Is Dev a homewrecker?

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Rrrrrrrrrrrr.

Earlier this week I read a salacious article claiming that innocent little Latika Frieda Pinto is really a shady McShadester:

The star of Slumdog Millionaire has been hiding a secret husband whom she ditched after the film became a hit, it was claimed today.

Freida Pinto, 24, is said to have married Rohan Antao at a ceremony in Goa in December 2007 but last month ended their relationship. The couple were previously thought only to have been engaged… Their relationship appears to have foundered in the wake of Slumdog Millionaire’s success. Pinto, who plays the main love interest, was nominated for a Bafta and the film won a Screen Actors Guild Award for outstanding performance by a cast.

It is claimed that Mr Antao, a Mumbai-based executive, supported Pinto during filming but ‘she just stopped calling him’ at the time of the Golden Globes this year, according to reports today. [Link]

If you check out the picture of Mr. Antao you can’t help but come to the conclusion that the poor chap never had a chance. In reality you can only date so far outside of your attractiveness league and the fact that guys like Salman Rushdie have a lock on the statistical outlier category means that the Rohan Antaos of the world are headed for disaster. Then I read another article yesterday that got me to re-think this all a bit. Perhaps Frieda is innocent and Antao is possessive and delusional.

Rohan gradually started to feel their relationship slip through his fingers as she spent more time away from him–jetting round the world promoting the film with gawky 18-year-old Skins star Dev.

He went on: “I didn’t go with her. I had my own work to do and we weren’t supposed to be seen together. She told me it was a requirement, so I had to get on with it.

“But it was all too much too soon for her. She was staying in five-star hotels and being driven by chauffeurs–it was quite a change.”And she was always with Dev, doing press publicity. They certainly did a brilliant job promoting a film about a couple in love! I knew there was chemistry between them, but she said she had no feelings towards him at that time…”
But Rohan’s frustration boiled over when Freida was again with him at the Toronto Film Festival last September.

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p>He sent Dev an angry text message questioning: “You do know she is engaged, don’t you?” Dev never responded.

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p>Rohan went on: “I asked Freida to spend less time with Dev, but she refused. She was comfortable with him, and we were talking over the phone less and less. I was ticked off with Dev–and her.” [Link]

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p>

So why do I suspect Rohan might be making up details of Frieda’s supposed infidelity? Have you actually seen Slumdog? I can’t think of another recent movie in which there was so little chemistry between the two main characters. It is the reason Slumdog is an above-average movie instead of a great one. If I was having an illicit affair with Ms. Pinto offscreen you better believe I would behave like a bear on a bunny in my scenes with her on camera. My passion would bleed through when I screamed “Latikaaaa…” or did that little dance at the end. Dev Patel, throughout the film, had the blank expression of a boy who had popped his “juice box” too early. He didn’t show the confidence or poise required to handle the bombshell in the photograph at the top. I think in reality Rohan probably got increasingly jealous as he saw his girlfriend blow-up internationally and the whole Dev thing was just made up in his mind. Either that or Dev Patel will propose on stage tonight and prove me wrong.

59 thoughts on “Is Dev a homewrecker?”

  1. I can’t think of another recent movie in which there was so little chemistry between the two main characters.

    I too have been following this breaking news closely. Patel is a little wooden and I do think she thinks of him as someone who needs taking care of. He’s younger than her in that sense and women don’t like that. So I’d have to say, if there is anything between Frieda and Patel, it is just pre-Oscar pressure.

    The reason Rohan didn’t stand a chance is because Frieda is a super super star in the making. She is doing all the right things and she makes Aishwarya Rai look like a bag lady. Frieda is too ambitious to hang around the likes of Dev Patel. She will move on to bigger and better things–she’ll want a Brad Pitt. Oh and Frieda will make a lot of enemies on her way to the top. Already there is Rohan and Bollywood-she is somewhat dismissive of Bollywood. I’m going to follow her story for some time. It will make for an interesting study on character.

  3. Great fun, jagat! I agree, Freida looks like she will eat some men alive on her way to the top. Dev is just starting out too and will get some hot girls, no need for him to get into a serious relationship now. So true what you said about her making Aishwarya look like a bag lady! When Freida was being charming, flirtatious, natural, hyper-glamourous and gorgeous on chat shows and on red carpets with the world swooning over her, Ash looked utterly desperate promoting some crappy Pink Panther movie, so funny (and cruel!)

  4. Dev Patel, throughout the film, had the blank expression of a boy who had popped his “juice box” too early.

    Well then, doesn’t this lend credence to the affair allegation? Getting his juice box popped in the dressing room may explain his lack of interst on screen, no?

    Patel is a little wooden and I do think she thinks of him as someone who needs taking care

    Exactly. Affair it is.

  6. I can’t think of another recent movie in which there was so little chemistry between the two main characters.

    Rab ne Bana Di Jodi.

    But speaking of Dev Patel, the man didn’t have chemistry with himself, a more wooden look I nary have seen. And Freida Pinto, she acted as well as a model would. Chemistry got nothin’ to do with the kabuki dance in the dark that was their performance.

    The actors are but incidental to Slumdog, it embodies the auteur theory through and through. Of the creative staff, Danny Boyle is the one person that done deserve credit for the zest he brought to cinematography and editing.

  7. 5 · Abhi said

    The election is over what else am I supposed to do? 😉
    • bobby jindal’s stunt of refusing unemployment related stimulus funds?
    • the daily tension between the most powerful man in the universe and his mother in law, now that they are under the same roof?
    • the mess in swat? (a theory i’ve heard is that the pakistani military is encouraging this to force the us to divert energies from afghanistan)

  8. 6 · Rahul said

    But speaking of Dev Patel, the man didn’t have chemistry with himself

    he’s the master of his own domain

  10. – bobby jindal’s stunt of refusing unemployment related stimulus funds?

    Yes I was planning to blog Meet the Press so keep your punk chuddies on.

  12. my gf read that pinto admitted being weirded out having to kiss patel cuz he’s so young. he’s not even 19 yet! there’s a huge different between a 19 year old and a 24 year old, especially when the younger one is a dude. also, dev didn’t seem like he was gettin’ it on with freida when he was on letterman when prodded implicitly by dave.

  13. btw, i just got told at starbucks today by some old chick that i look like dev patel. i wonder if every black dude was told that they looked like samuel l. jackson after pulp fiction….

  15. hmm, well we can, err, hope that the paparazzi/ undercover celeb reporter.. catch dev and frieda making out an afterparty. heh.

  16. The actors are but incidental to Slumdog, it embodies the auteur theory through and through. Of the creative staff, Danny Boyle is the one person that done deserve credit for the zest he brought to cinematography and editing.

    well-said. and no, don’t keep those pink ones on, mail them to me.

  18. The second article just calls the whiner/loser her fiance.

    So there was no home to wreck yet …

  19. Ah, but what if that is the limit of poor Dev’s expressiveness? What if he makes Keanu Reeves look like Robin Williams? I think the guy just has three expressions.

    My favorite version of this story is the one which claims she dumped him for listing his status on facebook as engaged, which meant he wasn’t keeping things on the DL. It’s facebook that ruins relationships, not Dev Patel 😉

  20. I know both of them, I went to the same college as them. I know for a fact that they were not married but engaged. Secondly, most of the pictures people have put up make him look ugly, and Freida as the beautiful angelic one. I feel bad for the both of them but it was she who took the decision to dump him becasue she thought her career propscts would be blunted by this relationship.

    1. how come everyone in mumbai is reported as an “Executive”
    2. freida and antao were probably engaged, she was not out of his league then, she is now.
    3. no one on the slum dog bandwagon will experience this again. this is the highlight of their life.
    4. dev will get a few decent roles but will not make it
    5. freida is hot and she will get a few cameo ingenue(sp) type roles, but she will be forgotten in 5 years.
    6. danny will continue to make successful movies but will never grab the brass ring again.
  22. expression of a boy who had popped his “juice box” too early

    LOL! Pookkutty, the way Will Smith pronounced means flowerpot(fireworks), means exactly that for “punk chuddies” in Malayalam. Someone with immature ejaculation trouble.

  25. 23 · remo said

    I am just waiting for her playboy spread in about 3-4 years.

    It took a mere 22 comments before a wanker posted a comment.

  26. 1. how come everyone in mumbai is reported as an “Executive”

    Title Creep & Political Correctness.

  28. Well Frieda Pinto has been cast in Woody Allen’s next movie alongside Josh Brolin and Anthony Hopkins. This bodes very well for her career. Talk about taking your opportunities and running with them.

  29. 28 · Bobby said

    Well Frieda Pinto has been cast in Woody Allen’s next movie

    hmm, i hear soon-yi and scarlett johansson are getting old 🙂

    seriously though, woody allen’s late career resurgence is brilliant to watch and i hope this movie is as wonderful as his recent ones.

  30. Freida Pinto, the next Penelope Cruz?

    What’s that crackling sound coming from Mumbai? Oh, it’s just an entire generation of actreses / models burning up with jealousy.

    I think how far Freida will go will partly depend on how far she’s prepared to go on screen in terms of love scenes. If she’ll do kissing, post-coital crumpled up in bed with blanket covering the right places, risque or even nudity. If she’s relaxed about love scenes she’ll probably will get romantic or eventually leading lady roles. If you want a serious career in Hollywood you’ve got to be willing for that.

  31. Her agent is Hylda Queally who reps Cruz, Winslet, and K Holmes FP is going to be around for a LOOOOng time folks

  32. 1. how come everyone in mumbai is reported as an “Executive” 2. freida and antao were probably engaged, she was not out of his league then, she is now. 3. no one on the slum dog bandwagon will experience this again. this is the highlight of their life. 4. dev will get a few decent roles but will not make it 5. freida is hot and she will get a few cameo ingenue(sp) type roles, but she will be forgotten in 5 years. 6. danny will continue to make successful movies but will never grab the brass ring again.

    You hit the nail on the head.

    The other guy is the executive of the 2 person webdesign company he started september last year. So far his only client seems to have been Freida Pinto… http://www.zeistmarketing.com/about_us.html

    Dev Patel seems way too young for her. Then again compared to Antao he is adonis.

  33. You people are really drinking the haterade here..

    I suppose your years of experience as a detective/psychologist/interrogrator allows you to claim with complete certainity that Antao is some creep who’s making stuff up and there hasn’t been something going on with the two leads, simply based on a couple of news articles and a percieved lack of emotion onscreen. Perfect counterexample is Keanu Reeves. That man cannot express a single emotion without looking dead, but I’m pretty sure he’s banged quite a few leading ladies in his time 😉

    And newsflash folks, if as a male you don’t get at least a teensy bit jealous or protective of your FIANCEE, then you’re an emasculated girl! What else was the guy supposed to do? Quietly let her slip away (WHICH WAS OBVIOUSLY HAPPENING!!!!!)?

    Antao should exploit his connections with Frieda to ensure that his career really takes off. Convert his 15 minutes of fame into a cushy job or ticket out of Mumbai. Work like the devil for the bit and then go have crazy carnal relations with other leading bollywood babes. I’m sure in a couple of years he can thumb his nose at the other two.

    P.S. “Out of your league” (in anything) is a stupid concept that should have died last century. Only losers subscribe to that idea!

  34. “The actors are but incidental to Slumdog, it embodies the auteur theory through and through.”

    That’s right, the browns were totally incidental to Slumdog…

  35. i wonder how the comments would have turned out if she had dumped that mumbai guy for a non-desi co-star 🙂

  36. Seriously, Rohan Antao has nothing to worry about, except that he looks like Gomez Addams’ less-attractive step-brother.

    Every time you see a Dev Patel interview and they ask him about his love life, he’ll go to pains to say that he’s NEVER had a girlfriend and doesn’t chase girls, period. Prefers the nights out with the lads. Homeboy’s gay. What’s that? A gay Englishman? Naw…….

    And that might explain the lack of physical chemistry between him and Freida Pinto.

  37. aww i like dev…he’s still a kid at heart even though he’s 18yrs old so it’s kind of refreshing he’s still out with the lads, just having a good time. Nothing gay about that.

    I see him and Frieda just being really good mates, and they even said so on Oprah yesterday…. she’s 24yrs old so she’s probably going to have her sights set on older guys anyhow.

  38. I see Frieda Pinto being in the next Sex and the City movie, doing neat roles in Woody Allen type flicks, playing an ingenue dusky type, at some point she’ll give a performance that will get nominated for awards, then she’ll marry either an older Hollywood star like Adrien Brody or a wealthy multi-millionaire European businessman and live in the plushest home in Manhattan, and adopt a brood of children from Mumbai orphanges and have the Indian Earth mother vibe going on, just a hint of Angelina, like. Hate to say it, but I see her becoming a real bitch.

    By the time Frieda is 30 Dev will be the age she is at now with a string of roles under his belt appearing alongside Will Smith in a comedy, and sidekick roles in a few medium sized flicks, and will eventually get a leading man role in a ‘Meet the Parents’ type romantic comedy.

    Out of the two of them, I think Freida has a great shot of long term fame and success, because there is a niche for what she is, and its probably easier for minority women to make it in Hollywood (think Lucy Liu as the model for Freida’s career), especially if she does love scenes, something that has held back Indian actresses in the past, but I am rooting for Dev more. He’s charming, funny, slightly gawky, self-deprecating, humble, and will have to be at his best to get by.

  39. Well Frieda Pinto has been cast in Woody Allen’s next movie alongside Josh Brolin and Anthony Hopkins. This bodes very well for her career. Talk about taking your opportunities and running with them.

    I don’t get it. Isn’t there a rate-limiting step called ‘auditioning for a role’? How did she get past that gate-keeper?

    I never thought I would say this: But I am actually feeling sorry for Aishwarya Rai. At least she was diligently trying to put in her 10,000 hours of work…*

    It is the name factor, I am convinced. You can market yourself as the Most Beautiful Woman in the World but the name (and attitude) of an Indian Goddess/Princess must be too heavy for take-off. A Spanish/Portugese name on the other hand coupled with a German first name lets one gallop.

    • Gladwell purports to decipher the whole from the outlying part. Consider some of his examples: the Beatles, Bill Joy, and Bill Gates. All three support the “10,000-Hour Rule” propounded by Gladwell later in his book: Nobody who succeeds does so without 10,000 hours of practice. The Beatles put in their time at a Hamburg club where they were made to perform eight hours a night. Joy and Gates, too, were products of unusual circumstances affording them an unprecedented amount of programming time. {Link}
  40. I never thought I would say this: But I am actually feeling sorry for Aishwarya Rai. At least she was diligently trying to put in her 10,000 hours of work…* It is the name factor, I am convinced. You can market yourself as the Most Beautiful Woman in the World but the name (and attitude) of an Indian Goddess/Princess must be too heavy for take-off. A Spanish/Portugese name on the other hand coupled with a German first name lets one gallop.

    Ms Bachchan comes across as a phoney. Her appearances on the talk show circuit were cringe worthy and disastrous. Plus insisting that she had never been kissed and still a virgin didn’t help.

  41. Ms Bachchan comes across as a phoney

    Yes, she’s hard to watch. She was on Martha Stewart not wanting to admit she was from Mangalore. She kept saying she was from Mumbai or “just India”.

  42. I make Samir right about Aishwarya, too precious, too stuck-up, too Princess Tippy Toes. If Aishwarya came to a party it would be like the ice-queen has come, if Frieda turned up she would be lots of fun, at least that is the image they have both projected in their stints in America. Good for Freida. Good for her, coming out of nowhere, without any family connections, without any of the entourage or attitude, and just being natural, easy going, fun, glamourous and happy, and getting a role in Woody Allen’s next movie as her second ever film part. Too bad for Aishwarya, but she only has herself to blame, watching her trying to be relaxed and funny in interviews for The Pink Panther 2 hahaha as Freida was making people swoon over her on chat shows was the difference between a classy uptight lady, and a classy lady with genuine charisma and a happy-go-lucky, fun personality. That’s what brings you success in America. Good for her.

    By the way, Amitabh Bhachan has been quite bitter and pompous and jealous over the whole success of Slumdog Millionaire, anyone else feeling that?

  43. Ms Bachchan comes across as a phoney. Her appearances on the talk show circuit were cringe worthy and disastrous.

    I see it as her inability to perfect her cross-over appeal and charm.

    Plus insisting that she had never been kissed and still a virgin didn’t help.

    Which is the natural, understandable and acceptable way of behaving and putting a spin on such things, if she wanted to retain her status as queen bee of Indian/Bollywood cinema. I guess she made her choice without realizing it.

    Also, don’t forget she is half-a-generation ahead of Ms. Pinto.

    Again, I never thought I would be “defending” her. How fickle the times are!

  45. “By the way, Amitabh Bhachan has been quite bitter and pompous and jealous over the whole success of Slumdog Millionaire, anyone else feeling that?”

    I saw

  47. 43 · Bobby said

    I make Samir right about Aishwarya, too precious, too stuck-up, too Princess Tippy Toes. If Aishwarya came to a party it would be like the ice-queen has come, if Frieda turned up she would be lots of fun, at least that is the image they have both projected in their stints in America. Good for Freida. Good for her, coming out of nowhere, without any family connections, without any of the entourage or attitude, and just being natural, easy going, fun, glamourous and happy, and getting a role in Woody Allen’s next movie as her second ever film part. Too bad for Aishwarya, but she only has herself to blame, watching her trying to be relaxed and funny in interviews for The Pink Panther 2 *hahaha* as Freida was making people swoon over her on chat shows was the difference between a classy uptight lady, and a classy lady with genuine charisma and a happy-go-lucky, fun personality. That’s what brings you success in America. Good for her.

    I am glad to see there are different types of Indian women and each of them do things in their own way. Unlike the hollywood actresses, who all act the same in talk show circuits.

    And Aishwarya became who she is because of her fans not because of one movie, who built a million websites or something. Freida was lucky, not jealous here, just saying, I am happy for her. But blaming Aishwarya is just not right.

  48. I am glad to see there are different types of Indian women and each of them do things in their own way. Unlike the hollywood actresses, who all act the same in talk show circuits.

    Really? Do all Hollywood actresses act the same in talk show circuits? Anyway, I was just saying, maybe if she hadn’t been such a stuck up she might have got some decent roles in Hollywood

    But blaming Aishwarya is just not right.

    I’m not really blaming her, just saying, it’s funny the difference between the two of them.

  49. I saw this argument and can see why he’s been hating. First his bahu rani dosn’t crack the Hollywood code, and now his thunder has been taken.

    I think he thinks everything to do with Indian cinema has to be blessed by him or else its just not fair. He must have dreamed all his life of being involved in a cross-over success like this, lauded in Europe and America, red carpets, Oscar glory. It must have really hurt to see the cheeky moustachioed hero Anil Kapoor charming the western world on talk shows and in magazines. The thing that gets me about all that shit he talked about how the izzat of India is offended by showing the poor side of life is that he apparently was meant to play a slumlord gangster in Shantaram, and if it had been him in Slumdog, he would have been defending it to the hilt as he had dinner with Clint Eastwood and and Dustin Hoffman and had all the love and affection of American and British and European film-goers centred towards him.

    Ah well, maybe next time, Big B. At least the kid swims through shit for him in that scene.

  50. 49 · Bobby said

    I am glad to see there are different types of Indian women and each of them do things in their own way. Unlike the hollywood actresses, who all act the same in talk show circuits.
    Really? Do all Hollywood actresses act the same in talk show circuits? Anyway, I was just saying, maybe if she hadn’t been such a stuck up she might have got some decent roles in Hollywood
    But blaming Aishwarya is just not right.
    I’m not really blaming her, just saying, it’s funny the difference between the two of them.

    Its funny, because 15 years back Aishwarya was the underdog, she wasnt exactly connected to bollywood either. It wont be long before the next Freida pops up.