Dev Patel is a British actor, best known for playing Jamal Malik in Danny Boyle's Slumdog
Millionaire, for which he won a number of awards, including a Critics' Choice Award
and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Patel is also known for his role as Anwar Kharral,
a British Pakistani Muslim teenager in Skins; as Sonny Kapoor in The Best Exotic Marigold
Hotel; and as Neal Sampat in Aaron Sorkin's HBO show The Newsroom.
Early life Dev was born in Harrow, London. His mother,
Anita, is a carer, and his father, Raj, an IT consultant. His parents are Gujarati Hindu
Indians. Both of them were born in Nairobi, Kenya, where there is a significant Indian
community; they emigrated to Britain separately in their teens, but only met first in London.
Patel was raised in the Hindu faith. Patel grew up in Rayners Lane, Harrow, and attended
Longfield Middle School. He had his first acting role as Sir Andrew Aguecheek in the
school's production of Twelfth Night. Patel was given the Best Actor award for his performance.
He later attended Whitmore High School, receiving an A* in GCSE Drama, for his "self-penned
portrayal of a child in the Beslan school siege". His drama teacher Niamh Wright has
stated: "Dev was a gifted student who quickly impressed me with his innate ability to communicate
a wide variety of characters imaginatively and creatively. He was awarded full marks
for his GCSE performance to a live audience and the visiting examiner was moved to tears
by his honest portrayal". He completed his AS Levels in PE, Biology, History and Drama
in 2007, while he was working in Skins at Whitmore High School.
Martial arts Patel said that as a kid, he was "bloody energetic"
and used to get in trouble at school because of it. He started training at the Rayners
Lane Academy of Taekwon-do in 2000. He competed regularly in both national and international
championships, including the 2004 AIMAA World Championships in Dublin, where he won a bronze
medal. The World Championships took place in October 2004, when he was a red belt competing
in the junior division against other red and black belts. He made it to the semi-finals,
where he lost to an Irish black belt named Niall Fitzmaurice in "a very close and tough
fight", and ended up winning a bronze medal. He later gained a 1st dan black belt on 11
March 2006. Acting career
Patel began his acting career in 2007, when he auditioned for the E4 teen drama television
series Skins. Patel's mother saw the casting ad in a newspaper and took him to the audition
even though he had a science exam the next day. After two auditions, he was cast in the
role of Anwar Kharral, a British Pakistani Muslim teenager. According to fellow actors
Mike Bailey and Hannah Murray, the characterisation of Anwar was partly based on Patel's personality
and the role was written specifically for him after he was cast in Skins. Patel, who
had no professional acting experience, said that on "the first day of shooting I didn't
really know what to do." The first series of the show aired in January 2007 and went
on to win the Rose d'Or for Drama in 2008 and receive a nomination for Best Drama Series
at the 2008 BAFTA Television Awards. Patel reprised his role as Anwar for the second
series of Skins, which aired in February 2008. The second series of Skins won the Philips
Audience Award at the 2009 BAFTA Television Awards. Patel made his feature film debut
when he was cast in the role of Jamal Malik, the central character in Danny Boyle's film
Slumdog Millionaire. The character Jamal Malik is an Indian Muslim boy born and brought up
in the poverty of Bombay, India. Boyle considered hundreds of young male actors, but found that
Bollywood leads were generally "strong, handsome hero-types", not the personality he was looking
for. Boyle's 17-year-old daughter Caitlin pointed him to the British television ensemble
drama Skins, of which Patel was a cast member. After five auditions for the role, the actor
was eventually cast in August 2007. The film's producer found the original choice for the
lead role, Ruslaan Mumtaz, too good looking for the role. Boyle said "I wanted a guy
who didn't look like a potential hero; I wanted him to earn that in the film." To prepare
for the role, Patel went along with Boyle while scouting for filming locations, where
he was able to observe the Dharavi slums for himself. He also worked at a call centre for
a day and in a hotel, where he washed dishes. After the release of Slumdog Millionaire at
the end of 2008, Patel went on to receive a number of awards for his performance, including
a British Independent Film Award, National Board of Review Award, Chicago Film Critics
Association Award, and two Black Reel Awards for Best Actor and Best Breakthrough Performance.
Patel was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the 2009 Screen Actors Guild Awards.
The award eventually went posthumously to Heath Ledger for his performance in The Dark
Knight, though Patel did win the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by
a Cast in a Motion Picture, which he shared with ten other cast members from Slumdog Millionaire.
On 8 January 2009, Patel won the Critics' Choice Award for Best Young Performer. He
was also nominated for two London Critics Circle Film Awards, the NAACP Image Award
for Outstanding Supporting Actor, the 2009 BAFTA Award for Best Leading Actor, and European
Film Award for Best Actor. The film itself won four Golden Globes, including Best Drama
Film, and eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Patel played Zuko in M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender, a feature film adaptation
of the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender, which was released 1 July 2010 to extremely
negative reviews. Despite being a commercial success, the film was a critical failure and
Patel even received a Razzie Award nomination as worst supporting actor that year. Patel
starred in the short film The Commuter, which was directed by the McHenry Brothers to promote
the Nokia N8 smartphone in the U.K. Fans who won a Nokia UK run competition starred alongside
Dev Patel in the short film. Patel stars in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, directed by
John Madden, with Judi Dench, Bill Nighy and Maggie Smith. For this role he had to take
lessons in perfecting an Indian-English accent, as his native English accent was so strong
the producers felt if he kept the accent the film would be less believable. Patel has a
supporting role in the 2012 HBO television series The Newsroom as Neal Sampat, blogger
for news anchor Will McAvoy. He also appeared alongside James Franco and Heather Graham
in About Cherry, which premiered at the 2012 Berlin International Film Festival.
Personal life He has been dating his Slumdog Millionaire
co-star Freida Pinto since 2009. Filmography
Film Television
Video games Awards and nominations
Won 2008 Black Reel Award – "Best Actor" – Slumdog
Millionaire 2008 Black Reel Award – "Best Breakthrough
Performance" – Slumdog Millionaire 2008 British Independent Film Award – "Most
Promising Newcomer" – Slumdog Millionaire 2008 Chicago Film Critics Association Award
– "Most Promising Performer" – Slumdog Millionaire
2008 National Board of Review Award – "Best Breakthrough Performance" – Slumdog Millionaire
2008 Phoenix Film Critics Society Award – "Break Out On Camera" – Slumdog Millionaire
2008 Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award – "Best Breakthrough Performance"
– Slumdog Millionaire 2009 Critics' Choice Award – "Best Young
Performer" – Slumdog Millionaire 2009 Richard Attenborough Film Award – "Best
Breakthrough" – Slumdog Millionaire 2009 Richard Attenborough Film Award – "Rising
Star of the Year" – Slumdog Millionaire Nominated
2008 Black Reel Award – "Best Ensemble" – Slumdog Millionaire
2008 Detroit Film Critics Society Award – "Best Newcomer" – Slumdog Millionaire
2009 BAFTA Award – "Best Actor in a Leading Role" – Slumdog Millionaire
Evening Standard British Film Awards 2009 References
External links Dev Patel at the Internet Movie Database
"The look of love: Freida Pinto only has eyes for longtime beau Dev Patel as pair celebrate
her 29th birthday". Mail Online. 22 October 2013. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
"A Conversation With: Actor Dev Patel". The New York Times. 22 October 2013. Retrieved
15 May 2014.