will get a call on a Sunday morning. And yet, I have to say, sometimes I really do feel like we're just...

getting started here, that there's so much left to do, so many people I'd still like to sit with, ideas and subjects that I want to explore in further detail. And so if any of these 400-ish conversations have stayed with you over the past eight years, inspired you to be more creative, or have just helped make meaning out of our brief time that we have here, I have a

a modest ask. Emphasis on modest, because it's not a lot. The first thing is to just share the show with a friend or a family member or anyone that you think may be interested in the kinds of conversations we have here each and every week. Secondly, if you don't already, be sure to click the follow or subscribe button at the top of the platform that you're listening to this right now. I know that sounds very simple and silly, but

Both Spotify and Apple have updated their apps and in that process have unfollowed and unsubscribed people. We did not take it personally, but I think also a lot of people don't know that this has happened. Regardless, you can follow and subscribe us on all the platforms. If you're on Spotify, you can actually click that little bell icon. That way, every time a new episode drops in the feed, you will receive a notification about it.

The last thing, if you want to go above and beyond, and if you've already done one and two, the third thing you can do is just share the show on social media. We're at Talk Easy Pod across all the platforms. You can always tag us if you'd like. We do try to share most of those in our feed when we can and when we see them. Doing any or all of these things really does ensure that we can continue making this program each and every Sunday.

And the last thing, not to get terribly sentimental, but if you're listening to this right now, whether it's your first time or the 400th time, thank you for being here. Because when I started the show in April of 2016, I was 21 years old, fresh off a job at the Roxy Theater in San Francisco that I wasn't particularly good at. I didn't really know what I was going to do next.

And there is no way I could have imagined that TalkEasy would turn into what it's become, that it would reach so many, mean so much to so many. So with that, to everyone who has reached out over the years, whether it's an email, a message on Instagram or Twitter or in person, a text, whatever you've done, or if you've just been quietly following along, thank you.

Making something each week takes a lot out of all of us here that make it. And so every bit of encouragement that we've received, thank you for doing that. And it really does help us continue moving forward because it's not easy to continue moving forward. And with that, before I get even more sentimental, I'm just going to say,

If you have any ideas for future episodes, you can always drop us a line at sf at talkeasypod.com. That's sf at talkeasypod.com.

The newsletter is finally almost coming. I know I've been talking about it for like a year. You can subscribe to that by writing that email address, sf at talkeasypod. You can also visit our website at talkeasypod.com where there's a spot to subscribe. But eight years, it's worth celebrating and acknowledging. And none of those years would have been possible without you listening. So thank you again. And with that,

Here is Dev Patel. This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam Fragoso. Welcome to the show. Today, I'm joined by actor and director Dev Patel. Dev broke out over 15 years ago in a film called Slumdog Millionaire, which won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

He was only 18 years old at the time and had assumed, I think fairly, that a fruitful acting career would follow, one filled with interesting, complex roles like the one Danny Boyle created to jumpstart his journey into moviemaking. But that's not exactly what happened. Instead, Hollywood did what it does best to people they don't understand, offer typecast, stereotypical roles that were caricatures of Patel, an Indian-origin British actor.

The roles verged on racist, or at the very least, one-dimensional. And so for a decade, Patel fought through what he calls a sea of nothing, choosing choice parts in films like Hotel Mumbai, The Green Knight, and Lion, for which he received a Best Supporting Actor nomination in 2017. He did all this while harboring another dream—

to step behind the camera and tell a story his grandfather had been telling him since he was a young boy growing up in northwest London. That story about a Hindu god who seeks retribution against corrupt leaders victimizing the poor has now become Patel's directorial debut, a new movie called Monkey Man. Here's a clip from the trailer. In this city, the rich don't see us as people.

Give me the job no one wants to do, I'll do it. Anyone who forgets their place, it doesn't turn out well for them. This is not the place to work if you can't handle that sort of stuff. Every day, I've prayed for a way to protect the weak.

That was from the new film, Monkey Man, now playing in theaters across the country. We talked to Dev a few weeks after the film premiered at South by Southwest, where it won the Audience Award, which makes a whole lot of sense because this is a movie that needs to be seen in a theater. The action is propulsive and visceral and completely insane. Think The Raid Redemption or John Wick with a lot less cats. The

There were multiple times when I was watching this movie that I yelled at the screen in absolute disbelief. Like, I could not believe what I was seeing. I was so enthralled and mortified by the action, some of which I had to watch through the cracks of my fingers because I could not bear it.

bear what was on screen. It is a one-of-a-kind action movie and exactly the kind of film that you do not want to watch at home by yourself. It's meant to be played in a crowd with the audience yelling at the screen together. It really is something I can't recommend highly enough. And evidently, Jordan Peele and his company, Monkeypaw, felt the exact same way I did. Because

Without Peele, this movie would have been straight to Netflix or Max or one of those streamers, and you would have just watched it at home. And instead, Monkey Man is exclusively in theaters around the country. If you want to see if it's playing at a theater near you, you can visit our website at talkeasypod.com. You can also click the link that we've put in the description.

And so today, in Act 1 of the show, we talk about the decade-long journey that Patel went on to make Monkey Man possible. If there was ever a film that needed a director's commentary, it's this one. Then, in Act 2, we get into Patel's personal story, which may help explain why he did everything in his power to get his directorial debut to the finish line.

And then finally, in Act 3, we talk about what this film means to him now having made it, what he's learned from these last 15 years in Hollywood, and what he hopes to make in the decade ahead. This is Dev Patel. Dev Patel.

How are you, man? Nice to meet you. Likewise. How are you doing? I'm good. Anything interesting happening in your life? There's so much happening, you know, finally giving birth to this little gremlin that's been occupying most of my life for over 10 years. Like a decade. That thing. Do you call it a gremlin often? I do. I do. I've said this before, but it's really been an obsession. I think anyone within a five foot radius of me at some point in recent history has

thought I'm insane. But yeah, it's been a long journey. Why don't we just start with your insanity? Okay. That is this new film of yours. It's called Monkey Man. It's your directorial debut. You're also the star and the co-writer of it, which is based on the story of Hanuman, the Hindu god whose shape is half monkey, half human, who uses his powers in the service of others. Yeah. This is a story your family...

has long been telling because your father to this day wears a chain around his neck with little Hanuman statues. But I think it's your grandfather who first shared these epic Hindu stories on his visits from Kenya to Northwest London where you grew up. As a boy, how did your grandfather explain these stories to you?

I mean, it was just, I was so desperate to spend time with him. He's such an incredible storyteller. He's so animated. He's got this kind of like half Indian, half kind of like Kenyan twang. Do you want to imitate it for us? I wouldn't dare. He looks like the old man from Up, the brown version. You know, he's got this beautiful head of like thick white hair. Yeah, we just spent, in my little box room, I'd make him sit in there and he'd tell me these stories of Hanuman and...

For me, it just reminded me of the iconographies of Superman, splitting his chest open to reveal his ass. Very, very similar to a story of Hanuman opening his chest up. Even the kind of way he's depicted flying is very similar to Superman. But as a kid that, you know, growing up in school, I guess I ran away from...

my culture or any, any sort of association to the Indian part of myself to fit in. And, you know, I was afraid I was going to stick out or be bullied or, or,

I didn't feel it was the coolest part of my identity. What did you think was the coolest part? I mean, you know, in the UK where I grew up, it's grime music and black culture, basically. So this story didn't fit neatly within that. Well, this story actually was one of the things that I should say was something that I thought, this is so cool and I'd love to share.

But not in the way of this, you know, big mythical kind of camp epic in a way. So that's where the story was born and trying to ground it and give it some weight and bring it into kind of today's world. So that's kind of the mythological action side of it.

But as you start to consider making this film, what did you want to tackle in terms of the cast system and the way there's a war on poverty? Because that's very much part of the writing of this movie. I think revenge, you know, this is a revenge film. Revenge is an incredibly maximal feeling. And I believe it needs as maximal a catalyst. And as a huge fan of the genre, I...

it frustrates me when I see these kind of like run of the mill, you know, streaming kind of action films that come and go in a second. You want to name names here? No, I don't. But for me, it was, how can I double down, triple down on the culture? Absolutely.

and inject it into the genre and use it as a sort of Trojan horse to capture those guys that watch the John Wick movies to middle of America, the guys that play video games and talk about things and, you know, the action structure. All the way back from Bruce Lee in Game of Death, he fights his way up a pagoda.

There's a cost system to action till you reach the biggest, hardest boss. In that case, it was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. So for me, I was like, wow, we can talk about the cost system. If this guy infiltrates this club, we call Kings club, whether the untouchable elite, the Kings of society go.

And he's slaving away in this kind of windowless hellhole in the bottom. He can work his way up to challenge the gods of society. And we can talk about something richer within that kind of scaffolding, which is action. So you bring all of this personal and political connection to the film. And it takes about a decade, is my understanding. You first were talked into writing it. Yeah. Which you didn't want to do. Yeah.

Then you tried to enlist Neil Blomkamp, who made District 9. Yeah. And he said, I think you should direct it. And come March of 2019, you told the New York Times, quote, I have a film called Monkey Man that I'm going to direct this year, hopefully. It's like a graphic novel coming to life, and it's really exciting. It's also a heart attack in the wings. Oh, boy. Was March 2019

2019 Dev, right about March 2020 Dev. Oh boy, was he right and then some. I think he underestimated future Dev. What was really interesting about the Hanuman mythology was he's this incredible superhero, right? So if you go to India and you go to any gym in a slum there, you'll see Arnold Schwarzenegger on the walls. You'll see this British bodybuilder, Ronnie Coleman, and you'll see Hanuman.

and he's in every rickshaw swinging underneath the mirror. And for me, when you start reading about the mythologies, he got punished for basically touching the sun. It's a story very akin to Icarus. And for me, he was someone that lost faith in himself and his abilities. And it's kind of life imitating art. I thought of this film, I knew everything about it, but I didn't have faith in myself. So there's no way I'm going to be able to

put a finger on a laptop and write something so I should get someone else, let alone direct. And it was Neil that's like, dude, this is in you. It's in every cell of your body or every corner, every frame of what you want to do.

So, yeah, I kind of took his faith and I kind of ran with it. So when the pandemic starts, you get the last seat out of Mumbai to go back where? We're in one of the biggest slums in Mumbai. I'm with my Korean DP. I've been there for months and months. Scouting. Scouting, casting, you know.

There was a hairy situation with the financiers where, you know, money wasn't being released. So it was all of this stuff happening and I'm turning down projects and my agents are like, just come back, you know, don't worry about it. And I'm like, no, no, we're going to do this. And then we get whacked with this pandemic.

And all the kids in the slums have mobile phones. So they're seeing us foreigners and they start, they're pointing at us going COVID, COVID. And it turned into Mumbai was like 28 days later, like everyone had left. Me and kind of the key players had underestimated what this actually was. So we were like, oh, this will blow over. And I was in this hotel

And by the end of it, there was only me and I think like seven other guests. They'd switched off all the lights in the hotel and traffic had stopped. So the air had cleared up. You could finally see the clear skies in Mumbai. I could see the kind of cityscape from my window. But the dream had died. We had to get out and the film had basically tanked. The financiers call you. They say, Dev,

It's a pandemic. We're not making a movie. It's time to pack it in. Come home.

What does your Hail Mary speech sound like to them? How do you convince them to keep going? That speech hadn't happened yet. There's many kind of Braveheart speech moments, but, but, you know, we'd spent so much time writing this. I'd turned down so much work. I was like, there's no way this is going to go down. And I had a feeling that it wasn't going to come up again if we, if we just let it sit there and gather dust. So my producing partner, Joe, I

I was like, dude, we got to be resourceful. We got to find something outside of the box. And he knew someone that he'd met at a festival in Singapore who owns a studio in Indonesia in this tiny island called Badam. And, you know, we're like, okay, how can we get there? We can create a bubble. He also owns this kind of golf course in a hotel. So we're like, we can create a bubble there and we can put all the crew there and we can do this. So we blagged to our financiers and they created this, you know, 100 page document of

COVID protocols. And they're like, have you been to Indonesia and been to this place and scouted? I'm like, I've been there. I love it. It's incredible. Complete lie. Complete lie. Will they be listening to this tape? Yeah, probably. But when we landed, I remember looking at the sunlight and I turned to Joe and go, God, the sunlight, the texture of the light is so different to India. I was like, dude, this is

here we go. And it was, you know, we, whoever we could get our hands on locally, we just went at it ferociously. Take me to the Braveheart moment and that speech. Yes. So the Braveheart moment was, it probably would have been a few weeks before principal photography when we were actually going to start shooting. You're in Indonesia. We're in Indonesia. Everything's going wrong.

Literally, I think at one point we were running out of toilet paper. They had the hotel catering. And for a film crew, you can't have room service coming two hours late or half an hour late. You've got an entire crew that marches on their stomachs. So these locations that I was scouting for months to do these complex action sequences would turn up to shoot and...

military were there and they had been turned into red zones. The borders were closing. I broke my foot. One of the stunt men stamped on and broke a couple of toes and they hadn't really accounted for the COVID protocols of actually having to pay to quarantine someone for two weeks before they could even do a day of shoot. So the financier calls me and he's like, "Look, I've never done this, but I'm shutting you down and you got to come home."

Did he say it just like that? Yeah, he said, I'm shutting you down. And I was like, no, you're not. And he goes, what do you mean? I said, you can't do this. We have...

450 beating hearts on this island that have a purpose. And this is going to be genre bending. You have to trust me that through this chaos, through this fire, we will forge a diamond. And I said, I'm not gonna leave. I said, you're gonna have to get someone to cuff my hands and drag me out of here. But-- - Did you get emotional on the speech? - I was, I was really, 'cause I knew it was slipping away and I won't mention any names, but they'd sent someone from the studio

this said individual, you know, was intimidated by the, you know, seeing a rat in a slum or whatever. And I was like, how are we going to make this grimy, gritty vision of this underworld India? If, you know, you can't show up to a location scout and...

You're moaning about craft services. Like, you know, we've got to get... I hope they don't visit New York often. Yeah. But he goes, okay, you know what? I'm going to give you 48 hours. So Joe and I, we went on a Zoom call because at that time there was a COVID scare on the island too. So we couldn't mix with anyone. So we went on a 17 hour Zoom call and it was...

with every HOD I went on and I- HOD is the department. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. And even down to the makeup department, I was like, okay, how many makeup brushes do you have? 30. Okay. Make it 10. Props. How many bicycles do we have? 12. Okay. We need three. I made some mistakes in terms of the breakaway tables that you throw the stuntmen on. I think we only had three or four in the end. So we did these huge action sequences, throw a bad guy onto a table and then look as badass as I can. And then

I'd shout cut and then we'd have to glue the balsa wood back together again. You're on hour 16 of that call. Morale is what? You know what? I was very emotional on the call and I said, look, it's up to each and every one of you to make some concessions. And, you know, every head of department, they feel like their part of production is the most important part, which is incredible. You know, so it has to be like that. But I said for the greater good of the picture,

we need to find a way to be more resourceful. And the term I'd picked up when I was scouting in India was this word in the slums they use called jagad, which is, it kind of means resourcefulness, this kind of like clucky attitude by any means necessary. You can be adaptive and resourceful. And I always use the example of this guy I saw with this plastic bag that he twisted the four corners to make a hat. And, you know, you can

poke holes in it and make it a fishing net or cover the roof of your Leakington roof. And that was the thing we went through. And everyone responded. Everyone cut down. Some people cut salaries. Even Mike Williwan, who's the man that owns the studio, I think he slashed the rate of the studio by over half to let us keep filming there. So I feel hugely grateful to my Indonesian crew. So you're in production. You start filming. Pretend

I'm a medical examiner or like a concerned mother. You broke your hand on this film. You broke your toes on this film. Yeah. You tore a shoulder on this film. Not quite Jackie Chan. I mean, these are easy. And you kept making this film. Yeah.

What pain medication were you prescribed and did you bring any for me today? Actually, I refuse to take painkillers. Stop. Not even an Advil? No, no, no. Because I had to be so hyper present. The amount of adrenaline coursing through my veins for nine months. See, I'm imagining them giving you whatever they give LeBron today.

in game six of the NBA finals. No, no, no. It was coconut water, sweet potato, salmon, and lettuce. That was it. I was a man possessed. I really was. And that was enough to make it through production, even with all these injuries. Oh, man. I mean, when my hand snapped in the first fight scene in this bathroom, I turned to Joe again in my DP and I go, I know it's broken. I heard it. I felt it. Every time I move, like there's this nerve sensation flicking in my ear, like,

And I was like, let's just finish it. Let's just keep going. And we knew if we had to put a cast on my hand, that's it. We couldn't afford to VFX out this thing. And again, the production was going to tank. So our assistant had found this cheap medical private jet

to fly me to Jakarta. And, you know, we needed to prove to insurance that we weren't going to break this COVID bubble. So we went on this jet. I went under. They put a screw in. The doctor's like, "If you put more than a pound or two of pressure on this hand and you bend that tiny nail, it's going to be like pulling a nail out of wood. You will ruin the bone around it and you won't be..." How do you not use your hand

in an action film oh we went straight back into the action i started throwing myself out a window and bouncing off it straight after and you see it in the film yeah i saw it i see it in the film yeah it's in the film you know the biggest heartbreaking thing is i was so much better in the choreo room when i had two hands so what you see is me doing some of this stuff one-handed which slows you down the kind of like you know nature of it but i think you did a good job yeah people

People love asking actors about their creative process, how they prepare for the role, how they become the character that they're playing. But you've always said that your acting process is quote, "90% panic and 10% it just happens." - Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I need that on a T-shirt. - Yeah, we'll make them for you. - Sounds like my sex life. No, it doesn't. - Noted.

Glad we had that on record. When it comes to directing, what are those percentages looking like? Is it 90% panic and 10% it just happens? Or is it something else? It was different this time. The amount of material that I've been accumulating and gathering, you know, every film I would watch, you know, I'm sitting with my friends, I'd drive them crazy. I'm like, oh, we got to rewind that. I got to film that moment. I love the way the camera moves. Look at the lighting in that. Oh, wow. So watching a film with me, for

for about the two years leading up to shoot was impossible. It would drive people crazy. I'd prepped the shit out of this thing, every angle, every thought. And then because of what was going on, we had to adapt. So it was having this plan and then being willing to just pivot

I'm not a very technical actor. I think I'm instinctual. And for me, that instinct really played a big key in making this. The instinctual part of your craft, I think we can chronicle that back to the beginning of your career. Because in 2006, you're 16 years old. I think one day on our way back home from work, your mother's sitting on a train, just flipping to the local metro newspaper, and

And it's then that she stumbles upon the casting call for teenagers in London. Now again, you're 16, like most teenagers, don't love listening to their parents, and yet she talks you into auditioning.

How did you do that? I mean, you know, I was just such a stubborn little rascal of a teenager. I had terrible acne. You know, we were struggling at the time and I just was like, you know, I really thought my parents were spiraling or something. Struggling how? Just financially, you know, things weren't going well and it was tough. And I was just like, this is insane. You know, I've never done any sort of professional acting or been to an acting school and they're not going to cast any brown kids for sure. And you

We fought and we fought and she's like, I'm not going to listen to you. We are going to bunk off school and we are going. And she goes, you're going to wear your uniform so your dad doesn't know. And then we're going to take the train to the National Youth Theater. And we queued up and got a number. It was like American Idol. I went in and totally was the most over the top, terrible audition I'd done, but I made him laugh. And that was the beginning of everything. And we talk about it. And I was like, you know, you were so close to cracking and how dramatic

drastically different my reality would have been. - She was close to cracking. - Yeah. - As in she was close to listening to you. - Listening to you, yeah. I nearly won and trying to, I was painting how ridiculous this was to bunk an exam and go to the city and do this, this newspaper, the Metro newspapers on every seat on the train. It's craziness. - You get the part. It's on a show called Skins where you play this wily sex crazed British,

Pakistani teenager. Yeah. Can we take a look at that? Oh boy. For a second? Okay. All right. Hope no one's had eating breakfast at the same time as watching this. Uh, yeah, this is a warning and a disclaimer. Oh no. Wait, you had the drugs then? I don't have any. I thought you were bringing them. No, you're going to put them in your turban. I don't wear a turban, Chris. I thought you were going to get one especially. They look so disappointing when I'm not a terrorist. Well, you're a very dull Muslim, I know. Ah! Ow! Ow!

Oh boy. That's enough pain. That's enough pain. Oh boy. Wow. What do you think watching that?

God, I was an awkward, awkward creature, wasn't I? So hyperactive and no, there's not a single bone of subtlety in that performance. You know, if you watch, I'm actually sometimes mouthing the other characters' lines. Everyone, the ongoing joke was Dev would wake up four hours before and I used to make up, I had some elaborate bathroom routine, but I was just so nervous and reading the lines over and over and over again. My first ADR, like the additional sound recording,

My mum came with me to that recording and none of us knew what to expect because I'd never done it before. And the first thing up was this sex scene.

But you were a virgin. I was a virgin. And we had one computer in the house, which my dad would do his accounting work on. So I couldn't, you know, do a lot of background research. So we had some James Bond tapes. So I watched some James Bond, you know, romance scenes, pull out some ice cubes and do all that kind of, you know, romance shit. Like everyone's first time. Yeah. And then I'm on set and the director's like,

more Chihuahua, more Chihuahua. And I think I was doing a scene where I was like humping away, trying to recite Hugh Grant films to last. And my mom's watching me through the glass and she turned to the men afterwards and she goes, he sounds just like his father. And I was like, the most...

Yeah. We're trying to sell an action film here. I feel like this is not the right thing to be talking about, but it happened. Well, no, I think it is because you explained how you made this film of yours. Yeah. But I think to fully understand the why, we have to know your story a bit. We don't have to keep talking about you having fake sex, but...

You said once to do the show, it felt like suicide in the community to put your kid into a TV show and let him drop out at 16. That first line is severe. I mean, what did that feel like? It was tough. I mean, we had these like, you know, local community events for the kind of local Indian community and we would show up. And I remember when they went

When I told my mom I wanted to leave school because I didn't fit, it was very tough for me. Everyone was giving my mother dirty looks and taking her aside and like, how can you do this to your son? And everyone's trying to backseat parent someone else's child in the community. Everyone has something to say. How did she handle that?

It was very tough. She's a carer for the elderly and we weren't doing well financially. So we kind of became that kind of family for a moment where they're like, oh, look at those guys. You know, it's a bit of a train wreck going on there. And at the same time, I'd go to school and it was quite a multicultural school. And, you know, you're naked on national television with your scrawny ass out. And we didn't have kind of media training or protection. I was going to a school in the outskirts of London. And so I was getting...

a bit of flack for the being the butt of the jokes on the show and there was all these chat rooms of like you know who's kiss marry kill you know all that kind of stuff and I was always the one you would kill or the worst in the show and there were some members of my school that were not happy with the kind of

Muslim representation of this guy being quite wild and there were some that were so it kind of was quite divisive in that sense so it was a prickly place to be for a while. How did you handle that? It was hard because I didn't even know what a boom mic was you know or what speed meant or rolling the only word I'd been accustomed to watching movies was action literally we went straight from

being at home and being in school to on a film set and them calling action. It was as raw as you can get. And, you know, for me, going to central London was a big deal. So to leave and stay in Bristol in this hotel with all these other teenagers that were more experienced at life than me. And, you know, everyone's kind of drinking and,

A lot of shit was going down that I hadn't been exposed to and I didn't quite know how to handle myself in that and I was more caught up trying to be the funny guy to fit in than really focus on what was happening on set. So I remember looking back on that and it was only when I met Danny Boyle and actually there was actually a filmmaker on that, Adam Smith. I had one episode and he really saw me and spoke to me like an equal, not like a kid.

And that really started to change. I started to get the idea of what acting was.

Even if those kids in the chat room didn't like your performance, there was one person that did, and Danny Boyle's daughter. Yeah. And she was the one that told him while he was casting Slumdog Millionaire to look at this young kid named Dev Patel. When you met him for the first time, what did you think? I mean, it was, we turned up to the audition. Again, I was with my mom and I was the, I think I was the youngest to turn up.

and there was all these men with like beautiful designer stubble and and i was like i'm not gonna get this and at that time the film was aged up there wasn't the youngest kids in the that basically steal the movie in slumdog so i went in and was doing the youngest part of the roles you know doing the pickpocketing scenes and i knew i could be funny so i had danny in stitches

So I just went in there and I was like, let's go for it. I'm not going to be the handsome dude like these guys, but I'm going to go in there and make him laugh. And I did. And then he took me aside and he goes, you know, to lead a movie, you have to be still.

He goes, you know, to support a movie, you can come in and display attributes and add different elements to the equation. But to be a leading man, the audience needs to enter you through your eyes. Did you understand that? At the beginning, I was like, what do you mean? That's not acting. Like, they need to see me do something. It took me a while to really grasp that. It was only when I was opposite an actor called Irfan Khan, who, you know, sadly passed away, who's a true... One of the best. Yeah, cinematic icon. And Irfan, we did a scene where...

He figures out why I'm on the show. I'm chained to this chair in this police interrogation room. And one of the other officers, played by this actress, Sorab Shukla, he kind of passes a lewd remark about this girl. You know, calls her something the bitch of the slum. And then I'm going to go crazy. And Irfan's going to grab me and go, that's it. We found out why he's on it. And instead, as I'm whiling out, I'm expecting him to come and kind of like restrain me. Instead, he just gets up and leaves the set. There was a little sink there.

on the side of the room and he washes his face in the middle of the shot and comes and sits down with a towel. He pats his face down and he goes, "So that's why you're here." I just was like, what the hell did he just do? Then Danny brought me behind the camera to watch him and he has the most soulful eyes.

And yeah, it really recalibrated me at that moment. In making this film, it was kind of your first or second time being in India. Is that right? Slumdog? Slumdog, yeah. I would say it was my first time consciously being there. Consciously. You went as a little child. I went as a kid to a rural park for a wedding. As a 17-year-old making this movie with like his headphones and his Nike shoes, not knowing what the hell you're seeing, how did you make sense of

the community that you were part of and that you are now about to make work about? It was every kind of preconceived conception I had of the culture. You know, growing up in Rainer's Lane and trying to

rid myself of that part of my identity to fit in and not be bullied and whatever. The not cool part. The not cool part, yeah. I went there and the first thing I did was do a bunch of casting with, I don't know, it must have been 30 of the most beautiful, captivating, and interesting women I've ever seen or been exposed to in my existence at that point. One after the other, this girl would come in and would do this scene together.

torn jeans and girls with Led Zeppelin t-shirts on. I didn't even know what that band was. I was only listening to Dizzy Rascal and UK Grime. It really, really recalibrated me in a huge way. I made some of my closest friends that I still have today on that experience. I fell in love with it. It was intoxicating because it was so surprising in every way. You can just get lost there.

Did you feel enveloped in that community? So when I went out there, they found Frida and then they went down for two weeks for Christmas before we started filming and I just stayed back. I was actually hoping to just try and hang out with her because I had a huge crush on her. But she went off and wasn't around. So you're 17 and there by yourself? Yeah, I'm there by myself and I told Danny I want to just kind of

feel the culture and let it kind of seep in. And I was very afraid and I hadn't traveled alone before, but I had my padilla in which I was saving. So I put some in my pocket and I would walk the streets every day. And even though I looked like everyone, they could just, they call them a foreigner. You could just tell that I was a foreigner with the way I moved and

just my cadence and you know it doesn't matter how chaotic India is and Mumbai is everyone has this kind of ease no one's in a rush to go anywhere and so they could just sense it so it took a while for me to kind of like find that and then you know I spent all this time perfecting this accent and then

We shoot the movie, get done, and then a year later, Danny Ball's like, you know, the sound is not clear. We've got to redo it. And then I made him sound like a British dude from Rainer's Lane. It's my biggest regret. But no, it took a while. You know, on the surface, it seems like that movie changed your life. I think it won like eight Academy Awards. But the roles after did not come as you expected. Why do you think that is?

Yeah, I mean, I don't want to run the risk of sounding ungrateful because, you know, I think every guy with, you know, even a tickle of brown pigment in their skin and audition for that thing. And so I was very fucking lucky to get it. But I knew straight away when we went to Toronto Film Festival, you know, I'm the lead in this movie, the audience totally flipped out. And as soon as we leave the first screening,

the paparazzi are outside and they're screaming, Frida, Frida. And she's, you know, this gorgeous, you know, ethereal being, she's a star. And they kind of, the security rushed her into this car, our car, and it started to leave. It drove off. And I'm standing there with the paparazzi almost like, well, and then, you know, you see that moment from the frenzy where they just start reviewing the photos and I'm almost like joining in. Oh yeah, that's a good one. And

Like no one gave a fuck about the slumdog millionaire dude. And I knew... Was that where you called yourself? No, no, no, no. But like I was like, I'm the slumdog. I'm the guy in the poster. I knew it was, there wasn't going to be a lot of room for me unless it was the, you know, IT dude or whatever. But also, you know, I wouldn't have had it any other way because I wasn't good enough as an actor already or deserving. I needed to earn some stripes.

Putting a pause on the conversation for a second, when we come back, we discuss Dev's career post-Slumdog Millionaire, his work in the film The Green Knight, working on the TV show The Newsroom with Aaron Sorkin, and a whole lot more. Stay with us.

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When you look back on that period after Slumdog Millionaire, when you look back at the last Airbender and all of that, which I know was a pretty tough shoot, what did that experience teach you?

teach you about the kind of movies you wanted to make moving forward that you maybe even wanted to direct one day? First of all, I needed a lot more training as an actor. And secondly, I should have listened to myself. You're a young kid and you all of a sudden get this agency and, you know, you have all these people

adults in suits telling you, you know, okay, this is how you're going to do it. And you're going to do this franchise. You're going to do it because this other actor has just been pulled out and you're going to go in and you're going to get this much money on the third one and blah, blah, blah. And we've got it mapped out and you're like, okay, okay. And I kind of got

coerced into this thing, which working with Danny Ball, you're feeling everything. You're in the trenches. It's a very different, even in Skins, you know, it's very different type of filmmaking to what that process, it was too Hollywood for me. What do you mean coerced? I didn't consciously really make that decision to do it. I kind of just was like, okay, okay, I guess I have to do this. And I didn't fit. I wasn't right for the role and I was atrocious in it.

Every moment of it was so soul crushing in a way for me. And it showed in the film. And from that day onward, I was like, you know, I don't want to be this tiny cog in this huge McDonald's selling, you know, your Happy Meal selling machine. I don't want to do that. No, no fucking way. Never again. How do you move forward from that?

It's one thing to read negative comments from angry, horny teenagers in a chat room. Yeah. But how do you move forward from that film? Yeah, dude, the hardest acting is selling a movie you don't like.

That's hard acting. And it's soul crushing looking someone in the whites of their eyes and trying to promote this thing. So I'm trying my best not to find myself in that position again. How did I carry on? I just, you know, my same set of friends, you know, I'm lucky I just got a few more goes. I got this Marigold Hotel movie and things like that. And then that started to, things started to pick up slowly. It didn't deter you? It didn't deter me, but I thought I was done. But I've been lucky.

you get a role on the show in the newsroom. And the reason I kind of brought up that moment where you were low and felt bad was because when the show ended,

Some of your castmates reflected on the experience of making the program. And in an exit interview, when asked who was the most distracting, energetic person on set, they had a sort of common answer, which I could read, but then I thought maybe you would want to read what they said.

It was Sam Waterston, wasn't he? He's so hyperactive, that guy. Idina Porter. She goes, Dev, that's why we can't have any nice things Patel. Oh,

Oh boy, that's so true. Because you know, Jeff's doing these like massive 12 pages, you know, and we're in the bullpen behind him whilst he's in the newsroom. We got these phones and I figured out how to use the actual intercom system to talk to all the other actors. And I'm just breaking shit. And I'm, you know, it was anyway, Dev has the energy of seven people. While sometimes distracting, the shenanigans were always funny and always welcome. Alison Pill. Oh, Alison. Yeah.

There you go. So even after all that pain that you've been talking about, you somehow repurpose it into this energetic, wily, maybe ADHD, as you keep saying, performance. Yeah. I didn't know what I was saying half the time in that show. All of it went over my head. I dropped out of school, man, at 16. So this stuff about like, you know, I didn't know much about American politics. So just learn it by rote, go in. And I was just excited to be

there and like pay my dues again and you know I remember he was just the IT guy in the first read through he didn't have a name that I just go to the read through it's Scott Rudin it's Aaron Sorkin and these actors and

these thespians like you know Thomas Sadowski holy shit that guy's unbelievable you watch him on set Alison Pill you know like all of them Jeff Sam Emily Mortimer and I remember when Jeff does that speech you know you know why is America the greatest and he's like it's not but it could be I

I remember watching him in the read-through and I was like, okay, I don't care if I'm the IT guy. I'm going to sit and take note of these guys. So it was kind of, that's why I did it. It is a profoundly energetic performance. And it is very far away from the thing that Danny Boyle told you you'll need one day, which is a stillness. Yes. Was Lion the first time that you brought and delivered that stillness? Yeah, I think I live in these kind of extremes, but...

There is a kind of old man in there too inside me that's like to think soulful and the opportunity to be soulful came with Lion. And I read that script and I wasn't really their first choice at all because I was that Indian guy that's been in Slumdog and I think filmmakers didn't want that baggage. They wanted to find a newer, fresher face. Ang Lee called you overexposed. Yeah.

overexposed. You couldn't audition for Life of Pi? I couldn't, no. You know, everyone's like, Dev's just the guy that's doing all the Indian stuff. And I was like, actually, I've kind of

Slumdog was like this amazing gilded cage where it becomes so huge that I kind of like was so overexposed but couldn't do much else after. It's amazing. One Dev Patel is overexposed, but we somehow have room for like five famous Chris's. The math is just not math for me. It doesn't make any sense. Totally, dude.

And, um, it's no offense to them. It's not, it's not about them. Yeah. It's an industry. It's an industry. It's an industry problem. 100%. And, um, when lion came up, I had to audition six times.

Garth changed my life with that role. And the first scene we- Yeah, Garth Davis. The first scene we shot was the last scene of the film where I meet the mother. And I poured everything of myself into this. Just been through a breakup and I was unanchored in the world and ready to apply myself wholly to something. And that was that. That was that film. You demonstrated what Danny-

wanted you to do, what he said you'll one day need to do in Lion. You then do it again in the film The Green Knight. I want to sit with this one because you're in your early 30s playing this character who desperately wants to be great. And yet the central question of the film is, but at what cost? Did you see yourself in that character and in that potentially

fateful desire to be great. First of all, God, do I love David Lowery. Again, talk about soulful and like that script was, it was like music. It was so lyrical and everyone that had been exposed to it had a different takeaway. But for me, it was

You know, on this journey of ambition and trying to stamp your mark in this story, it's about a young man trying to sit at a table of great men with great stories, and he needs to create a story of his own. And there's a beautiful line in it, which is, you know, instead of striving for greatness, why not strive for goodness instead? And that really struck me because, you know, I've met a lot of people and seen a lot of people change throughout this time. And it

it's all consuming this game. And, you know, I get to see people in the wings. I get to see them turn on their crocodile smiles and we do a big Q&A panel or whatever. And then you get to see them, what they're like to their assistants or what they're like in the makeup trailer or, and, you know, everyone has a bad day. You know, it's a very pressurized position to be in. But for me, it's like, it is tough. It's a tough industry. And, and,

I remember the press tour for Lion and how beautiful making the movie was. Garth took us out into nature and made us find the leaf that matched our soul. And we listened to music and we didn't do rehearsals. We did bonding exercises and earthing and grounding, and it changed me as a human. And then you go and do what they call a press campaign. I mean, you're campaigning for yourself to be nominated for an award.

What an amazing position to be in. But also, you know, you're talking about yourself for months and months on end. And, you know, it's the complete opposite of what making the film was. And why you got into this. Yeah, you're hitting the same taglines over and over again. And you're kind of...

selling yourself. It was a lot. Let's say this is a cliche, but at the top of my career, which I consider that, you know, being nominated for an Oscar, I felt inside the most turbulent, the most lonely. But what does that feel like? I mean, you're at these soirees, these events with, you know, the magnificent, most magnificent, incredible, talented individuals that look like gods and

to me, they're worthy of being there. I've watched them on screen and they fit and I feel like a fraud. You didn't think you were worthy? No, even then I didn't feel worthy. And now? I don't know if I ever will, unfortunately. I think that's an issue I'm trying to deal with, but it also probably is what is the furnace within me. And

Indian parents, man. But is there anyone more proud? Yeah, both my parents have been incredible. Yeah. But when you say, but Indian parents, man, what does that actually mean? You know, uh,

You know, I just think... Was it the first time you've avoided eye contact? No, no, no. I was thinking about it. I was like, you know, because my mom doesn't know. I remember when I got nominated, she goes, one day maybe you'll get nominated for the real one. I go, what's the real one? She goes, the leading one. And I was like, oh, mom. Oh, my Lord. I had to sit her down and explain. Yeah. But, yeah. Well, there's therapy. Yeah. That will do it. But she was proud as punch coming. She was my date to the ceremony. That was pretty cool.

The line was, "You're striving for greatness, but why not goodness?" - Yeah. - You said once, "Ambition is beautiful, but you have to remember what you're doing it for." And at the beginning of this conversation, we were talking about that ambition, your desire to make this movie, the lengths you and your crew were willing to go to to make this movie. Now that you've made it, do you have a better idea of who or what you were doing it for?

I think I was doing it for little Dev, young Dev, who, you know... Acne Dev? No, yeah, acne Dev. I was doing it for acne Dev. Big eared, fresh Prince of Bel-Air haircut Dev. Really, my gateway into cinema was watching Bruce Lee, you know, a guy that had similar skin color to me and dark hair and all that. Enter the Dragon? Yeah, Enter the Dragon, man. Changed my life. And I...

I wanted to be expressed in the genre. I wanted to exist in the genre. I want people like me to exist. After South by, you know, this Indian man came up to me and he goes, I'm jealous of my 14 year old son. And I was like, that's a really weird thing to open a conversation with. And he was holding my hand and shaking and wouldn't let go. And I go, what do you mean? And he's like, it's the first time he's got someone

on screen in a film like this that looks like him to look up to. And he goes, I'm so proud of you and keep it up. And I again was like, I don't know, maybe it was my hormones that day, but it was I'm not the best with compliments. But that one that one caught me off guard. And it meant the world because that was the objective of it.

making this film was hard. The pre-production was hard. The production was hard. The post-production sounds like it was hard. I want to know, when you're struggling in post-production, what did Jordan Peele see that others could not? We got on the... Our first conversation was almost three hours long, and he understood what I was going for, which is to use...

genre is a Trojan horse to talk about more stuff. I didn't want to just do a film that just had a barrage of punches and kicks that kind of wash over you like a video game. I wanted the emotional punches, the political punches, the kicks to mean something too and kind of wrap it in this kind of film that people will access. If you want to talk about violence against women, about the caste system, against religion, basically it's a revenge film about faith. He got all of those things.

as a guy who does that incredibly well with his films. I think he saw that and at the same time, he's someone that was able to step out of a box that he was put in and reinvent himself. There's a line in Monkey Man, this character Alpha tells me, he goes, "You need to destroy in order to grow, to create space for new life." I was reading about the aboriginals in Australia.

and controlled burnings in order to nourish the soil to create new life. And I just thought what an incredible philosophy is. I had to destroy myself, my old avatar of myself, destroy everything. And I wanted to destroy the image the audience had of me or all of those, even the guys that we'd hired that we fired because they overlooked me as this, oh, he's just this,

silly actor he's this is going to crumble we're in indonesia and they're not helping i wanted to prove them all wrong i wanted to destroy that perception and did you i mean the last song in the movie is called grow by face soul and that's me hopefully growing and showing you know this is a new chapter i hope your father is fond of quoting a philosopher tagore yeah yeah

My dad doesn't quote a lot, by the way. He doesn't talk a lot at all. So when he dropped those lyrics, I was like, dad. The lyric was, I've spent many days stringing and unstringing my instrument while the song I came to sing remains unsung. Yeah. What does that mean to you now?

I couldn't let it go because, uh, yeah, I mean, I had, I'd actually walked off it when our financier went bankrupt and they kind of took the film over and we're doing a bad job with all the sound and the color and the VFX. So I'd left it cause I couldn't endorse it. And then, um, you know, we had such a short time with universal to kind of make it mine again and undo all of the kind of stuff that, you know, some random third party had done to the movie.

But, you know, there was many a times when I was writing this long text on my phone to apologize to my cast and crew for letting them down. And I never sent it, thank God. But, you know, at one point I told my dad, I can't endorse this. I can't be like in this movie. He's a performing monkey for

for a crowd I don't want to be that performing monkey for something I've worked so hard on if it's not going to be what I want it to be. He told me this quote and he goes, "I'm with you son, but remember this." I was like, "Fuck, I got to sing this song because like I said, young Dev, he would want to see it. People like me will want to see this and feel it." There's a line in the movie, I think, "The pain will leave you once it's finished teaching you." Yeah. What has it taught?

And has it left? The pain hasn't left. But...

What it taught me is to never take no for an answer. I really found this next level, possessed level of belief in this thing. And I've never had that before. And, you know, that's what it's taught me is to believe in myself a bit more. Last question. Now that you have this new belief in yourself. Kind of. Not totally. Totally. Half-baked belief. Confidence adjacent. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

The one that the awkward teenager with acne did not have. The one that went to India for the first time and discovered a new life, a new community that he'd always been sort of looking for. The one that had trouble on an M. Night Shyamalan movie, rebounded in these films, was deeply, profoundly energetic on the newsroom. The one that made Lion possible, the Green Knight possible.

What do you want for yourself moving forward? I'm learning. I'm trying to be kind to myself, but that's what I'm trying to do. But what I want for myself is I guess I want to keep making stuff. I know what rarefied space I am to be able to green light a movie and make a movie and even get any form of financing behind that thing.

So, you know, I feel the responsibility now and I want to keep telling stories. That's what I want for myself. Dive back into the fire. And to that kid whose father is jealous that he gets this movie, you say what? What do I say? I say, well, you know, this movie is about someone that's scarred, right? He has physical and emotional scars and those scars, I hope other characters and people around them and what they do in this movie is they...

They're not signs of trauma, they're actually signs of triumph. They're signs of someone overcoming something. A scar is a sign of a warrior, you came over something. That's what the motto of this film is. So what I would say is, for every time you've been knocked down or bruised or emotionally or whatever, we should play, I'm a survivor. But yeah, keep going, man, keep going. I don't know if I can clear the rights for that song in time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay, okay.

Keep on trucking. Get back up. Yeah.

Get back up. Dev Patel. This was amazing. I appreciate you. Thank you for that. It felt like therapy. I'm not going to charge you. Don't worry. Congratulations on the film. We've gone through all these sort of chapters of yours. And I'm so glad that you made it through to the other side. And I so look forward to seeing what you make next. Thank you, man. Good luck. Thanks. That was amazing. You're amazing. Incredible, man.

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This episode of the Happiness Lab on the Joy of Giving is brought to you by the 2024 Subaru Share the Love event. As I've often said on this show, we should help people whenever we can. But we often make the biggest difference when someone is struggling, just like when the Make-A-Wish Foundation grants wishes to critically ill children. They tell me they didn't want to continue to go through the pain they were going through. They didn't see an end in sight. This is Leslie Motter. She's the president and CEO of Make-A-Wish America.

And then Make-A-Wish came alongside them and allowed them to have this joy, this hope, something to look forward to. You're a child, dream big, and we're going to make it come true. And with the support of Subaru, the dreams of critically ill children have come true. Whether that's to be a firefighter for a day, go skiing, or meet their sporting hero.

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For 17 years, Subaru has made buying a car during the holiday season an act of love with the Subaru Share the Love event. From now until January 2nd, when you get a new Subaru, Subaru and its retailers will donate a minimum of $300 to charity, including Make-A-Wish. We've granted over 16,200 wishes this last year, which is a record for us. However, we have a lot of children that are out there waiting for wishes, a lot of children that deserve the life of

changing power of a wish. So partners like Subaru and individual customers allow those wishes to come true. The 2024 Subaru Share the Love event runs through January 2nd. To learn more, go to Subaru.com slash share. Subaru, more than a car company.

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And that's our show. If you enjoyed today's episode with Dev, the best thing you can do to continue supporting Talk Easy is to share the program on social media with a friend, a family member, anyone that you think may be interested in the kinds of conversations we have here each and every Sunday.

You can also leave us a review on Apple, Spotify, wherever you do your listening. If you want to drop me a line, you can do so at sf at talkeasypond.com. That's sf at talkeasypond.com. You can send us ideas for future episodes, reflections on the episodes you have heard, or if you just want to say hello, drop us a line at sf at talkeasypond.com.

We are in the process of doing a special new project in collaboration with our listeners.

So if you want to be part of that, drop us a line at that email address. I want to give a special thanks this week to the teams at Shelter PR and Universal. And of course, our guest today, Dev Patel. Be sure to check out his new film, Monkey Man, exclusively in theaters around the country. To learn more about Dev and his work, visit our show notes at talkeasypond.com.

If you want to hear other conversations with actors and directors, I'd recommend our talks with Cate Blanchett, Oscar Isaac, Ethan Hawke, Tom Hanks, and Lily Gladstone.

Thank you.

As always, Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer is Janick Sabravo. Today's talk was edited by Clarice Guevara and mixed by Andrew Vastola. It was engineered by Stephen Toll at Citybox out of New York City. Our music is by Dylan Peck. Our illustrations are by Krisha Shenoy. Our graphics are by Ethan Seneca. Today's photographs were by Kyle Manning. Our research comes from Sharia Aranke. I

I also want to thank our team at Pushkin Industries. Justin Richmond, Kerry Brody, Jacob Smith, Eric Sandler, Kira Posey, Jordan McMillan, Tara Machado, Sarah Nix, Malcolm Gladwell, Greta Cohen, and Jacob Weisberg. I'm Sam Fricoso. Thank you for listening to another episode of Talk Easy. I'll see you back here next Sunday with a new talk. Until then, stay safe and so long.

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