NEW YORK, NY.- Ten years ago, when Dev Patel started thinking about making the film that would eventually become his feature directing debut, “Monkey Man,” he was not getting offered roles that, in his words, had “any sort of ass kickery involved or coolness.”
“I think if I was to feature in an action film back then, the roles I was getting were more akin to the comedic relief, sidekick, the guy that can hack the mainframe,” he said in a phone interview. (Indeed in 2014, he was playing a tech-savvy character on the TV series “The Newsroom” and was about to reprise his role as the sweet but goofy romantic hero in “The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.”)
In “Monkey Man,” however, Patel is not relegated to the sidelines. He plays Kid, a young man who slashes, punches and shoots his way through elite circles in a fictional Indian city. He seeks revenge on behalf of his mother, who was brutalized by a police chief now working for a corrupt politician, who is in turn supported by an evil guru. Inspired by the tales of the half-monkey Hindu god Hanuman, Kid takes on those in power who are abusing members of lower castes. The film, which was released Friday, is both Patel’s homage to the action genre, an obsession that started when he watched Bruce Lee’s “Enter the Dragon” (1973) as a child, and an attempt to remake it in his own image, wanting to tell a politically charged story with a hero who looks like him.
“Monkey Man” also marks Patel, 33, best known for his turn in the Oscar best picture winner “Slumdog Millionaire” (2008), as the latest actor to transform himself into an action star. Gone are the days when the genre belonged to the Sylvester Stallones, Jason Stathams and Jackie Chans of the world. Especially, in a post-“John Wick” era, actors who made their names in serious dramatic work (and sometimes comedy) have decided to make the leap to action.
The “Better Call Saul” star Bob Odenkirk, after playing a retired assassin in “Nobody” (2021), is now set to reunite with that film’s screenwriter, Derek Kolstad, for an action flick called “Normal.” In 2022, David Harbour, from “Stranger Things,” turned into a terrorist-pummeling Santa for “Violent Night.” And this year, Jake Gyllenhaal is throwing punches in “Road House,” while Ryan Gosling is getting his stuntman on in “The Fall Guy.” (Both of those men have flirted with action before, it is worth noting.)
“I think a lot of actors have always wanted to do action, but I think they always felt like they couldn’t or we could never lift a movie with them in it,” Kelly McCormick, a producer on “The Fall Guy,” “Nobody” and “Violent Night,” said, adding, “Now it’s actually within reach.” McCormick is the founder of 87North Productions alongside her husband, the “Fall Guy” director David Leitch — who co-directed the first “John Wick” with Chad Stahelski, and also made “Atomic Blonde,” starring another action convert, Charlize Theron.
McCormick said that before the success of “John Wick” and “Nobody,” it was hard to get action movies made featuring actors who didn’t fit the typical mode of Hollywood action heroes. One of their coming films, “With Love,” stars Ke Huy Quan, the supporting actor Oscar-winner in 2023 for “Everything Everywhere All at Once”; it’s his first leading role. “He will be the next unique action star,” McCormick said.
All of these parts keep the appeal of what makes these stars a draw, while adding more bloodletting. The gruff but jolly persona that makes Harbour interesting on his Netflix show translates to the Christmas melee. Gyllenhaal brings his slyly nervy energy to the role of a former UFC fighter turned bouncer. Gosling’s “Fall Guy” character has the lovelorn qualities of his turns in “The Notebook,” “La La Land” and “Barbie.”
Patel is well aware that he’s played the unlikely hero throughout his career, which took off with “Slumdog Millionaire,” in which his character, the young worker Jamal, rises from poverty to win a game show. “I was like, maybe we can take the essence of that guy from ‘Slumdog’ or whatever,” he said. “How hard would it be for him to challenge the untouchable, one of the most powerful men in the country?”
A similar reflection on his own fame led Odenkirk to “Nobody.” When he first got the itch to do an action movie, it was because he realized he had a global fan base from “Better Call Saul” and wanted to make a movie to market internationally, he said in an interview. He believed the scrappiness of the lawyer Saul Goodman, the character originally from “Breaking Bad,” was essentially that of an action hero minus the punches. Shooting fight sequences for “Nobody” reminded Odenkirk of being in a comedy writers room, which is where he got his start working on “Saturday Night Live” and “Mr. Show With Bob and David.”
“I was surprised at that degree of camaraderie, fun, problem-solving,” he said. Odenkirk, who added that he “hated exercise” before taking on the role, trained for two years with the stunt actor Daniel Bernhardt.
Patel, who practiced martial arts when he was younger, had to be a lot more resourceful given the lo-fi nature of the “Monkey Man” production in Indonesia. He said that he bulked up by eating a diet of salmon, sweet potato and lettuce three times a day for nine months, and by doing resistance band and body weight workouts in the hotel. “It started off like super Jane Fonda,” he said.
That make-do attitude fit the story he was trying to tell about Kid’s fighting, which goes from tussling in an underground wrestling ring to besuited action more like Wick. “I wanted to capture a sense of desperation in the performance and the choreography,” he said. “He’s kind of a cornered animal that will do anything to survive, his teeth showing, drooling, biting, truly primal. As he improves as the film goes on, he starts to kind of master his emotions and his style becomes more steely and composed.” And yet in one climactic fight he does use his teeth to drag a knife across a foe’s throat.
Patel had his doubters. One of the film’s producers, Jomon Thomas, said that while buyers and distributors appreciated Patel’s performances, they were unsure about whether he could handle the directing or the heavy action. Even the fight choreographer, Brahim Chab, was at first skeptical. “He pulled me aside one day and said, ‘I’ve seen Dev, he’s an amazing actor,’ and he’s one of the best out there, but the choreography is going to be really tough physically, is he up to it?’” Thomas said, adding that Chab’s fears were quelled after the first training session.
Patel described the action as “some of the hardest performing I’ve ever had to do.” In the process of filming he broke “some toes” and his hand, and tore a shoulder muscle. “I’m no Jackie Chan,” he said of the action star who has suffered a number of injuries on sets. “But it’s pretty hard.”
Still, Patel didn’t make “Monkey Man” as a calling card for more action roles. “To be honest, I never really thought past it,” he said. “This was a very specific story and I thought, ‘Wow, what an amazing way to explore our mythology and revitalize it and change it and apply it to our times.’”
He said he enjoyed the experience, but it took a lot out of him. “I pulled all of myself into it and broke a lot of myself during it.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
