“My first conversation with Jordan Peele was almost three hours long, and he understood what I was going for, which is to use genre as a Trojan horse to talk about more. There’s a line in Monkey Man: ‘you need to destroy in order to grow, to create space for new life.’ And I just thought, what an incredible philosophy. I wanted to destroy the image the audience had of me.”
-Dev Patel, episode 365 of Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso
Actor Dev Patel has pursued interesting, complex roles in Hollywood since his arrival in Slumdog Millionaire fifteen years ago. He joins us today to discuss Monkey Man, his directorial debut and most personal project to date.
At the top, we walk through the Hindu mythology that inspired the film (12:30), his decade-long fight to get the project greenlit (16:17), and the conditions of filming on an island during the pandemic (18:08). Then, Dev describes his intense creative process (27:02), how he landed his TV debut at sixteen as a sex-crazed teenager on Skins (28:33), and his life-changing role in Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire (35:40).
On the back-half, Patel reflects on his years in The Newsroom (47:24), the films that followed, including Garth Davis’ Lion (49:52) and David Lowery’s The Green Knight (51:30), and how director/producer Jordan Peele saved Monkey Man from oblivion (56:32).
For questions, comments, or to join our mailing list, reach me at sf@talkeasypod.com.
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Show-notes:
- Find tickets to see Dev Patel’s film Monkey Man in theaters.
- Watch his previous work in The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, The Green Knight, Hotel Mumbai, Lion, The Newsroom, Slumdog Millionaire, and Skins.
- For more talks, hear our conversations with Cate Blanchett, Oscar Isaac, Lily Gladstone, Ethan Hawke, Ramy Youssef, Tessa Thompson, and Tom Hanks.
- Order your Talk Easy mug in cream and navy or our vinyl record with Fran Lebowitz.
Illustrations by Krishna Shenoi. Reference image by Andréanne Gauthier.
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