Himesh Patel, a British actor of Indian origin, is set to star as the lead in Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle’s upcoming musical comedy - Yesterday.
Patel, 28, is mostly known for his role as Tamwar Masood in the BBC soap opera EastEnders. Patel started working in the show in 2007 at the age of 17 and continued to play Tamwar - a geeky, Muslim boy, whose parents want him to enrol in either Oxford or Cambridge - but who secretly wants to be a stand-up comic.
Born on 13 October 1990, Patel grew up in a small town - Huntingdon, in Cambridgeshire. Patel also went to Prince William School & 6th Form in Oundle, Northamptonshire.
In an interview with Burnt Roti, Patel said that even as a child, he was always acting.
“I did a play at school when I was 11 and a teacher told my parents that I had a knack for acting. So they signed me up to local youth theatre and soon, I fell in love with performing. I think acting became my respite from reality - I always found it hard to fit in and understand human behaviour so I escaped into imaginary worlds.”Himesh Patel to Burnt Roti
Patel claimed that it was just when he was taking his last GCSE exam while in school, when he got a call regarding an audition for EastEnders, a BBC-run British soap opera that’s been airing since 1985.
Patel was driven to the audition by his father, and after two rounds of quick audition - the part was his.
After nearly nine long years as Tamwar, Patel announced that he was leaving the show on 12 March 2016. Following this, he played the role of a social worker called Nitin in the Channel 4 sitcom Damned. Still an active member of the National Youth Theatre, Patel is expected to feature in Tom Harper’s The Aeronauts, an upcoming indie biographical action adventure film that will release later this year, and of course Danny Boyle’s Yesterday.
Yesterday is a musical comedy about a young man named Jack Mallik, who after being hit by a bus after a worldwide power cut, wakes up in a world where The Beatles and their songs does not exist. Jack then uses this as an opportunity to play their songs and become a celebrated, internationally-acclaimed rockstar.
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