'Palat ke dekha to Salma Hayek thi,' Harish Patel aka Ibu Hatela recalls his first meeting with ‘The Eternals’ beauty!

Pic Courtesy: Movie Still

New Delhi: Actor Harish Patel has been grabbing the limelight since the day his fans spotted him in the first look of The Eternals from a video that was released by Marvel in May, this year.

The actor shared that he was amazed by people’s reaction after he made a 2-second entry in a three-minute-long trailer and still people could recognize him. 

While talking to Pinkvilla, he shared that he hasn’t worked in Hindi Cinema since 2004 as he finds some of the casting directors as extremely 'ill-mannered' and 'nobodies'.
 He talked about how he bagged the role in The Eternals and his first meeting with Salma Hayek, whom he couldn’t recognise in the first place.

Recalling his meet with Hollywood hottie Salma Hayek, Patel said,“When I reached there (for the audition) in the morning, they directly took me to Pinewood Studios where they were about to start the shoot from the 12th. I did my audition there, we all hugged and then I left for my hotel. When I had just reached the lobby and was going towards my car, an Assistant Director came up to me and asked me if I could join them for a table read. I told her I was hungry, so she said all the arrangements are made upstairs. Toh jab mai waha apne plate leke khana khana kha raha tha, peche se mereko ek hath aaya. Usne mujhe tap kia aur tap karke hello bola. Mujhe bade pyaari awaaz lage, toh maine jab palat ke dekha toh Salma Hayek thi. She told me, ‘Congratulations, you’re doing Karun’s role." 

He quipped apart from Angelina Jolie, he wasn’t even aware of anyone else.“I knew Angelina Jolie, but I knew nothing of the others who were working with me. At the table read, on one side was Kumail Nanjiani, and on the other, there was Richard Madden. I had no idea he was so popular, on Game of Thrones."

About bagging the role in a Hollywood venture, Harish Patel explained the whole system.“As a first step, the casting directors of that production house do their entire homework on the role, after which they select the actors for that part. Once that is done, they contact the agency and the manager of that actor. Casting directors of India please listen to what I am saying. They give all the details of the project, of the role and sometimes even share the script. Now Marvel is very secretive about their script, so that is a completely different matter, but other details like who is the director, the producer, where will the shooting take place - all these details are given that an actor should know about."

"So at the time when they had given me this role, the name of my character was not Karun, it was something else which I don’t remember now. So three months after I gave the audition and they were to start shooting in September, on 28th or 29th of August my manager sent me a message stating that I’ll have to go to London for the final audition, and the mail that I had received inquired if I could fly the next day. I said it doesn’t happen like that, as I’ll have to apply for the entertainer visa only after which I can enter the country and give the audition", he said.

The team even asks the actor whether he/she wants to play the part or not, he clarified.

Harish Patel, played the famous character of Ibu Hatela from the 1998 film ‘Gunda’ and since then became a household name. Ibu Hatela character was famous for the dialogue, "Ma meri chudail ki beti, baap mera shaitan ka chela." 

But it garnered more popularity when Kanan Gill and Biswa Kalyan Rath used it in their popular YouTube show called Prententious Movie Reviews.
Harish Patel has worked in Hollywood movies like ‘Run’, ‘Fat Boy’, ‘Run and Four Weddings’ and a ‘Funeral’.

'The Eternals’ is directed by Oscar-winner Chloe Zhao. It also has Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Kumail Nanjiani, Richard Madden, Gemma Chan, Kit Harington, Don Lee in pivotal roles and is slated to release this November.