Dev Patel reveals he, too, auditioned for Star Wars and didn’t make the cut

Getting to be a part of Star Wars is kind of like joining an exclusive club that only a few, high-profile people get to be a part of. Sure, with the addition of the new Disney+ series, that club is rapidly expanding. But when it was just the movies out there, getting your ticket into the franchise wasn’t always easy.

So was the case for actor Dev Patel, who revealed this to Total Film during press for The Green Knight. Patel has had a lengthy and impressive career so far, starring in films like Slumdog Millionaire, Lion and The Personal History of David Copperfield. So you would think getting a role in Star Wars for someone like him would be easy, right? Well, kind of.

As Patel told Total Film:

"I don’t know if you’re allowed to talk about it, because you sign an NDA. But yeah, I think everyone did. Everyone auditioned for Star Wars. I remember, I think I was doing Marigold 2, and I sent them an iPhone video from my trailer in India. The next minute, I got a call-back, and I was there, and that was fascinating."

Who would Dev Patel play in Star Wars?

Unfortunately, one of the biggest details Patel left out was who he was auditioning for. Sometimes, as we’ve seen, actors don’t even know they’re auditioning for something like Star Wars, so they don’t really know what role they’re auditioning for in the first place. But in the case of Patel, there are some signs pointing to who he could have been.

As Movieweb mentions, his film The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel came out in 2015 — the same year as The Force Awakens — which means he could have been auditioning for any of the new characters Lucasfilm was wanting to cast. That makes the two leads of Finn and Poe a natural choice for him. Or, as they also suggest, the role of General Hux seems like a natural fit when it comes to roles for young males in Episode VII as well.

But, despite not getting the role, it seems like Patel isn’t too eager to jump into a large franchise film for the time being. Sure, back in 2015, the likes of Star Wars and Marvel were just in the midst of becoming what they are today. But he had a reasonable answer to explain why he’s not overly eager to join these types of films:

"I mean, look, I’m not opposed to it. Those movies are a real spectacle when done right. I guess if I fit in these worlds… I don’t know. The alchemy hasn’t been right for me, personally yet. These journeys with people like David [Lowery, director of The Green Knight], and stuff like that, have really been the most nourishing.I don’t want to sh*t on those movies, because there are some incredible performers that manage to go off and win Oscars, and then go and do a big Marvel movie. And there are films like Black Panther that culturally changed the paradigm in massive ways. I liked the first Captain America. I thought that was amazing, the action in that. And so it’s just finding the right one. It’s being invited along, and also finding the right one. The ones that I have been offered, which I can’t talk about, haven’t quite worked for me."

Of course, things change. And as he mentioned, lots of prestigious actors have found their way into these big-movie roles. So, there may be a day when we see Dev Patel in a project from Star Wars or Marvel. But for now, we can enjoy him in gems like the upcoming movie The Green Knight, which comes out on July 30.

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