Dev Patel Suffered A Broken Bone While Filming Monkey Man, But The Cameras Kept Rolling [SXSW 2024]
Dev Patel, who movie lovers are surely familiar with from his on-screen work in movies such as "Slumdog Millionaire" and "The Green Knight," is beginning a new phase of his career. The actor-turned-director has his feature directorial debut "Monkey Man" coming our way in April (you can check out the trailer right here), and it's an action-packed, wild ride. Patel also stars in the lead role, and it required him to kick a lot of ass. Kicking all of that ass, it turns out, comes at a cost, as he broke his hand early on while filming. But, for various reasons, the show had to go on, broken bone and all.
"Monkey Man" recently held its world premiere at SXSW in Austin, Texas, and the film was met with a very warm response, with /Film's Jacob Hall giving it an 8 out of 10 review. I was lucky enough to be on hand and at a post-screening Q&A, the filmmaker revealed that he suffered greatly to see this film brought to life. Not only did he break his foot just ahead of filming, but it got much worse after filming began:
"I broke my foot two weeks before [the] shoot, my toes and stuff. That was painful. Then tore my shoulder. And then in the middle of that bathroom fight, day two, I broke my hand. That was like, 'Okay, here we go again. Production is going to go down.' I can't wear a cast on this movie. We don't have the budget to paint this out [digitally]. We had this covid protocol and we had this cheap medical jet that wouldn't break the bubble."
'It'll be like pulling a bent nail out of wood'
As Patel explained, the movie had endless troubles to overcome on the road to being picked up by Universal Pictures from Netflix for a theatrical release. There were pandemic protocols to take into account, limited money, and limited resources. They simply couldn't stop the moving train or the whole thing might have fallen apart. So, Patel did the responsible thing and got his hand patched up by a doctor. It's just that he completely ignored the doctor's post-op advice in order to keep the production moving in the right direction:
"I finished shooting that whole night and my hand was like an elephant. You can see it in the film. There's some wrap sometimes — that's from the surgery. We got on a plane, they put a screw in, and the doctor is like, 'You cannot put any pressure on it because if it bends this nail, it'll be like pulling a bent nail out of wood. You'll just ruin your hand.' I was like, 'Got it. Copy.' Went straight back into the action. All of the [choreogrophy] had to change. If you see the kitchen fight, I was way better. I'm doing it one-handed now. It was crazy."
Now that's dedication. Based on the rapturous response from the crowd at the premiere, it seems like that commitment is going to pay off handsomely. "Monkey Man" hits theaters on April 5, 2024. You can read the film's official synopsis below.
Inspired by the legend of Hanuman, an icon embodying strength and courage, "Monkey Man" stars Patel as Kid, an anonymous young man who ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city's sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.