EastEnders When he was 16, Patel received a call on the day of his
General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) exams that notified he had landed an audition for the British soap opera
EastEnders through an agency in The Young Actors' Company. He finished his last exam and had his parents rush him to his audition. After his first audition a casting assistant saw him waiting outside the audition room and asked him to read for the casting director. Patel won the part of
Tamwar Masood, and 1 October 2007 marked his first appearance on
EastEnders. In 2011 Patel and
Meryl Fernandes won the
Inside Soap Award for Best Wedding. Patel has also appeared in
EastEnders: E20 as Tamwar. In 2011 he co-wrote episode one of series three with co-star
Charlie G. Hawkins. In 2013 he filmed an internet spin-off of
EastEnders called
Tamwar Tales – The Life of an Assistant Market Inspector. Four episodes were aired weekly, starting on 25 July 2013. All four episodes and one behind-the-scenes clip are available on the
EastEnders official website. He played Tamwar for nine years until he left the show in 2016 to explore other opportunities. His last appearance was on 22 April 2016.
Short films He has appeared in a number of short films. In 2014, he was cast as Pavan in the short film
Two Dosas; the film won several awards, including Best Short Comedy at the London Short Film Festival and Best Comedy at the Aspen Film Festival. At the Shuffle festival, it won a third award, judged by
Danny Boyle, who would later direct Patel in
Yesterday (2019). Patel portrayed The Suit in
The Fox (2017), another comedy short by Henry Scriven. He is working on a short film titled
Is This Life? (2019). In 2021, he acted in the short film
Enjoy.
After EastEnders On 27 September 2016 he made his first appearance on TV since leaving
EastEnders in the first episode of the Channel 4 sitcom
Damned. He played ex-constable and social worker Nitin for 12 episodes in two six-episode series. He appeared in
Rapscallions (2016), a short film by Henry Scriven. In 2017 he was cast in
Don Juan in Soho as "Vagabond" with
David Tennant playing the titular character. Patel played Amit in an episode of the BBC comedy
Climaxed in the same year. He made a short appearance as Mr. Glencuddy in the second episode of the comedy
Motherland. He is credited as a producer for the 2017 feature film
My Pure Land. Patel has been credited as a voice actor in two
Doctor Who audio stories. He voiced Biotech Dendry in
Day of the Vashta Nerada as well as Engineer and Ayrton Valencia in
The Lifeboat and the Deathboat. In 2019, he made his film debut with his breakthrough role as Jack Malik in
Danny Boyle's Yesterday (2019). He sings live throughout the film, covering various songs by
The Beatles. He appeared in
The Aeronauts (2019) alongside
Felicity Jones and
Eddie Redmayne. Patel was cast as Emery Staines in
The Luminaries, a mini-series based on the 2013 book by
Eleanor Catton. The plot of the TV series differs from the book. Patel appears on the 2019
Children in Need album. He sang
the Killers' song, "
All These Things That I've Done". According to an interview, Patel is working on his first original TV script with What Larks Productions. In 2020, Patel appeared as Jordan Hatwal in the comedy series
Avenue 5, starring
Hugh Laurie. In 2020, Patel appeared in the film
Tenet as Mahir, a fixer who initially helps Neil and the protagonist in their plot to steal the painting from the Oslo airport. Patel appears in the 2021
Netflix film ''
Don't Look Up'', portraying Phillip Kaj, the unscrupulous journalist dating the astronomer,
Jennifer Lawrence's Kate Dibiasky, who is responsible for detecting the movie's
comet. For his performance and along with the ensemble he received the
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture nomination. In 2022, Patel made an end credits cameo in
Enola Holmes 2 as
Dr. John Watson, a role he will reprise in a larger capacity for
Enola Holmes 3. In 2023, he appeared in the
Netflix film
Good Grief. In 2024, Patel starred alongside
Elizabeth Olsen and
Alicia Vikander in
The Assessment, and led the
HBO satire
The Franchise, which was cancelled after one season. He reunited with
Christopher Nolan in the fantasy epic
The Odyssey. ==Personal life==