Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel breaks up violent fight in South Australia that left man hospitalised

Dev Patel is a hero both on and offscreen — the Slumdog Millionaire actor broke up a fight that escalated to the level of stabbing in Australia. His team, however, said that rather than him getting attention for doing something that was instinctual for him, it should be on the issue of the systemic oppression of marginalised communities instead.

In a statement to Variety, Patel’s team confirmed that he and his friends had stepped in to put a stop to a knife fight in South Australia where the actor lives. According to the country’s 7News, a man and a woman were fighting in the street and in a convenience store when the man was stabbed in the chest. He is expected to survive.

“We can confirm that last night, in Adelaide, Dev Patel and his friends witnessed a violent altercation that was already in progress outside of a convenience store,” the Lion actor’s representative said. “Dev acted on his natural instinct to try and de-escalate the situation and break up the fight. The group was thankfully successful in doing so and they remained on site to ensure that the police and eventually the ambulance arrived.”

The statement from Patel’s team stressed that “there are no heroes in this situation and sadly this specific incident highlights a larger systemic issue of marginalised members of society not being treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.”

“The hope is that the same level of media attention this story is receiving (solely because Dev, as a famous person, was involved) can be a catalyst for lawmakers to be compassionate in determining long-term solutions to help not only the individuals who were involved but the community at large,” the statement concluded.

Patel has been on a break since his lead role in David Lowery’s fantasy film The Green Knight last year. His Netflix-backed directorial debut Monkey Man has been filmed and is currently in the post-production phase. He will also star in Wes Anderson’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, opposite Benedict Cumberbatch and Ralph Fiennes.