10 Actors Who Just Played Against Type (And KILLED It)
2. Dev Patel - Monkey Man
Dev Patel has certainly come a long way from the days when he was a scrawny kid on Skins and Slumdog Millionaire, but until recently, "action hero" are probably among the last two words you'd ever associate with the guy.
Yet Patel proved any doubters wrong when he packed on the muscle to play the lead in his directorial debut Monkey Man - a Mumbai-set action flick in the vein of the John Wick films.
In addition to crushing it behind the camera, Patel demonstrated himself to be extremely persuasive as a scrappy, vengeful action hero - at once absolutely shredded and yet vulnerable enough that the film's bruising action sequences are still suffused with considerable tension.
Nobody can say that Patel half-assed his job, either as filmmaker or actor, and regardless of whether or not Monkey Man launches a franchise, it's proven beyond any question that he has what it takes to be a credible action star audiences can keenly root for.