Dev Patel turned down dream roles to make Monkey Man
The actor writes, directs and stars in the new action film – which was sometimes quite a gruelling experience.
Dev Patel has revealed that he turned down dream acting roles in order to complete his new film Monkey Man – which arrives in UK cinemas this Friday.
Patel wrote, directed and stars in the action thriller, which follows an underground fighter named Kid as he embarks on a hyper-violent revenge mission in the fictional Indian city of Yatana.
Making the film was a gruelling process both during and after production, with Patel not only turning down other work but also battling through a number of injuries and dealing with distribution complications to get the film ready for release.
That's something that made the blistering reception at last months SXSW festival all the more rewarding, as Patel explained in an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com.
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"I just feel like... there was a point where I was turning down work that was stuff that I dreamt of doing as an actor, like my whole career," he explained.
"And I was just like, 'God, I'm in this dark edit hole right now editing this movie.' And, like, at one point, that film got dropped... so it was, it was really pretty grim at moments."
Speaking of the reception, he added: "So to come into this kind of... I don't know, it was over 1200 people [at the premiere] like there was queue spanning three blocks. And I was so nervous going into that, I was just a ball of nerves.
"And when it played the way it played, and we won the Audience Award, I mean, it was... yeah, it was a blessing."
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As for whether the experience has whetted his appetite to return to the director's chair again anytime soon or if he'll be looking to go back to acting in other people's films, Patel said: "I'm just hungry to tell stories... so whatever capacity that is. I know it sounds cliche!
Producer Jordan Peele – who has had significant success as the director of Get Out, Us and Nope – then joked: "What if your next director is worse than you?"
"You're going to get me in trouble, dude!" Patel responded.
Monkey Man is released in UK cinemas on Friday 5th April 2024. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on.
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Authors
Patrick Cremona is the Senior Film Writer at Radio Times, and looks after all the latest film releases both in cinemas and on streaming. He has been with the website since October 2019, and in that time has interviewed a host of big name stars and reviewed a diverse range of movies.
