NO Reservations

In Ravi Patel’s jocular, ever-expanding universe, any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely intentional. It is also a means to find answers to the big questions, discover parts unknown and build community. The American actor-creator of Indian origin weighs in on his extraordinary journey so far – from an investment banker to a stint in Wonder Woman 1984 – and his future capers on the road to world domination

- NIDHI GUPTA

Anyone who’s worked with Seth Rogen has a Seth Rogen weed story. Ravi Patel’s involves having his life changed for the better. “Some years ago, I was doing a film with Seth,” says Patel referring to Long Shot, also starring Charlize Theron, “and he gave me a joint. I like weed, but I don’t smoke it all that much. So one day, when my shoot got cancelled and my wife and daughter were back in LA, I decided to take a ‘me’ day.”

This is circa 2018, a time Patel remembers being rife with sleepless nights, depression and acrimony at home. He’d been working hard to make it in Hollywood for over a decade. He’d followed his sister, film-maker Geeta Patel, to LA after he’d been laid off from his job as an investment banker in NYC. Patel jokes he was probably fuelled by “that immigrant desperation to succeed.”

In 2014, the actor-writer-director-investor was catapulted into mainstream consciousness with Meet The Patels, an autobiographical documentary co-created with his sister. Six years in the making, it captured a very real and bizarrely comical situation: That of his family’s journey with finding their 30-year-old son an Indian bride. Part Candid Camera, part Meet The Parents, it won resounding praise from all quarters.