Dev Patel reflects on ‘disastrous’ Monkey Man filming conditions

Dev Patel broke down the multiple issues he faced on set while filming his highly praised directorial debut Monkey Man.

It’s been said that, in order to make good art, you must suffer, but it seems like Dev Patel and his crew took that to the extreme while filming his directorial debut Monkey Man.

The film, which received a standing ovation during its premiere at the SXSW film festival, seemed to take a toll on Patel and his team as they ran into several issues behind the camera.

During a recent a Reddit AMA, Patel, who wrote, directed, and starred in Monkey Man, stated that making this movie was nearly impossible because “everyday we faced absolute catastrophe.”

“I begged our financier not to shut us down a few weeks before principal photography,” Patel said, “We were meant to shoot in India then COVID hit. I lost my initial production designer and [cinematographer] and the film was basically dead, then we pivoted and went to a tiny island in Indonesia where we could create a bubble in an empty hotel for the whole crew of nearly 500 people. It was a grueling nine months of absolute joy and utter chaos.”

The actor continued stating, “Most of our equipment broke and we couldn’t fly in new stuff so we literally shot stuff on my mobile phone, go pros — when a crane broke we ended [up] creating this camera rig from rope which I termed the ‘pendulum cam,’ which swings over a large crowd of people then detaches and the operators run through the crowd whilst it was rolling.”

Patel explained that even the smallest details, like breakaway tables, had to be put back together after every stunt writing, “I would scream CUT and then immediately all of us would get on our hands and knees looking for all of the broken pieces of wood to glue the tables back together for the next shot. In a very long nutshell, every obstacle provided us with a new opportunity to innovate. BOOM!”

Patel ran into multiple issues behind the camera, he also ran into a ton of issues while starring in the movie as The Hollywood Reporter revealed that the actor suffered from a broken hand, several broken toes, a torn shoulder, and an eye infection all while making Money Man.

But, it seems like all of the suffering on and off camera was worth it in the end as Monkey Man currently sits at 93% on Rotten Tomatoes a week before its theatrical release.