DEV Patel still sometimes gets startled by the paparazzi, even though it has been over a year since he appeared in the Oscar-winning blockbuster Slumdog Millionaire, the film which propelled him to international stardom.

For the 20-year-old actor, anonymity was gone the moment Slumdog Millionaire hit international screens, and he is still struggling with being in the spotlight almost two years later.

As we greeted each other during a recent interview in Tokyo, Japan, Dev smiled nervously and said “Hello” in an overly-enthusiastic voice, saying that he was, “Doing great, thank you very much” in a thick English accent.

He was in Tokyo to promote filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan’s movie version of The Last Airbender. In the film, Dev stars as Prince Zuko, an angst-ridden character who is also a “firebender” (a person who comes from the Fire Nation and has the ability to manipulate fire) determined to win back his estranged father’s favour.

A day before the interview, Dev was swarmed by fans and photographers at the red carpet event, where he smiled shyly, signed autographs and took pictures with fans – a scenario he said he was still getting used to.

“Back home there would be these guys running after me taking pictures and I’d be like ‘Hey, go away! Why are you taking pictures of me?’,” Dev said as he described his first few brushes with the paparazzi, post-Slumdog.

Dev Patel as Prince Zuko in M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender.

“It’s very intrusive and you feel very awkward.”

However, he added that he was slowly trying to get used to the attention.

“I guess there’s a million more eyes on you when you’re doing films like this. When I was on TV, I was oblivious to what I was doing. It was my first ever acting gig and I went into it not having a clue what to expect.”

British audiences will know him from the TV series Skins, where he played a wild-partying Pakistani-Muslim teenager with overbearing religious parents.

On The Last Airbender Dev takes on a challenging role in the form of Zuko.

“I was finishing Slumdog and there were so many scripts I was looking into but I didn’t think, character-wise, I could be stretched as an actor,” said Dev. “Then this came along and he (Zuko) was so different from what I’ve done before.”

“It was enticing, to play someone with a darker side and very conflicted. In essence, he’s just a boy who is yearning for the love of his father, he’s very vulnerable.”

For Dev, it was scary to play someone who had a bit of a darker side, and was broody and depressed throughout the entire film.

“That was the hardest part, it was really hard to be in the zone all the time and you’d go home sometimes still in character and feel depressed for no apparent reason,” he said, laughing.

The physical requirements for his character were something of a breeze for Dev, who has a black belt in taekwondo and once dreamed of becoming a sportsman.

“It was either sports or acting,” he revealed when asked about his decision to go into showbiz.

The animated version of Prince Zuko.

“I thought if acting didn’t work out I would want to be a physiotherapist or a tennis star. I guess I like being physical, I could never see myself sitting down for house, I’m just too fidgety,” said Dev, who looks up to actors Will Smith, Leonardo DiCaprio and Shah Rukh Khan.

“I love expressing myself physically and you can do that in both sports and acting.” On the set of Airbender, Dev found it easy to goof around with his fellow young actors – Noah Ringer, Jackson Rathbone and Nicola Peltz.

“Even Night, he’s a funny guy, his sense of humour is just great. The set was just such a fun place to be,” Dev shared.

As for embracing fame and the intrusion that comes with it, Dev said it was making him more confident.

“Every day someone’s got something new to say about you on the Internet and they can describe your whole personality in one line. It gets very annoying after a while but you just realise that it’s just part and parcel of the work and it makes you stronger.

“You just have to be more confident or you’ll just be eaten alive,” he concluded.

R.AGE is giving away 50 pairs of passes to watch The Last Airbender on Aug 2, 9.30pm at Cathay Cineplex E@Curve, Mutiara Damansara, Selangor. Check it out here:

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