Himesh Patel is having the busiest summer of his life
From Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey to Ryan Coogler’s X-Files via Millie Bobby Brown in Enola Holmes, Himesh Patel is hanging with all the right people this summer.
By Paul Kirkley
Himesh Patel takes a moment to consider a somewhat loaded question: where did it all go right? “I do often think about this journey and how, in many ways, it’s quite unlikely, coming from where I come from,” reflects the 35-year-old of his rise from the Cambridgeshire village of Sawtry – where his parents still run the local shop – to in-demand actor on the radar of the hottest names in Hollywood.
As we speak, Patel is in Vancouver, filming the co-lead in Sinners director Ryan Coogler’s reboot of TV sci-fi classic The X-Files. On Netflix, you’ll find him sparring with Millie Bobby Brown and Henry Cavill as Dr Watson in Enola Holmes 3, from the Adolescence writer-director team of Jack Thorne and Philip Barantini. And in cinemas, he’s about to appear on IMAX screens as Eurylochus, second-in-command to Matt Damon’s warrior king in Christopher Nolan’s prestige blockbuster The Odyssey.
But if this is now officially a Patel Summer, then the man himself is trying not to think about it. “That way madness lies,” he says, shaking his head. “Though I did have one moment, when we were shooting The Odyssey. I walked out of my trailer and saw the Universal Studios tour bus go by, and I thought: ‘I did that tour with my mum when I was seven.’ That really felt like an incredibly unlikely full-circle moment.”
He’s certainly come a long way from the kid we first met as teenager Tamwar Masood on EastEnders. Plenty of British soap stars have gone on to bigger things, of course, but few have made the leap to the big screen. For that, Patel credits his breakout role as an aspiring musician – who is the only person in the world who can remember The Beatles – in Danny Boyle and Richard Curtis’s 2019 romcom fantasy Yesterday. The following year, he got his first call-up from Christopher Nolan to play the fixer Mahir in Tenet, and was Emmy nominated for HBO’s dystopian pandemic drama Station Eleven.
Like many actors, he flinches at the “C” word – celebrity – insisting: “I still don’t love the idea of being any more famous than I need to be.” Married with two daughters, he has successfully managed to keep his wife’s name off the internet – though not, he says, without “somewhat of a concerted effort”.
He’s not tempted to move to LA, for reasons of both family – “once we’d decided to have kids, we knew we wanted to bring them up in London” – and football: when we talk over video call, he’s still feeling the relief of having seen his beloved Spurs stay in the Premier League by a whisker. So that’s one more thing to celebrate this summer… “Yeah,” he says, unconvinced. “Though I’d like to set my footballing bar slightly higher than just avoiding relegation.”
The Odyssey has a stellar cast. At what point does turning up for work alongside Matt Damon, Zendaya, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o and Anne Hathaway become normal?
You sort of **have** to treat it as normal. And Chris [Nolan] has a way of working that democratises everything. You don’t go back to your trailer – you’re on-set all day, watching what’s going on, being present. We’re all sort of down in the dirt together. Which I really loved. But there was a strange moment, after we’d wrapped in LA, when we had a little cast dinner. Matt turned up, having shaved and had a haircut, after six months of looking kind of haggard, and I remember going: ‘Oh, right. It’s Matt Damon!’
Even with a cast like that, it’s Chris Nolan himself who’s arguably the biggest box office name. What’s his secret?
He understands that audiences are intelligent – he doesn’t look down on them. But he also understands what’s going to excite them, what’s going to thrill them – all these things we go to see a big blockbuster movie for. He and Emma [Thomas, producer] understand the marketing of it too. They’ve carefully created this brand around the artistry.
When you have the trust of people like Chris – and Ryan [Coogler] and Philip [Barantini] and Jack [Thorne]; these people whose reputation precedes them – it makes you want to really step up to the plate. It helps you better yourself.
Because it’s 2026, The Odyssey has been dragged into a culture war skirmish over the casting of Lupita as Helen of Troy. Is it all a bit exhausting?
It’s tedious. Especially when you’re talking about a movie that’s got a cyclops in it! It’s nonsense, and I try not to give it the time of day. But it’s hard to avoid the fact it’s symptomatic of something bigger. And that does disturb me greatly.
Apparently, The X-Files reboot is going to be “fucking cool”. Not our words, the words of Agent Scully herself, Gillian Anderson.
She said that? Oh, that’s good. Danielle [Deadwyler, co-star] and I are playing new characters – it feels like a whole new thing. But you can’t completely lose sight of the fact it’s a beloved show.
What can you tell us about it?
We’re about a month in, and I’m really enjoying myself. I was a bit too young to watch the original series, but it felt ever-present. My mum watched it, and I started to watch the odd episode as I got older, but I’ve only properly started watching it since this role came about. It holds up really well.
David Duchovny’s Agent Mulder was a conspiracy theorist you could root for. Now that conspiracy theorists have taken over the world, does the new show reflect that vibe shift?
So far, we’re just doing a pilot. We’re sort of making a little movie that may or may not see the light of day. Danielle and I don’t take anything for granted. But knowing Ryan as I do now, he’s very conscious of many things. He has incredible depth as an artist and as a person. So, in terms of themes, who knows where it could go if we get picked up for a series? It’s an amazing group of people putting it together, and we’re just going to enjoy the ride, and see what happens after that.
Doctor Watson, your character in Enola Holmes 3, has been played by more than 150 actors. Any favourites?
I was a huge fan of Martin Freeman in [the BBC’s] Sherlock. I’ve got to know Martin over the last couple of years, and he happened to text me when I was shooting in Malta. I said, “I’m currently dressed as Watson, so hopefully I won’t soil your legacy.” He said, “Don’t worry about that.”
I’m really thrilled with what Jack’s done with Watson. Speaking of casting people of colour in roles that have previously been reserved for white people, I had questions, when they first approached me, about what they planned to do with Watson. But given the period of British history when it’s set, they were keen to explore ideas of Empire, which I was very excited about. I think they’ve done a really good job of folding those ideas into a fun movie for a largely young audience. Millie, Jack and Philip all went, “Let’s try and bring some complexity into this story.” I really admire that.
It’s all a long way from Albert Square. During your time in EastEnders, you were also Britain’s most famous paper boy, doing deliveries for your parents’ shop…
Yeah. I didn’t enjoy it at the time, but looking back it was a stroke of genius from my parents, ’cos it stopped me getting ideas above my station.
You’ve talked about how liberating it is, as your career’s progressed, to not just be cast as South Asian characters…
I’ve been really lucky to be afforded that, for whatever reason. I think it’s partly a case of right place, right time. I’m thankful to the generation of minority actors who came before me – Nina [Wadia] and Nitin [Ganatra], who played my parents in EastEnders, taught me a lot about the reality of being a South Asian actor in this industry. It was really hard for them – and for Meera [Syal] and Sanjeev [Bhaskar], who I worked with on Yesterday. They’re the people who spoke up, and bashed down doors, and made people listen. And now people are opening more and more doors for minority actors, which is heartening. But to get the roles with real depth, you still either have to be extremely lucky, which I have been a few times, or you have to start creating them for yourself. That’s why Riz [Ahmed] has created Bait, that’s why Dev [Patel] is making the movies he’s making. You have to do that in order to bump yourself up the call sheet, as it were. So that feels like the logical next step.