Dev Patel

In 2006, Patel began his acting career when he auditioned for the E4 teen drama television series Skins. Patel's mother saw the casting advert in Metro and took him to the audition even though he had a science exam the next day.[2][21] After two auditions, he was cast in the role of Anwar Kharral, a British Pakistani Muslim teenager.[2] The characterisation of Anwar was partly based on Patel's personality and the role was written specifically for him after he was cast in Skins.[22] Patel, who had no professional acting experience, said that on "the first day of shooting I didn't really know what to do."[2]

The first series of the show aired in January 2007 and went on to win the Rose d'Or for Drama in 2008 and receive a nomination for Best Drama Series at the 2008 BAFTA Television Awards.[23][24] Patel reprised his role as Anwar for the second series of Skins, which aired in February 2008. The second series of Skins won the Philips Audience Award at the 2009 BAFTA Television Awards.[25]

Patel in 2008

Patel made his feature film debut when he was cast in the role of Jamal Malik, the central character in Danny Boyle's film Slumdog Millionaire.[26] The Jamal Malik character is an Indian Muslim boy born and brought up in the poverty of Bombay, India.[27] Boyle considered hundreds of young male actors, but found that Bollywood leads were generally "strong, handsome hero-types", not the personality he was looking for.[28] Boyle's 17-year-old daughter Caitlin pointed him to Skins.[28][29]

After five auditions for the role,[30] the actor was eventually cast in August 2007.[31] The film's producer found the original choice for the lead role, Ruslaan Mumtaz, too good-looking for the role.[32] Boyle said, "I wanted a guy who didn't look like a potential hero; I wanted him to earn that in the film."[2] To prepare for the role, Patel went along with Boyle while scouting for filming locations, where he was able to observe the Dharavi slums for himself. He also worked at a call centre for a day and in a hotel, where he washed dishes.[33][34]

After the release of Slumdog Millionaire at the end of 2008, Patel went on to receive a number of awards for his performance, including a British Independent Film Award,[35] National Board of Review (NBR) Award,[36] Chicago Film Critics Association Award,[37] and two Black Reel Awards for Best Actor and Best Breakthrough Performance.[38] Patel was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the 2009 Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards. The award eventually went posthumously to Heath Ledger for his performance in The Dark Knight, though Patel did win the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, which he shared with ten other cast members from Slumdog Millionaire.[39][40] On 8 January 2009, Patel won the Critics' Choice Award for Best Young Performer.[41] He was also nominated for two London Critics Circle Film Awards,[42] the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor,[43] the 2009 BAFTA Award for Best Leading Actor,[44] and European Film Award for Best Actor.[45] The film itself won four Golden Globes,[44] including Best Drama Film, and eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture.[46]

Patel at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival

Patel played Zuko in M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender, a feature film adaptation of the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender,[47][48][49] which was released on 1 July 2010 to extremely negative reviews. Despite being a commercial success, the film was a critical failure (particularly for the casting of white actors as the protagonists, while the villains were played by actors who were South Asian and Arabs) and Patel even received a Razzie Award nomination as Worst Supporting Actor that year, although his role was well received, and was considered by many to be one of the film's positive aspects.

Patel later starred in the short film The Commuter,[50] which was directed by McHenry Brothers to promote the Nokia N8 smartphone in the UK[51] Fans who won a Nokia UK run competition starred alongside Dev Patel in the short film.[52][53]

Patel co-starred in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012), (and subsequently in its 2015 sequel, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) directed by John Madden, which received positive reviews[54] and was a box office success, grossing $136 million.[55] For the role, he had to take lessons in perfecting an Indian-English accent.[56]

From 2012 to 2014, Patel had a supporting role in the 2012 HBO television series The Newsroom as Neal Sampat, blogger for news anchor Will McAvoy.[57] He also appeared alongside James Franco and Heather Graham in About Cherry, which premiered at the 2012 Berlin International Film Festival.

In 2014, Patel starred alongside Robert Sheehan and Zoë Kravitz in the film, The Road Within, about three unlikely friends, one with Tourette's syndrome (Sheehan), one with OCD (Patel) and an anorexic woman (Kravitz) who go on a road trip. The film received generally mixed reviews. Variety had positive words for the "bristling and committed performances by Robert Sheehan, Dev Patel and Zoe Kravitz" while noting that "there remains a nagging tidiness to the whole endeavor that leaves a strained, cloying aftertaste" that kept the movie from truly succeeding.[58]

In 2016, Patel starred as Saroo Brierley in the biographical film Lion, directed by Garth Davis and co-starring Nicole Kidman and Rooney Mara, which premiered to rave reviews and "Oscar buzz" at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival.[59][60][61][62] The film is based on Brierley's memoir A Long Way Home.[63] Patel won the BAFTA awards for 'Best Supporting Actor'. At the 89th Academy Awards, he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Lion.

In 2019 Patel starred as David Copperfield in Armando Iannucci's adaptation of Charles Dickens' The Personal History of David Copperfield.[64][65] Patel will next star in The Green Knight directed by David Lowery.[66]