Dev Patel Sounds Off on Tim Tams and Nicole Kidman's Cricket Skills
Dev Patel is currently having a moment.
After he appeared alongside his tiny Lion co-star Sunny Pawar at the Golden Globes earlier this month, the world woke up and realised that 26-year-old Dev is suddenly a dashing leading man (not that we didn't love his lanky-limbed dancing in Slumdog Millionaire).
TheFIX's Ashley Spencer sat down with Dev when he was in Sydney for Lion's Australian premiere and, as expected, he was completely charming and delightful – and full of nuggets about his latest project.
In the likely-to-be-Oscar-nominated Lion (in Australian cinemas January 19), Dev plays Saroo Brierley: a real-life man who was separated from his family as a five-year-old in India and subsequently adopted and raised by an Australian couple (played by Nicole Kidman and David Wenham) in Tasmania.
Twenty-five years later, with the help of Google Earth, Saroo embarks on an incredible journey to track down his birth family.
"It's about someone who, in essence, achieved the impossible," Dev – who worked out every day to bulk up for the role – tells TheFIX. "It's about a man who tried to track down his lost mother from space, and that concept for me just blew my mind.
"Being a mummy's boy, I thought wow, this is just a beautiful message to be putting out there."
The Australian-set portions of the film were shot in Melbourne and Hobart, and Dev and his co-stars got to know one another by playing some friendly cricket before filming started.
So how are Nicole Kidman's cricket skills?
"She's… she's a tryer," laughed Dev after a pause.
But the London-raised star had more effusive praise for 49-year-old Nicole's on-screen talents.
"For someone like me to get to share the screen with the Nicole Kidman… she's so gracious and a national treasure here," he said. "I felt very blessed."
He was also blessed to discover the joys of Australian biscuits while Down Under.
"I like the ol' Tim Tams, I gotta say," he admitted. "It doesn't go with the weight-training regime, but God, they're good."
