Dev Patel is making his directorial debut with Hollywood film, 'Monkey Man'. During a recent interview with Variety, the actor and filmmaker talked about the representation of the 'hijra' community in the film and said that it is an 'anthem for the underdog, voiceless and marginalised'.
Speaking about the references taken for 'Monkey Man', Dev said, "For me, I wanted to take this old mythology and take these characters, who I thought was the hero - Hanuman - who had lost faith in himself, he needed to be reminded by fellow outsiders of who he was. And together they waged this war for the good and the just."
He mentioned that he wanted to include the Hijra community, the third gender in India. “This is at its core revenge. And we should be fighting for each other, not against each other. That's what it should do at its best,” he stated, adding that for him, it has become rigid over time. “When you look at the old carvings in these temples in India, the freedom, the sexuality, all of it, the philosophy was so ahead of its time. So I wanted to dive into it and make that the lore of the film,” Dev said.
Earlier, during a recent interaction on Reddit, Dev spoke about the challenges of directing 'Monkey Man,' and called it as one of the 'most demanding things he has ever done' in his life.
Recalling times when he urged financiers to keep the project afloat while shooting scenes on a mobile phone, he wrote, “It was the most demanding thing I've ever done in my life. Every day, we faced absolute catastrophe - I begged our financier not to shut us down a few weeks before principal photography.”
'Monkey Man', which is set to release in theatres April 5, also features Sobhita Dhulipala, Makarand Deshpande, Sikander Kher and others. It is backed by Jordan Peele, who came on board well after production.
