A Hero for the End of the World

Station Eleven’s Himesh Patel talks making art in a time of uncertainty: ‘It’s a story about people building back the world from seemingly hopeless situations’

Station Eleven’s Himesh Patel on making art in a time of uncertainty: “It’s a story about people building back the world from seemingly hopeless situations.”

IIn 2019, when Himesh Patel auditioned for the role of Jeevan Chaudhary in HBO Max’s Station Eleven, he dug into Emily St. John Mandel’s dystopian novel about a world forced to rebuild after being ravaged by a deadly virus and was left somewhat perplexed. “I flew to L.A.,” recalls the 31-year-old London-based actor, “where I had a chat with Patrick [Somerville] and Hiro [Murai] at the audition. And I was like, ‘I’ve read the book, and I guess Jeevan’s there at the beginning, and then there’s a mention of him at the end. I don’t really know what your plan is.’ ” Showrunner Somerville and director Murai told the British actor that, in a departure from the book it was based on, a relationship that forms between 8-year-old Kirsten (Matilda Lawler) and stranger-turnedcaretaker Jeevan would anchor the series. If Patel’s character — a man far from a survivalist prepper — seemed the unlikeliest of heroes, that perception changed in the spring of 2020, when the entire world suddenly found itself reassessing the ability to adapt in a crisis. Patel talked to THR about the challenge of establishing a reluctant protagonist, art imitating life, and the impact the project had on him.

This character is set up from the very beginning by an 8-year-old telling him, “It must be hard to not know what you want to be.” Do you feel like that encompasses who Jeevan is?

Yes. Often you have to look for what other characters say about that character, and when she’s asking him what his job is, and he stutters through a bunch of stuff and then lands on “I don’t really have a job,” it definitely sums him up. These were the clues for me, in the script, when I was going, “OK, who is this guy?” One of the things that Siya [Tiya Sircar], his sister, says in a scene in the hospital — “One of my brothers won a Pulitzer, and the other one eats cereal for dinner. Guess which one I called?” — that was a really good one as well. It was an idea of who he was, and I could definitely relate to certain aspects of it.

In what terms?

Elements of the aimlessness. There are certainly times in my life where I felt that. I’ve been very lucky that I’ve been working as an actor from a very young age, but I’ve had dark moments where it has felt like I just fell into this. I’ve got deep impostor syndrome, not knowing if I’m any good at this. “Maybe I should try something else. Maybe I should get other stuff going in case this falls apart.” All those sorts of things. And there’s a sibling dynamic that I think is really interesting. I’ve got an older sister, and it’s a very important relationship in my life. Thankfully, my parents never did that “comparing their kids” thing, but … you compare yourself to your older sibling, as you see them as a role model. With Jeevan, there’s an element of that.

It seems like an actor who portrays a dynamic character has more to hold on to. Is it more challenging to play someone like Jeevan, who is in search of himself?

I think so. In terms of the whole arc, we talked about stuff like, “What’s my aim within this scene? What’s the journey within this episode?” But also, for me, it’s “Who is this person, and what do they want?” It was to some extent unclear. But that’s where the collaborative thing comes in. I was very lucky with a showrunner like Patrick, a director like Hiro and an actress like Matilda. Those early days, we could just sit around and talk about these scenes, talk about the very specific dynamic between Jeevan and Young Kirsten. How do we sell this idea that he’s safe and she would choose to go along with him? In a way, little decisions that someone makes in a high-stakes situation will give you some idea of who they are underneath.

The first thing he does in the series is run up onstage to try to save an actor having a heart attack without a real ability to do so.

It’s a pure example of someone doing something in spite of themselves. Immediately that gives you some idea of — even he doesn’t know why he’s done that — who he is.

The evolution of this character happens over decades, but there are also a few episodes where he grows leaps and bounds. What is it like to play the long game versus evolution on a shorter time frame?

I loved having all that to dig my teeth into. I love the challenge of it, which was tracking that evolution, and making sure that it felt truthful at every turn. We had episode one, which was a journey of a few hours, really. And then episode seven was 80 days. The time frames were slowly expanding. Luckily, when we shot episode seven, though it presents out of sequence, Lucy [Tcherniak], our director, made sure that we did as much as we could completely in sequence. Even then, there are intricacies to things that have happened, and it was about keeping track of how we were all relating to each other. When it got to episode nine, it was about that [yearlong] gap. There were conversations with Patrick about, “What, in your mind, has happened here?” He was all ears for my ideas and Matilda’s ideas. He had whole

scenes that he could talk to me about, that were maybe in previous drafts — actual memories that I could create for the character for that year that really fed into that sense of loss that they had. I had stuff that I could hold on to just for myself, of real happiness and a real bond between these two characters. It was a wonderful creative exercise.

With the source material being so different from the show, would you have wanted to rely on the book more, or is it almost a relief to deviate from it?

In a way, it was nice to have the separation. I had the beginning, and that gave me some wonderful stuff. But there’s a beautiful-slashtragically terrifying chapter that lists things that no longer exist in this new world. I would keep going back to that when we got into episode seven and episode nine, because that’s probably the kind of internal monologue that so many people would have if they’re existing in this new world. They’re really pining for the stuff that they completely took for granted, so that was one page that I kept going back to.

Was there a scene or sequence that you were nervous about?

There are a couple, and they’re both climactic moments. In episode nine, it was the birthing sequence. It was obviously important to that episode and also quite delicate in how we were going to handle it and what it represented. For me personally, I’d only very recently had a baby, so it meant a lot to me in terms of how birth is depicted onscreen and what it means. I think Jeremy [Podeswa], our director, did a wonderful job, and the other actors I was working with were amazing.

Episode seven, it was the scene with the intruder and Frank [Nabhaan Rizwan] getting stabbed. I had to get to an emotional place and hadn’t really done anything like that before. I hadn’t had to cry to that level onscreen. I said to Lucy, our director, “Look, I’m nervous. I’ve not been there before. Forgive me if I struggle a bit.” And she said, “Obviously, take as much time as you need.” I felt supported, which was great.

What are you most proud of about the series?

I’m proud of us all for making this TV show. It wasn’t easy on a logistical or an emotional level because we felt a sudden responsibility that wasn’t there before. We shot episodes one and episode three, and then everything happened in real life. Suddenly we knew our show would take on a whole other meaning, so you feel a responsibility to tell it as well as you can. It’s a story about people building back the world from seemingly hopeless situations, and the situation in which we shot the bulk of it was a lockdown in Toronto. That wasn’t easy to navigate. We couldn’t go anywhere. We couldn’t do anything, couldn’t see each other. It was difficult on that level. And on a personal level, raising a brand-new child, as I was doing this show in a country where my family wasn’t and we had no support, that was really hard. But we made it through and we made a pretty good TV show, I think, and people really responded to it. And that means the world.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

Emmy nominee Himesh Patel as Jeevan Chaudhary in HBO Max’s limited series Station Eleven.

Patel