Stargazer: Himesh Patel, Sneha Kumari and Rishikanth Rajendran

Hero of the Time

Himesh Patel had considerable screen time as Eurylochus in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, but almost no visibility during the global promotional tour. Now, Nolan has made up for it with a glowing piece on the 35-year-old for the TIME100 Next list of influential rising stars. Patel, the son of British Indians of African extraction, began his career on the BBC show EastEnders immediately after school, and has since worked across the pond in spectacles such as Nolan’s earlier film Tenet (2020) and Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up (2021). As Nolan has written in the Time magazine issue: “I think he’s only just begun showing us what he can do. He plays a supporting character marvellously, but he’s an incredible lead.’’

Playing Phoolan

Sneha Kumari has been performing in street plays and on stage since she was young, and was also selected for the Bhartendu Natya Academy in Lucknow. All of 22, the second-year student at Madhya Pradesh Natya Vidyalaya will soon be on the big screen as the titular character in Amazon MGM Studios’ film Phoolan. Directed by Richie Mehta, the film focuses on a 48-hour siege in Phoolan Devi’s life when the dacoit was still a teenager.

A Different Man

He is the star of the Tamil film Modha Rathiri, available on Netflix this week following its theatrical run. He is also one half of the duo who have taken over everyone’s feeds with their performance in Dorothy, Karthik Subbaraj’s film that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was released in theatres last week. Rishikanth Rajendran has become the poster boy of a different kind of masculinity, standing apart from the Alpha Men abounding on Tamil screens.