Himesh Patel on Greedy People, The Franchise and 'trilogy jokes' with Lily James

In a matter of weeks, he'll be leading the Armando Iannucci-produced HBO comedy series The Franchise, while he also has a key role alongside Elizabeth Olsen and Alicia Vikander in the upcoming sci-fi film The Assessment, which recently debuted to some strong reviews at the Toronto Film Festival.

First, though, he's speaking with RadioTimes.com to promote his new movie Greedy People, which arrives on digital platforms this week and sees him reuniting with his Yesterday co-star Lily James.

Patel and James play Will and Paige, a couple who arrive in a seemingly sleepy small American town only for him to be dragged into a major incident in virtually his first act as a town cop – egged on by his somewhat rogue partner Terry, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

"It's a dark comedy about two cops who have a mishap at work and then find a vast amount of money," Patel says of the film. "They make the wrong decision, and the film is about what happens after that and various wrong turns. It's a really fun film."

Greedy People is very much reminiscent of some of the quirky crime films made by the Coen brothers – Fargo, in particular, is an obvious influence – and also has much in common with Sam Rami's underrated 1998 thriller A Simple Plan.

That film saw Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton playing polar opposite brothers faced with a similar dilemma on finding a large wad of cash, and this setup is something that Patel reckons will always have an appeal.

"There's something quite... it's a fun setup, isn't it?" he says. "You know, where does greed lead people in various settings, in various scenarios. Then there was something fun about the setup of this, you know, quote, unquote, innocent couple who just want to start a new life, and just the chaos that ensues.

"But all of it occurring within this tiny community, you know, where it all seems so important to them, and it does become very life or death."

The real-life community in which they shot the film was located in a "beautiful part of America" called Southport, a "really, really sweet little town" in North Carolina which Patel says was a joyful place to spend time in.

"They were really generous, the town, they were excited to have us," he said. "And it's part of America that I maybe otherwise would not have seen, which is always a thrill with doing what I do and having the privilege to travel – you get to see parts of the world that you may not have seen otherwise."

Although Patel has now starred in a great variety of film and TV projects, the chance to reunite with a former co-star is something he's not experienced very often.

But he was delighted to work with James again – something he described as "a particularly special" experience after their time together on Yesterday, his very first big-screen credit.

"Yesterday was such a specific experience, and we were so close on that," he says. "It was one of those where you go, 'Wow. I wonder if we'll ever get to do this again. Maybe this will be the only thing.' And then, of course, something like this comes up, and you get to have a whole other experience.

"What was fun about it was how different it is to Yesterday," he adds. "You know, Greedy People is such a different story, such a different genre entirely. So that was fun. We both got to play American and sort of work on that accent together.

"I mean, I've joked with Lily that that was sort of part two of our trilogy, so we'll have to cap it off at some point, sometime soon, or maybe it'll be when we're both in our 80s or something!"

As for what genre that possible third film might be, it's anyone's guess. "The world's our oyster," Patel smiles.

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While James was a familiar face to Patel, Joseph Gordon-Levitt was an actor he'd long admired, and was a "great pull" to him joining the project.

Throughout the film, the pair have something of a chalk and cheese relationship as Patel's Will is frequently led astray by Terry, and this dynamic was a very fun one for the two actors to bring to life.

Patel especially enjoyed watching Gordon-Levitt showcase his improvisational skills – which were no doubt honed after his recent experience starring opposite ad-libber extraordinare Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F.

"I just let Joe do his thing in that regard," Patel says. "I mean, it was so fun to watch him become this character. And he was riffing, he was trying all sorts of stuff. So it was really fun.

"And my place within that was just to sort of follow, you know, which is what Will is doing in the story. He's sort of like, OK, you lead the way. I'll trust you, even though I don't trust you at all.

"Whereas as an actor, I trusted Joe completely, his reputation precedes him, he's a great artist. So I really enjoyed it. I mean, he did some amazing improvs and really brought that character to life in a way. And it was just fun. Sort of going toe-to-toe with him, and just bouncing off what he was doing."

As for what's next for Patel, the aforementioned The Franchise is set to debut towards the start of next month. The series boasts Sam Mendes as a director and affectionately pokes fun at superhero films, following a crew who are deep in production on the latest movie in a fictional mega-series.

The on-screen film set quickly descends into chaos as they run into a wide array of difficulties, but the experience of working on the show was thankfully a much smoother process – with Patel describing the job as "a dream".

"Honestly, it was one of the best jobs I've ever done," he says. "I really, really mean that. I had a great time on it, and [I'm] excited to have it out in the world very soon."

Ianucci has a producer role on the show, but the brains behind the project on this occasion is Jon Brown, who previously worked with both Ianucci and Patel on the sci-fi comedy Avenue 5.

"Jon's also written on a show called Succession, which some people have heard of," Patel smiles. "And so we had some of the writers from that show also writing on The Franchise. And there was this bloke called Sam Mendes who directed the pilot. So I was just like, I'm just going to enjoy this experience, it was just a dream to be working with these people and I had a really great time."

Of course, given Patel has now worked on some pretty major films himself, did he find any of the things being satirised in the new show relatable in any way?

"Well, I've got less experience in the sort of specific genre franchise-y sort of thing," he says. "There were plenty of people around who had a direct or indirect experience of it, and so that was really valuable. Everyone was bringing a lot of those stories to the table and verifying the reality of what we were doing.

"I've had experiences of big movies, but they've not been sort of franchise movies part of a bigger sort of thing," he adds. "I'm yet to be part of something like that, but I will definitely... doing something like The Franchise will definitely put a filter on if I do end up diving into any of that, which I'd love to do. But it certainly makes me see it for what it is, to some degree."

Meanwhile, the experience of working with Vikander and Olsen on The Assessment – two people he describes as being "at the very top of the game" – was one he found "really amazing".

"It's a sort of dark, dystopian sci-fi vibe of a movie," he says. "But it's very personal story set in a world where the only way people can have children is going through a process called assessment, whereby someone comes and lives with you for a week and assesses you and if you're fit to have children.

"And so that's myself and Elizabeth are the couple, and Alicia comes to assess us – and it's sort of about what unfolds over that week."

Clearly, Patel has got himself into a situation where he's getting a great deal of variety in his different projects – and this is something he says is "by design".

"I do like to kind of go, 'OK, let's turn left, let's see what's different, how different can the next thing be?'" he says. "But of course, I'm also at the whims of what gets sent to me and how other people imagine me, you know, in what they are making.

"So I guess I'm still in that period of building a career that means that people can see me in different ways. I think that's kind of what I hope to do, so that people can go, 'Oh, he can do this, and he can also do that.'

"And so I naturally then draw a variety of work. And I've been lucky enough to have that for sure over the last two years, a really nice variety of things."

Greedy People is available on digital platforms from Monday 23rd September.

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