HT Brunch cover story (India Exclusive): Hollywood’s newest breakout star, Himesh Patel is proof that Brown is indeed the new Black!

How the Indian guy in Hollywood has gone from caricature to the leading man, who irrespective of his desi roots fits in perfectly in the American mainstream

Until a few years ago, Hollywood would only acknowledge Indians as under-researched one-dimensional stock characters – IT-nerds, call centre employees, taxi drivers or terrorists, and the benchmark for the ‘authentic Indian accent’ was that of The Simpsons’ Apu – a white man’s version of an Indian, voiced by an American actor. Kal Penn once tweeted snapshots of old scripts he had received when starting out as an actor: Indians required in those scripts were to be “snake charmers” and “Gandhi look-alikes”.

Hollywood has found a new sweetheart in an unlikely suspect-- Himesh Patel(Maarten de Boer/The Licensing Project)

“Today voices are given to people of all ethnicity, especially South Asians. There are writers who are writing our stories as they are.”

Himesh made his stage debut playing a 68-year-old white man, it was a school play and he was just 11 (Maarten de Boer/The Licensing Project)

Himesh points out that today Hollywood has come a long way from the Simpson stereotypes (Maarten de Boer/The Licensing Project)

“It was always a balancing act growing up an Indian in the UK. Whenever I tried to talk about my Indian references, the conversations would become awkward”

“My character [in the new Danny Boyle film Yesterday] could have been played by a blonde as well. That we can pass as regular Americans without highlighting our ethnic background is a strong step in the right direction.”

While growing up, in order to fit in, Himesh had to dilute his Indianness (Maarten de Boer/The Licensing Project)