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'Absolute Catastrophe': Dev Patel Opens Up About Challenges He Faced During Monkey Man Shoot
Dev Patel is making his directorial debut in his upcoming action film Monkey Man. Ahead of the release, he opened up about how the crew faced ‘absolute catastrophe’ while filming.
Dev Patel has successfully created a lot of buzz around his upcoming action flick, Monkey Man, which is also his directorial debut. The movie received rave reviews at the South by Southwest Film Festival and got people fired up for the theatrical release on 5th April. But making the movie was no walk in the park, and Patel opened up about the crew's experience while filming the movie on a Reddit AMA, saying, "It was the most demanding thing I've ever done in my life."
Patel shares details about things that went wrong during the shoot
In the very candid AMA, username u/Lihoshi asked Dev Patel about his experience while directing, writing, and acting in the film and if it was stressful. To this, the director/actor replied that it was the most demanding thing he had done in his entire life.
"Every day we faced absolute catastrophe - I begged our financier not to shut us down a few weeks before principal photography - We were meant to shoot in India, then covid hit - I lost, my initial production designer and DOP and the film was basically dead - then we pivoted and went to a tiny island in Indonesia where we could create a bubble in an empty hotel for the whole crew of nearly 500 people… it was a grueling nine months of absolute joy and utter chaos," he said. 
He continued by saying they lost all the locations they had prepared for and had to accommodate at the last minute. The closed borders also meant that many of the supporting actors could not make it to the location, so "I ended up having to put every tailor, lighting guy, accountant, etc in front of the camera," Dev said.
He continued, "Speaking of cameras, most of our equipment broke, and we couldn't fly in new stuff, so we literally shot stuff on my mobile phone; go pros—when a crane broke, we ended up creating this camera rig from rope, which I termed the "pendulum cam," which swings over a large crowd of people, then detaches, and the operators run through the crowd whilst it is rolling.
He also explained how there was no glass on some of the tabletops necessary for certain scenes, and when asked about this, the set designer told him that they did not have the budget to buy tabletops. "So I had to shoot above the shoulders as one of our producers ran his personal credit card to buy the glass to cover the table tops so we could shoot the rest of the scene," Dev explained.
The actor also talked about how they only had three or four breakaway tables, and after a lot of action scenes were shot, the whole crew got on their hands and knees to find all the broken pieces of the breakaway tables, glue them back together, and use them in the next action scene shoot. But Dev Patel also said that "every obstacle provided us with a new opportunity to innovate."
Monkey Man is 'not just an action movie'
Dev Patel's upcoming movie focuses a lot on the action sequences; however, it goes much deeper than that. The plot centers around an anonymous guy, Kid (Dev Patel), who gets beaten up in underground fights to make a living. But when he infiltrates the most corrupt and wealthy circle in India to exact revenge for his mother's murder, he is faced with a much harsher truth. He becomes a messiah for the poor, marginalized people who are tormented and taken advantage of by these wealthy, corrupt leaders.
In answer to another question on the Reddit AMA asked by u/SenDeAgO, Dev Patel said, "This movie is about the marginalized—the underdogs—all lifting each other up to achieve justice that was only meant for the privileged. I basically created my own lane."
He continued, "I hope this film acts as a sort of gateway drug to our culture—not just mine. I guess I hope it's a message to the industry that WE—the CONSUMERS—want fresh, new, and vibrant perspectives. Everyone's voice counts."
The movie Monkey Man is being released by Universal Pictures on 5th April. Other than Patel, the film also stars Sharlto Copley, Pitobash, Vipin Sharma, Sikandar Kher, Sobhita Dhulipala, Makarand Deshpande, Ashwini Kalsekar, and Adithi Kalkunte. The movie is being produced by Jordan Peele.
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