Himesh Patel: ‘It’s weird to think about a Beatle watching me sing their songs’

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The actor on his role in Danny Boyle’s new film, the work ethic of EastEnders and the pain of following Spurs

Cambridgeshire-born Himesh Patel, 28, discovered a love of drama at school. At 16, he landed the role of Tamwar Masood on EastEnders, a part he played for nine years. He was social worker Nitin in Channel 4 comedy Damned and now takes the lead role of Jack in musical romcom Yesterday, written by Richard Curtis and directed by Danny Boyle, which imagines an alternative universe in which everyone except Jack has forgotten the Beatles ever existed.

People are calling Yesterday your “breakthrough role”. Does it feel that way?
It does, although I’m not sure what exactly I’ve broken through! It’s the sort of part I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to play but I just happened to be right for the role. It wasn’t written for someone of any specific ethnicity and we didn’t shoehorn it in afterwards. We need those kind of advances too, as well as deliberate steps forward like Black Panther, which was very consciously the first black superhero movie. My character’s background isn’t even mentioned, it’s just there as a statement of fact and that’s powerful in itself.

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