Dev Patel applauds movie’s diversity

OHMYGOSSIP — Dev Patel thinks movies need to “embrace” non-white actors.
The 28-year-old actor can next be seen in ‘Hotel Mumbai’ – which explores the terrorist attacks at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in India in 2008 – and he thinks the thriller should be applauded because he doesn’t believe it would have been made a decade ago.
He said: “A film like this, with a bunch of brown faces, would not have been made 10 years ago.
“But people are embracing new faces. Why not embrace brown ones?”
The former ‘Skins’ star has Gujarti-speaking Indian parents but was born and raised in London, and embraced the city he grew up in, so was overwhelmed when he first went to India to work on ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ with director Danny Boyle.
He told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper: “Growing up, the idea is to do as much as possible to fit into that place and rid yourself of all cultural and ancestral ties.
“Being introduced to India by Danny Boyle blew my mind. It was so much more than I imagined.”
‘Hotel Mumbai’ was directed by Australian filmmaker Anthony Maras, and after also winning a string of award nominations for his performance in Garth Davis’ movie ‘Lion’ – which follows an Indian street boy adopted by Australian parents who later returns to his home country to find his biological mother – Dev admitted he also feels a special connection to life Down Under.
He said: “It’s bizarre and fantastic! But I feel the same connection to Australia as I do to India.
“Both have shaped me as an actor and a human being. All credit to Garth: he saw something in me and gave me the opportunity to be still and soulful and because of that, these other things have come about.”

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