Himesh Jitendra Patel is an English actor. He is known for playing Tamwar Masood on the BBC soap opera EastEnders from 2007 to 2016 and for starring in the 2019 musical romantic comedy filmYesterday.
Early life
On 13 October 1990 Himesh Patel was born in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. His parents are both from Gujarat, India, but were born in Africa. His mother was born in Zambia and his father was born in Kenya. He grew up speaking Gujarati. Patel attended Prince William School in Oundle, Northamptonshire. As a child, he began impersonating his favourite characters on television and film. When he was 11, he was cast in a school play, This Is Your Life, Santa Claus, as Michael Aspel. Upon the suggestion by a teacher, his parents then signed him up for a local theatre group, the Key Youth Theatre in Peterborough. Later, he became a member of The Young Actors' Company in Cambridge, where he also took film classes. He took piano lessons and bought himself a £100 electric guitar and taught himself to play at the age of 13. His parents ran a newsagent's shop in Cambridgeshire. Patel ran a paper route until he was 21.
Career
''EastEnders''
When he was 16, Patel received a call on the day of his GCSEs saying he landed an audition for the British soap operaEastEnders 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 Ferdandes won the Inside Soap Award for Best Wedding. Patel has also appeared in 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 short won several awards, including Best Short Comedy at the London Short Film Festival. In 2015, it won Best Comedy at the Aspen Film Festival. At the Shuffle festival, it won a third award with Danny Boyle as the judge. Patel would later work on Yesterday with Boyle as the director. Patel portrayed The Suit in The Fox, another comedy short by Henry Scriven. He is working on a short film titled Is This Life?.
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, 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. 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. He is credited as a producer for the 2017 feature filmMy Pure Land. In 2019, he made his film debut with his breakthrough role as Jack Malik in Yesterday. He sings live throughout the film, covering various songs by The Beatles. He appeared in The Aeronauts 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. No new news has been released about it. In 2019, Patel joined the cast of HBO Max limited series Station Eleven. In 2020, Patel appeared as Jordan Hatwal in the comedy series Avenue 5, starring Hugh Laurie.
