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Dev Patel (; born 23 April 1990) is a British actor and filmmaker. His accolades include a British Academy Film Award, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards. Patel was included in Times list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2024.
Patel began his career playing Anwar Kharral in the E4 teen drama Skins (2007). His breakthrough role in Danny Boyle's drama Slumdog Millionaire (2008) earned Patel a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. His career expanded with leading roles in the comedy-dramas The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011) and The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015), the science fiction thriller Chappie (2015), and a supporting role in the HBO series The Newsroom (2012–2014).
For his performance as Saroo Brierley in the drama Lion (2016), Patel won both the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, AACTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He subsequently starred in the independent films Hotel Mumbai (2018), The Personal History of David Copperfield (2019) and The Green Knight (2021), and made his directorial debut with the action film Monkey Man (2024).
As a child, Patel became a fan of action movies after he sneaked downstairs and saw scenes from a Bruce Lee film on his parents' TV set. Patel grew up in the Rayners Lane district of Harrow and attended Longfield Primary School and Whitmore High School. Patel had his first acting role as Sir Andrew Aguecheek in the school's production of Twelfth Night. At Whitmore High, he received an A* in GCSE Drama for his "self-penned portrayal of a child in the Beslan school siege." His drama teacher Niamh Wright said, "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 A Levels in PE, Biology, History, and Drama in 2007 at Whitmore High School while working on Skins.
Patel said that he was "bloody energetic" as a child, and used to get in trouble because of it. He started training at the Rayners Lane Academy of Taekwondo in 2000. He competed regularly in both national and international championships, including the 2004 AIMAA (Action International Martial Arts Association) World Championships in Dublin, where he won a bronze medal. The World Championships took place in October 2004, when he competed as a red belt 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. Later, in March 2006, he earned a 1st dan black belt.
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.
After five auditions for the role, Patel 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 (NBR) Award, Chicago Film Critics Association Award, and two Black Reel Awards for Best Actor and Best Breakthrough Performance. Patel was also nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role at the 2009 Screen Actors Guild (SAG) 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 , which was released on 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, although his role was well received, and was considered by many to be one of the film's positive aspects.
Patel later starred in the short film The Commuter,Schroeder, Stan. "'The Commuter': A Short Film Shot Entirely With the Nokia N8". 28 October 2010 which was directed by McHenry Brothers to promote the Nokia N8 smartphone in the UK Fans who won a Nokia UK run competition starred alongside Dev Patel in the short film.
From 2012 to 2014, Patel had 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. In 2014, Patel starred alongside Robert Sheehan and Zoë Kravitz in the film, The Road Within, about three unlikely friends with various disabilities who go on a road trip. The film received generally mixed reviews. Variety had positive words for the "bristling and committed performances by Robert Sheehan, Dev Patel and Zoe Kravitz" while noting that "there remains a nagging tidiness to the whole endeavor that leaves a strained, cloying aftertaste" that kept the movie from truly succeeding.
In 2015, Patel acted in Chappie as an engineer who helps design police robots and as the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan in the biopic The Man Who Knew Infinity. In 2016, Patel starred as Saroo Brierley in the biographical film Lion, directed by Garth Davis and co-starring Nicole Kidman and Rooney Mara, which premiered to rave reviews and "Academy Awards buzz" at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival. The film is based on Brierley's memoir A Long Way Home. Patel was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role at the 70th British Academy Film Awards and the 89th Academy Awards, winning at the former. He is the third actor of Indian descent to receive an Oscar nomination.
In 2018, Patel starred in the action-thriller Hotel Mumbai and The Wedding Guest. In 2019, Patel starred as the titular character in Armando Iannucci's adaptation of Charles Dickens' The Personal History of David Copperfield, for which he received a nomination for the 2021 Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. He also returned to television in an episode of the Amazon Prime anthology Modern Love, for which he received an Emmy nomination.
Patel made his directorial debut with the 2024 action thriller film Monkey Man, as announced in 2018. In addition to directing, Patel stars in the film, and is credited as a co-writer and producer. The film was initially set to be distributed by Netflix, but Jordan Peele, having seen the film, felt that it deserved a theatrical release instead, so he acquired it from Netflix under his Monkeypaw Productions banner. Monkey Man had its world premiere at South by Southwest on 11 March 2024. It had its Sydney premiere on 2 April 2024, and was released in Australian cinemas on 4 April 2024. It was released by Universal Pictures in the US on 5 April 2024.
Patel will executive produce and star in the Miramax miniseries The Key Man as disgraced businessman Arif Naqvi, and was initially set to join Olivia Colman in Wicker before dropping out.
In August 2022, Patel featured in the local news after he broke up a fight in Gouger Street in Adelaide city centre.
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| 2008 | Slumdog Millionaire | Jamal Malik | Danny Boyle | |
| 2010 | The Last Airbender | Zuko | M. Night Shyamalan | |
| 2011 | The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel | Sonny Kapoor | John Madden | |
| 2012 | About Cherry | Andrew | Stephen Elliott | |
| 2014 | The Road Within | Alex | Gren Wells | |
| 2015 | The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel | Sonny Kapoor | John Madden | |
| Chappie | Deon Wilson | Neill Blomkamp | ||
| The Man Who Knew Infinity | Srinivasa Ramanujan | Matthew Brown | ||
| 2016 | Only Yesterday | Toshio (Voice acting; Dubbing) | Isao Takahata | |
| Lion | Saroo Brierley | Garth Davis | ||
| 2018 | Hotel Mumbai | Arjun | Anthony Maras | |
| The Wedding Guest | Jay | Michael Winterbottom | ||
| 2019 | I Lost My Body | Naoufel (voice; English dub) | ||
| The Personal History of David Copperfield | David Copperfield | Armando Iannucci | ||
| 2021 | The Green Knight | Gawain | David Lowery | |
| 2023 | The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More | Dr. Chatterjee, John Winston and Timber Woods (Triple role) | Wes Anderson | The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Poison |
| 2024 | Monkey Man | Kid | Himself | |
| 2025 | Rabbit Trap | Darcy Davenport | Bryn Chainey | |
| 2007–2008 | Skins | Anwar Kharral | 18 episodes | |
| 2009 | Mister Eleven | Hotel Waiter | Episode: "1.1" | |
| 2012–2014 | The Newsroom | Neal Sampat | 25 episodes | |
| 2019 | Modern Love | Joshua | 2 episodes | |
| India From Above | Narrator | Voice acting; 2 episodes |
| 2010 | The Last Airbender | Zuko | Voice acting |
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