Himesh Patel: Starring In The Odyssey, Working With Matt Damon, And Life After EastEnders

**Himesh Patel** (0:00)
Do you do a lot of podcasts?

**Romesh Ranganathan** (0:01)
You must have done recently.

**Himesh Patel** (0:02)
I've done, yeah, I did Adam, Adam Buxton's.

**Romesh Ranganathan** (0:06)
Buxton, yeah.

**Himesh Patel** (0:08)
Which was fun. I did it on the day of the premiere.

**Romesh Ranganathan** (0:11)
Oh, nice. Were you stressed out at that time?

**Himesh Patel** (0:14)
I wasn't actually, I was just like busy.

**Romesh Ranganathan** (0:16)
Yeah.

**Himesh Patel** (0:16)
Like I did this morning.

**Romesh Ranganathan** (0:17)
Yeah.

**Himesh Patel** (0:18)
And then went straight to do his podcast, and then went back to the hotel to get ready.

**Romesh Ranganathan** (0:22)
How did you find this morning?

**Himesh Patel** (0:24)
It was mad, yeah. It was like my fourth time doing it.
But I was with Samantha Morton, and she was having a whale of a time.

**Romesh Ranganathan** (0:31)
Really?

**Himesh Patel** (0:32)
Yeah. She was loving it, and she was like, can I just give a shout out to her? She forgot that we were still on live TV.
And so she was just like, can I just say hi to my family? And then she just started chatting to Kat Dealy and Ben, and they had to be like, we are still on live TV.

**Romesh Ranganathan** (0:49)
This is still television. Yeah.

**Himesh Patel** (0:51)
It was lovely. I can tell that Sam's having just the time of her life. Yeah. As she should be, because she's incredible in The Odyssey.
Yeah. Yeah.

**Romesh Ranganathan** (0:59)
Just before we get into it, if there's anything that you say or I say that you don't want to just say, because it's not.

**Himesh Patel** (1:06)
Yes.

**Romesh Ranganathan** (1:06)
You've got power of veto.

**Himesh Patel** (1:08)
You mean this isn't hard-hitting journalism?

**Romesh Ranganathan** (1:10)
No.

**Himesh Patel** (1:10)
Right.

**Romesh Ranganathan** (1:11)
It's not even, I wouldn't even describe it as soft-hitting.
I don't think any hitting happens at all, really. It's, yeah, it's pretty toothless.

**Himesh Patel** (1:21)
Yeah.

**Romesh Ranganathan** (1:21)
It's actually sad, in a way.
We could do with some edge. Like a smidgen of edge, I would say. Fucking edgeless. It's a jelly of a podcast, I'll be honest.

**Himesh Patel** (1:35)
There's a lot of taglines there for your podcasts.

**Romesh Ranganathan** (1:39)
Yeah.

**Himesh Patel** (1:40)
I'm Himesh Patel and I'm going to be on The Romesh Ranganathan Podcast.

**Shanthi** (1:54)
Oh, shut up, Romesh.

**Romesh Ranganathan** (1:57)
Okay, Himesh, I'm going to do your intro now. This is very exciting actually on the podcast. Brown Excellence meets Brown Mediocrity.

**Himesh Patel** (2:05)
Wow.

**Romesh Ranganathan** (2:05)
That's exciting. So I'm going to do your intro now. If there's anything we've not emphasized enough, do say.

**Himesh Patel** (2:12)
Okay.

**Romesh Ranganathan** (2:14)
Because I want you to be happy with this intro. Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure. But I understand it's weird hearing yourself being introed. Do you know what I mean?

**Himesh Patel** (2:20)
Yeah, yeah.

**Romesh Ranganathan** (2:21)
Okay.

**Himesh Patel** (2:22)
I'll just quietly squirm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

**Romesh Ranganathan** (2:26)
My guest today, so far so good, is an Emmy and Screen Actors Guild Award nominated actor. He started his career in Albert Square, appearing in over 500 episodes of EastEnders as Tamwar Masood. His breakthrough on the big screen came in Danny Boyle and Richard Curtis' yesterday. Since then, he's built an impressively varied career across film and television, appearing in everything from sci-fi, thrillers and post-apocalyptic dramas to comedies. He first worked with Christopher Nolan in Tenet in 2020, and now he's reunited with him for one of the biggest films of the year, possibly ever, The Odyssey starring alongside Matt Damon. It's a hugely talented film star on his way to being a legend. He already is personally a legend, but in terms of cinema, it's Himesh Patel. Thank you.
What do you think of that intro?

**Himesh Patel** (3:14)
That was great, actually.

**Romesh Ranganathan** (3:16)
Yeah.

**Himesh Patel** (3:16)
I think that's probably the most diffusive anyone's ever been about me. So that's-

**Romesh Ranganathan** (3:20)
In life?

**Himesh Patel** (3:21)
In life. Yeah. Yeah. So thanks for that.

**Romesh Ranganathan** (3:23)
No worries, man. And Damning indictment of what else is going on.

**Himesh Patel** (3:27)
Yeah. We'll get into that. Yeah.

**Romesh Ranganathan** (3:28)
But listen, I really would love you to cry. That would be excellent. That's a good start, isn't it?

**Himesh Patel** (3:35)
Just for us. We'd love you to cry, actually.

**Romesh Ranganathan** (3:36)
And even if you don't, we'll cut it up. We'll do it Stephen Bartlett style and make it look like you have.
Welcome to the podcast.
Let's get it out of the way, first of all. The Odyssey. Unbelievable. Thanks, man. I've now seen it twice. Once on a regular sort of POVO screen. And then I decided...