‘Anything Shah Rukh Khan does’: Dev Patel reveals inspiration for Monkey Man, says he learnt ‘importance of stillness’ from Irrfan Khan

Dev Patel talks about all things Monkey Man

Dev Patel talks about all things Monkey Man. (Photo: Monkey Man Movie, Pooja Dadlani/Instagram)

What is the secret of Dev Patel’s craft? Apart from his own talent, learning from Irrfan Khan and loving everything that Shah Rukh Khan does. Or so he confessed on Thursday, when the actor came on Reddit for an Ask Me Anything session to promote his directorial debut Monkey Man.

The action thriller is gearing for a global release in April and ahead of its theatrical debut, Dev Patel–who also stars in Monkey Man–answered some of the questions fans had about his process, turning director, mounting an action film and childhood.

When asked by a user about his favorite Bollywood films and if he could list which have inspired his writing and direction for Monkey Man, Dev replied, “Anything Shah Rukh Khan does.”

In another question, when asked what was it like to work with legends in both Bollywood and Hollywood cinema, the actor wrote, “Watching them and acting opposite of them shaped me hugely. Especially Irrfan in Slumdog. He taught me about the importance of stillness.”

Dev Patel talks about Shah Rukh Khan

Dev Patel talks about Shah Rukh Khan. (Photo: Reddit/Screengrab)

Monkey Man stars Dev Patel as Kid who vows vengeance against the corrupt leaders who murdered his mother. Mounting Monkey Man, Dev said, was the “most demanding thing” he had ever done in his life. The actor-filmmaker said the team faced “absolute catastrophe” almost every day.

“I begged our financier not to shut us down a few weeks before principle photography – We were meant to shoot in India then covid hit – I lost, my initial production designer and DOP and the film was basically dead – then we pivoted and went to a tiny island in Indonesia where we could create a bubble in an empty hotel for the whole crew of nearly 500 people… It was a grueling nine months of absolute joy and utter chaos. All of the locations we prepped for months at – we lost day of – so we had to adapt last minute – the borders closed also I couldn’t bring in lots of supporting characters so I ended up having to put every tailor, lighting guy, accountant etc in front of the camera,” he wrote.

The actor recalled how most of their equipment broke and because they couldn’t fly in new ones, they “shot stuff on my mobile phone” and go pros. “Speaking of tables we only had three or four break away tables so once I would perform a huge bulk of stunts I would scream CUT and then immediately all of us would get on our hands and knees looking for all of the broken pieces of wood to glue the tables back together for the next shot… in a very long nutshell every obstacle provided us with a new opportunity to innovate. BOOM!”

Dev Patel said the idea of Monkey Man had been “rattling around” in him for over a decade and was influenced by watching Bruce Lee as a kid. “Since when my grandfather talked to me about Hanuman and the story about Ramayana. The first image I had was a young man wearing a cheap gorilla mask in an underground wrestling ring.”

According to the film’s official synopsis, Monkey Man follows an anonymous young man, Dev, who works at an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash.

“After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city’s sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.”

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