Dev Patel was 17 and hadn't had much acting experience when he landed the lead role of Jamal Malik in Slumdog Millionaire, the latest film from director Danny Boyle. Patel's biggest role prior to Slumdog Millionaire was as part of the ensemble cast of Skins in London, and it was only due to the fact Boyle was having difficulty casting the role of a young Indian man that Patel wound up with a shot at playing a teenager whose life experience provides him with the answers on a TV game show.
Patel's never been a fan of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, the show featured in the movie, but fortunately that didn't weigh in Boyle's decision to cast him in Slumdog Millionaire. "Danny was having trouble casting the lead role out in India, because all the guys there are really butch and stuff like that," recalled Patel at the film's LA press junket. "They need to be able to take their tops off and go under waterfalls, and obviously that's not me. So he came back to London a bit deflated and then his daughter's watching TV and my bit comes onscreen and she's all, 'Why don't you give this guy a go?' He was out promoting Sunshine and so I got myself on tape. I got a call from the casting director, because I didn't have an agent at the time - because I was really new to it all - and she goes, 'Danny likes you and you're going to have a meeting with him.' I thought, 'Wow!'"
"I remember sitting in a spotlight and I hadn't done many auditions before so I brought my mom with me because she's like my lucky charm. And there's all these good-looking dudes with like designer stubble and stuff and their girlfriends, and I was sitting there with my mom… I was like, 'Sh-t.' And then Danny opened the door and said, 'Dev, you're next.'"
Although he was incredibly nervous, Patel said Boyle was able to put him at ease. "He's so warm. He's a nice person to be around. And the thing was when I first met him I thought, 'This guy's really eccentric.' When he started talking to me about the love scene, he was [breathing in really deeply], 'He loves her and [breathing really deeply again]…' I was like, 'Whoa!' I mean in Skins the directors weren't on that level. And then when I worked on him on set for five months or so, it's not an eccentricity. It's a passion for what he does. And he knows his script. He doesn't storyboard or nothing, so the way he's got to articulate this to everyone on set has to be amazing. With a storyboard you can say, 'Look, the light's there. This is the way it's going to be.' But he has to describe the dance sequence we were going to have, all these extras, and they're going to look like this. And explain it to the actors how they're going to be feeling and set the whole backstory. He's just great at that, you know? And especially in India when the set's so chaotic and you're everywhere. Especially for me, everything was new to me and I'd hear a horn or a dog bark or something and I'd [get distracted]. He just engages you when he's talking to you, and yeah, it really helps."
Slumdog Millionaire was actually filmed in India, and Patel says he was able to reconnect with his roots while working on the film. "They took me to the slums and things like that to get into character when they were doing location scouts," said Patel about his first visit to the region. "I went to one slum which has a population of 2 million people and it's still growing. And coming from London I had this stupid preconceived notion, a stereotype of what a slum would be, sitting at home on my couch eating fricking popcorn. You see these healthcare aid ad bits on TV and you just see this malnourished kid holding up an empty bottle of food, and they're depressed. And I woke up on the day to go on to this location scout and I thought, 'Damn, it's going to be a bloody hard day. I'm going to be depressed.' And I was glad to be proved wrong when I was there."
"When you're there all you get is an overwhelming sense of community. They call slums there colonies because it's like that. Everyone knows everyone and they're all working together in unison, like one molecule, like one cell. I remember there was this kid walking down the street and he had this vest one and he was licking an ice [cream] and it was all dripping down his top. He was just walking down, like they all do without a bother in the world. And there was a group of three burly men and one guy saw this and picked him up and put him next to him, pulled out a handkerchief, cleaned him up and pushed him along back on his journey. And I was like, 'Wow, in London you can't do that and here they all look out for each other.' He didn't know that kid. The other thing is they don't pity themselves, which I thought they would be upset. Like with my character, I thought, 'Everything is going wrong. I can't find the girl, I'm getting tortured. I want to commit suicide. I want to cry,' but I didn't. When I went to the slums I was like, 'He's not going to pity himself now after seeing these people because they're optimists.' They're opportunists and they're soldiers. They are normal like us. The parents there just want to get their kids out of the slums and they just want to get food on the table every night. I didn't want him to feel sorry for himself in the end of it. I wanted him to just pursue his dream."
Patel may be a newcomer to feature films, but he definitely chose the right one to launch a career. His starring turn in Slumdog Millionaire is being applauded by critics, and the now 18 year old actor who hails from England is getting his first taste of Hollywood. Asked how he's enjoying the experience, Patel replied, "It's been cool. I got to go to Paramount and stuff like that. There's been a buzz around the film, and I worked my flipping butt off so it's nice for people to be like, 'That's all right, mate. That was all right. That's pretty good.'"
* * * * * *
Slumdog Millionaire is rated R for some violence, disturbing images and language and opens on November 12, 2008.
