He Is The Walrus

In Danny Boyle’s Yesterday, actor Himesh Patel resides in a Beatles-less alternate universe.

- Robert Sullivan

TALENT

At some point in the future, when people look back on the career of Himesh Patel, they will probably describe the role of Jack Malik, the unlikely hero at the center of Danny Boyle’s new rom-com Yesterday, as his breakthrough. Really, though, Patel’s debut came in 2001, when he was eleven and the lead of his school play, a parody titled This Is Your Life, Santa Claus. “In what was at the time quite a diverse piece of casting,” the 28-yearold recalls, “I played the host, Michael Aspel”—a 68-year-old white man—“and the teacher told my parents, ‘He’s actually quite good.’ ” Acting school ensued, and at sixteen, Patel landed a regular spot on EastEnders, the long-running BBC soap opera, playing the part of Tamwar Masood, the son of a postmaster and a wannabe stand-up comic. Coincidentally, Patel was living at home with his parents, postmasters who also owned a newspaper-and-magazine shop in Sawtry, a tiny village near the Great Ouse river. Patel himself delivered papers until he was 21. “I would wake up always too late,” he jokes.