Dev Patel has admitted that he had his concerns about starring in action fantasy film The Last Airbender.
The Sixth Sense director M Night Shyamalan has a taken Dev in his latest movie after seeing him in the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire - but the 20-year-old British actor revealed to the Radio Times he had his doubts after reading the script.
"I read the entire script and I had my concerns - I was like [wince] I'm not too sure if I really wanna be doing this. I wasn't blown away," the Mirror quoted him as saying.
But then he spoke to Shyamalan on the phone and was impressed by "his vision". Now Dev insists the negative criticism of the film is inspiring to him.
"Actually the negative criticism really drives me in a way [he points out he didn't get good reviews for his role in Skins]. And if I had got amazing reviews for Skins, I don''t know if I would have worked as hard on Slumdog, to get the awards I did. But then there was too much praise after Slumdog. So to come off Airbender and for the film to be critically smashed like it is now, is great," he added.
{{/usCountry}}"Actually the negative criticism really drives me in a way [he points out he didn't get good reviews for his role in Skins]. And if I had got amazing reviews for Skins, I don''t know if I would have worked as hard on Slumdog, to get the awards I did. But then there was too much praise after Slumdog. So to come off Airbender and for the film to be critically smashed like it is now, is great," he added.
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