Dev Patel shares Monkey Man reaction that made him "very emotional"
Dev Patel has opened up about a touching reaction he received for his new movie Monkey Man which made him "very emotional".
The movie, which is the actor's first feature as director, sees the star play a man called Kid who works in an underground fight club, and seeks revenge against the corrupt leaders who killed his mother.
Speaking exclusively to Digital Spy, Patel explained that this is a film his younger self would have dreamed of watching at the time.
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"To be honest, that’s one of the reasons why I started making it," he admitted. "What’s the film that I so desperately want to see? It was funny."
Recalling the film's premiere, he revealed: "When we went to SXSW an older Indian man came to me and he shook my hand. As I was going to leave, he held on to me and said: ‘I’m jealous of my son’. And I go, 'That’s a weird thing to say.'
"And he goes, ‘He’s fourteen years old and he’s lucky that he’s going to have someone like you representing him in a film like this, and I never had that’. And I was very emotional when he said that."
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Patel went on to explain that Monkey Manis a superhero film in the sense "that every man can be a superhero".
"I really feel like it’s about determination, it’s about looking at your trauma in a different way. Looking at your scars and instead of trauma there’s triumph in a way. He surely has a ferocity to him that is… You can’t put him out. Takes one small ember to burn down everything."
Producer Jordan Peele added: "I just love that you’ve had this secret this whole time that you’re like the perfect action star. He’s a martial artist, he has this unique physicality, and he really is the perfect avatar for the audience in terms of a character we want to seek revenge with."
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Speaking about being inspired by the story of Hanuman from Indian mythology, Patel further recalled: "I remember when my grandfather was coming from Kenya and he was telling me these stories of Indian mythology and I was so fascinated by Hanuman.
"And so many of these comic books that I was growing up with, from Batman to Superman splitting his chest open, flying, superhuman strength… The parallels were so similar, so it was amazing to be able to kind of adapt that and recontextualise it into something more grounded and more meaningful to today’s society."
Monkey Man arrives in cinemas on April 5.
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