voting is in progress 74th Annual Primetime Emmy Awardsand this week we’re talking to some of the acting nominees.
“I’m a bit of a geek,” warned Himesh Patel.
It was a video call from a red-walled room in his London home on a recent Tuesday evening. In his black Adidas T-his shirt and a pair of white stripes down his shoulders, he looked less geeky than someone ready to hit the field.
That was until he began analyzing the strategies of hay and brick trade deals in the board game Settlers of Catan.
“It’s like trying to trick each other into getting the wrong deal,” Patel, 31, said with a British accent. His post-apocalyptic HBO Max drama “Station Eleven.” His Chicago accent was perfect.
Dealing in hay and bricks… sounds… rivets?
“I know,” he said. “It may sound silly, but it’s really fun and involves a lot of strategy.”
Patel played a different kind of settler in the HBO Max series “Station Eleven,” based on the book by Emily St. John Mandel. It follows survivors of a devastating pandemic as they strive to rebuild their societies. Art and community are more than bricks. and hay. When a freelance writer named Jeevan, played by Patel, decides to adopt a young orphaned actress, Kirsten (Matilda Lawler), he must also deal with the challenges of becoming a de facto parent. Hmm.
Like Jeevan, Patel has been a low-key presence on the show, and his nominations — the only acting nod in seven shows he’s won overall, including writing, directing and scoring — have eclipsed many, including himself. (He took the train to see his parents in London).
“I like it,” said Patel, who speaks quietly and slowly like Jeevan, weighing every word.
Patel grew up in Cambridgeshire in the East of England, the child of African-born Indian parents. (“I was a child of his two worlds,” said Patel, who grew up speaking Gujarati.) He divided his cultural upbringing between Bollywood movies and “Star Wars” and “Road”. characterized as a cross with fantasy blockbusters such as “Observing the Ring”. (If he hadn’t become an actor, he would have become a computer modeler, he said.)
After spending his teens acting in local youth theatres, he got his first big chance at the age of 16 when he was cast in the long-running British soap opera EastEnders. He played the role of Tamwar Masood from 2007 to 2016.
74th Annual Emmy Awards Details
The 2022 edition of the Emmy Awards, which celebrate excellence in television, will take place September 12 at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.
‘EastEnders’ made him a star across the pond, but American audiences paid more attention to him when he landed the lead role in Danny Boyle’s 2019 musical romantic comedy ‘Yesterday. began to People all over the world who remember the Beatles. He then played the role of Mahir the fixer in Christopher Nolan’s timeless spy thriller ‘Tenet’ (2020).
We recognize him even more now with his roles in ‘Station Eleven’ and his more recent films. Playing Kate Dibiaski’s (Jennifer Lawrence) journalist lover in Adam McKay’s star-studded 2021 disaster comedy Don’t Look Up.
“If I said that to my 11-year-old self, I think he would have said, ‘Shut up, stop me pissing,'” he said with a laugh.
Episodes of “Station Eleven” didn’t start airing until late last year, but Patel began working on the series in 2019. At this time, the cast shot the final shots for Episode 1. In this episode, Jeevan and Kirsten leave their apartment and walk through the snow to the train station. A lake in Toronto, instead of Lake Michigan in Chicago. Then the pandemic forced them into lockdown. (They passed the time on his Zoom playing board games, with “Settlers of Catan” featured prominently in rotation.)
“We didn’t change the story to make it more relevant,” says Patel. “But we may feel the effects of the pandemic creeping in.”
Show creator Patrick Somerville said he based the screen version of Jeevan on the character in Mandel’s novel, but adjusted the character to suit Patel’s acting style.
“He has a hush about him that was essential for the show to really work,” Somerville said in a video interview from outside Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium as the waves of Lake Michigan crashed in the background. rice field.
“I’m the group’s loudmouth,” he added. But with Patel, he learned that “one line, or no line at all, can carry the emotional weight of a scene.”
One particular scene from episode 9 that wasn’t in the book resonated deeply with Patel. A makeshift birthing center scene where Jeevan becomes a birthing partner for a handful of women. The episode was filmed less than three months after Patel saw his own wife give birth to a daughter.
“I was just starting to be a father and when I filmed it, I didn’t know how to do it,” he said. rice field.”
Lawler, who plays young Kirsten, said she saw a change in Patel after her daughter was born. also gave him advice, she said: learn how to braid your hair, stat.)
In a video interview from a sleepover camp in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains, Lawler, who appears to be much older than 13 as in the series, said the bond between her and Patel was an immediate, effortless one. . on screen.
“It’s a strange bond. We naturally understood each other,” she said.
She offered some other insights about Patel: He’s a great dancer. “He’s taller than I thought.”
“His inclusiveness is disarming,” she said. “He always made everyone feel really comfortable.”
He’s also “kind of a nerd,” she confirmed.
Hiro Murai, who was nominated for two Emmy Awards this year (pilot for “Station Eleven” and episode for “Atlanta”), had a lot of conversation about how he and Patel would balance Jeevan’s emotional intimacy with comedy. Especially in the relationship between Jeevan and Kirsten.
“It’s so funny to see a stunted adolescent guy trying to take care of this little girl who is so much older than him mentally,” he said. It was part and we had to pull the comedy out of the characters instead of leaning into situational jokes.”
Patel, who recently wrapped filming Providence, an indie murder mystery comedy starring Lily James and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, in Southport, Northport, hopes to do more producing and writing work in the future. there is He said; one of his ideas is a series about the lives of his over one million Indian soldiers who fought for the British Empire during World War I.
“It’s been a tumultuous few years in England in terms of identity and understanding of people’s cultural histories,” he said.
“What excites me is the opportunity to have so many brown actors in front of and behind the camera.