Dev Patel: Everything to know about Dev Patel including how he got started in acting, best movies and more, explained

Dev Patel‘s career started in a very simple way, but one that seems unfathomable for many others like him. 

On a fateful day in 2006, a 16-year-old Patel was studying for an exam when his mum approached him with a newspaper cutout with the casting call for a little TV show named Skins. 

In a move relatively unknown to ethnic parents, his mum accompanied him to the audition, disregarding his exam the next day.

But time and time again, a mother’s instinct is always right – Patel bagged the role of Anwar Kharral in the teen drama, putting him on the track to be one of the most beloved stars of our generation. 

The series dealt with serious topics such as substance abuse, sexuality, and mental illness through the lens of teenagers, resulting in a cult following that remains strong 17 years on. 

Patel, now 34, describes it jokingly as “the little rash that won’t go away,” in his latest interview with Vanity Fair for their 2024 Hollywood issue.

“It was amazing,” he said reassuringly – though he admitted, “I didn’t have a clue what I was doing when I was plucked off of the street to be in that thing.”

Fans will be glad to know that the cast still “stay in touch”, and that despite his jesting, Patel recognises the significance of his first role.

“Without it, there would be no me in Slumdog, without Danny Boyle’s daughter being a fan of Skins. All of these things, even up until Monkey Man, they’re lily pads.” 

Indeed, his role in Skins was what led to him being propelled to stardom.

Around the same time director Danny Boyle was searching far and wide for the perfect lead for his new project, Slumdog Millionaire.

All of his picks were too perfect looking, with the director recalling, “I wanted a guy who didn’t look like a potential hero; I wanted him to earn that in the film.”

His daughter then suggested Patel after seeing him in Skins. After five auditions, Patel finally got the role. But that wasn’t the end of it. 

The 17-year-old followed Boyle as they traipsed through India looking for filming locations and seeing the Dharavi slums – where the film is set – for himself. 

Along the way, Patel also spent days working at a call centre and washing dishes in a hotel to get first-hand experience for his character.

The role earned him critical acclaim and more trophies than he can carry, with the youngster winning the  British Independent Film Award, Critics’ Choice Award for Best Young Performer, National Board of Review (NBR) Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, as well as a number of other nominations.

But some criticised Patel’s casting, wondering why his roles aren’t given to a “real Indian”.

He hit back at the comments with, “I wonder, What does that even mean? The only way I can converse with my grandparents is in Gujarati. Does that make me real enough?

“Or am I only allowed to witness the moments of prejudice and racism going through airports? Is that the only bit that I’m allowed of the culture?

“The truth is I’m trying to understand myself better and my heritage, to figure things out, in the movie choices I make. That’s been the greatest thing for me in going to India repeatedly,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle.

He also walked away with another important thing. Patel began dating his co-star Frida Pinto in 2009, though they announced their breakup nearly six years later in October 2014.

After a break from dating, it was publicly revealed in March 2017 that he was dating Australian actress Tilda Cobham-Hervey, his co-star from Hotel Mumbai.

They had already been together for about nine months at that stage.

Their on-screen romance continued off screen with Cobham-Hervey showing the actor around her home town of Adelaide where the movie was filmed.

This isn’t his only link to the land Down Under, with the star earning his first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for the 2016 film Lion, starring opposite Nicole Kidman.

Patel took on the story of Saroo Brirely, a lost child in India who was adopted by Australian parents and eventually found his way back home. 

With the nomination, he became the third person of Indian descent to be nominated for an Academy Award, and though he didn’t win, he did receive the award for Best Supporting Actor at the British Academy Film Awards. 

Patel is also renowned for his roles in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel ,The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Hotel Mumbai, The Wedding Guest, The Personal History of David Copperfield, Modern Love, and more.

In 2022, Patel moved to Adelaide permanently to be with his partner, and even committed to the safety of the community by breaking up a knife fight there.

The couple made their official red carpet debut seven years after they first began dating, at the premiere of his directorial debut film Monkey Man. 

Patel toiled over the project for a decade, rebuffing many big roles (and fans’ ardent request for him to please appear in a rom com) and working on a shoestring budget so that he could tell his own story. 

The film follows a man known as Kid who vows to avenge his mother’s death at the hands of corrupt Indian politicians and spiritual leaders, with the religious story of the Hindu god Hanuman being the foundation of the film.

It was critically acclaimed, winning the Headliners Audience Award at South by Southwest Film Festival where it first premiered, as well as four Golden Trailer Awards, with many more sure to come this upcoming awards season.

It wasn’t just time that he sacrificed, with the actor breaking his hand filming one of his first scenes, having to be flown off the Indonesian island they were filming on to a doctor in the mainland who put a screw in his hand so that production wouldn’t have to account for a cast that that was too expensive to edit out of the movie – all while in the middle of the pandemic.

The actor did it all just to convey one key message to his audience.

“I really hope people get out and watch it because that really sends a message to the studio system that these stories work and that they can be profitable,” he explained to Draw Your Box.

“I threw everything at it for that reason. It’s a celebration of what it is to be Indian, to be an underdog, the Indian classical music, the Hijra community, Diwali, the turbo rickshaws. We’ve got it all in this thing.”