There’s an irresistible foundation myth about Himesh Patel. The story goes that he continued to work as a paperboy, delivering for his parents’ shop in Cambridgeshire, even after being cast as the bookish Tamwar Masood in EastEnders 19 years ago.“Yeah, it’s following me around every time I do anything,” he says, with no sign of irritation. “I stayed at home up to the age of 21. Then I left to move to London, but, up till that point, the only thing my parents asked of me was that I helped them out in the mornings with delivering the papers. And so I did.”The story reflects well on everyone involved. One can scarcely imagine a better way of staying connected to reality. And it seems to have held Patel in good stead. The leap from soap-opera stardom to wider success is one only a few actors have managed. He made his first big breakout as the lead in Danny Boyle’s romantic fantasy Yesterday in 2019. He got an Emmy nomination for his role in the dystopian series Station 11. He was in Christopher Nolan’s Tenet and, in a fortnight or so, will be seen in that director’s spectacularly buzzy The Odyssey. He also stars opposite Danielle Deadwyler in Ryan Coogler’s upcoming reboot of The X-Files.All this jet-setting while raising a small child in London.“It is not without its challenges,” he says in his gentle way. “But one of the privileges of doing this job, and having the career that I’m currently having, is that I get to explore the world. I see parts of the world I otherwise wouldn’t.”Today he’s in New York on promotional duties for Enola Holmes 3, the latest film in Netflix’s spiffing Sherlock Holmes spin-off. Millie Bobby Brown, the streaming service’s in-house star, returns as plucky sister to the great detective for an adventure that surrounds her with imperial corruption in sunny Malta. Enola Holmes 3: Louis Partridge as Tewkesbury and Himesh Patel as Dr Watson. Photograph: John Wilson/Netflix Patel builds on a smallish role as Dr Watson in Enola Holmes 2 to achieve full sidekick status. His more sombre variation on the character is perfectly judged. It was surely important to have a person of Indian heritage in a drama that touches upon the sins of colonialism.“Yeah, it was a conversation I had about four or five years ago, when I was initially approached to play the role,” he says. “The casting decisions that they had made in the franchise were not simply tick-box exercises. The choices were made in order to tell a very honest story about colonialism. “I really commended that, and I was very hopeful that that would be the direction that we got to go with the third movie. I’m glad that we did. And I think we pulled it off in a wonderful way. It’s very subtle.”Patel, raised in Sawtry, a small town about 10km from Peterborough, is the son of Gujarati parents: his dad was born in Kenya, mum in Zambia. Has it troubled him that period pieces so rarely touch on the crimes of empire?“I’d love to see more stories about it,” he says. “As someone of my background, I’ve lived with it my entire life. It’s just something you’re aware of. Why am I here? This is why.”He was not entirely deprived of such tales as a lad.“I’d love to see more stories about it in western media, because, obviously, growing up in a south Asian household, I was watching a lot of Bollywood movies that would address this stuff. All the colonisers were definitely the bad people,” Patel says, laughing. “There wasn’t much subtlety, I’ll be honest. That was the only media in which I felt it was really addressed.”EastEnders: Himesh Patel and Meryl Fernandes as Tamwar and Afia in 2012. Photograph: BBC So let us dig deeper into that jarring ascent to telly celebrity. The actor did not go to drama school. He is no sort of nepo baby. But he had shown enough signs of budding talent to be edged towards youth theatre. It reads as if EastEnders came out of nowhere.“I was in one youth theatre in Peterborough, near where I grew up, and then another youth theatre in Cambridge,” he says. “That youth theatre in Cambridge had an agency that would send kids out for auditions and extra work. I did a lot of extra work. Then, at the age of 16, I got this audition for EastEnders, and I ended up getting the role over a summer holiday, and my life changed.”An engaging fellow with a gentle ironic chuckle, Patel does not seem like the sort who would allow celebrity to go to his head. He slogged away at his A-levels. He made no rash assumptions about where this would lead.“You’re only 16 and on telly. It’s great, but it’s not a guarantee of anything in terms of longevity. But in the end it all worked out. I was there for nine years, and then chose to leave, and I’ve been very lucky ever since.”Actors who emerged from big soap operas have told me the public often treat them like friends. If someone is in your livingroom three times a week they seem more familiar than old-school movie stars. It may appear easier to approach them in the shop or airport.“I don’t think I had it quite as intensely as a lot of my colleagues did, partially to do with looking a bit different to my character on a day-to-day basis,” Patel says. “People may assume there’s a level of fame that’s larger than the fame I had. That is, I suppose, to some degree true, in terms of where in the world people might recognise me. I went all the way to New Zealand when I was on EastEnders and got recognised. The reach of that show is actually far larger than you might think.”At least he was playing a largely amiable chap. There are bizarre stories of actors who play baddies in soaps getting abused.“I had a lot of friends from the show who were playing villainous characters, or playing characters who did questionable things, and people would sling things at them in the street – you know, hurl abuse at them. ‘I’m an actor, what do you want me to do?!'”Yesterday: Lily James and Himesh Patel as Jack and Ellie in Danny Boyle's film, written by Richard Curtis. Photograph: Jonathan Prime/Universal Pictures Securing the role in Yesterday was obviously a personal triumph. Detailing the experiences of a young singer who survives an accident to discover he is the only person aware of The Beatles’ music, the picture did everything you expect from a romantic fantasy scripted by Richard Curtis. It was also important in that Patel secured a lead role that was not written specifically for a person of colour. That feels significant.“That was an example of a production and a casting department very intelligently realising that this role does not need to be anything specific,” he says. “Therefore they should just open the doors wide and audition as many people as they can from any sort of background. I’m glad I was the beneficiary of that and I wound up being the right person for the role.”The industry has not, of course, solved its problem with diversity. But it feels as if things have improved over the past decade or so.“Yeah, it’s incremental,” he says.We meet as Patel builds on that success. He is, obviously, not in a position to say anything too specific about The Odyssey, in which he plays Eurylochus, brother-in-law to Matt Damon’s Odysseus. Nolan’s adaptation of the Greek epic looks set to eat the summer box office alive.“Even if I weren’t in this movie I would be very glad that it was being made the way that it was made,” Patel says. “Because it is pure cinema in that way. It’s of a scale and a magnitude that is very rare these days. I’m very excited to see it. I haven’t seen it yet, and I’m excited for everyone to see it.”We have Homer as a guide to what goes on in The Odyssey. Greater mystery (appropriately enough) surrounds Coogler’s take on The X-Files, but rumours suggest Patel and Deadwyler are playing those two “very different” agents investigating supernormal phenomenon.I assume they’re being cautious about what is being revealed.“Yes,” he says politely but firmly.They are saying little?“There is very little to be said about it.”The truth is, no doubt, out there, but we won’t know what it is for a while.Enola Holmes 3 streams on Netflix from Wednesday, July 1st