Playing The Part

Crafting anything, be it a watch or a feature film, requires time, patience, and the unceasing efforts of passionate professionals. Academy Award-nominated actor Dev Patel talks to Nicolette Wong about his work and relationship with Swiss watch brand IWC Schaffhausen

- Nicolette Wong

UNLESS YOU HAVE BEEN LIVING under a rock for the past decade, you would have likely seen at least one of Dev Patel’s movies, which include such hits as Slumdog Millionaire (2008), The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011) and Lion (2016). Given his current level of success, it might surprise you to know that the British actor fell into acting almost by accident. As the story goes, Patel’s mother, Anita, spotted an ad for the British television comedy-drama Skins in a London newspaper and dragged her son to the audition, despite the fact that he had his GCSE [Britain’s equivalent of the O levels in Singapore] science examination the day after.

When asked on the sidelines of the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH) watch fair in January, the IWC Schaffhausen friend of the brand said: “I just have an amazingly intuitive mother, who sort of saw the shining golden ticket in the gutter that took me to the chocolate factory. It was the lucky, you know, one in a million chance.” And what a chance it was. His role in Skins later led to his casting in Slumdog Millionaire, with which he achieved his international breakthrough in 2008.

Twelve years on from his Skins beginnings, Patel is now a successful actor. His career is built on playing characters whose life stories and character arcs uplift the audience as they watch the film unfold. Or, as Patel put it, “I just like soulful film-making… [the kind where] you get the feels.” His upcoming projects are very much in the same vein: Hotel Mumbai sees Patel playing a Sikh waiter, who survives the real-life 2008 attack on the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai, while The Wedding Guest has him starring as a mysterious man with a plan to kidnap a rather enigmatic bride-to-be.