Emmy Nominee Himesh Patel on the Challenges and Beauty of ‘Station Eleven’

Himesh Patel’s astonishing performance in Station Eleven has earned him his first Emmy nomination.

His Jeevan Chaudhary is a man surrounded by grief, having survived a pandemic that has erased modern civilization, he has endured the loss of family—the loved ones he was born with and the ones he chose. He is a survivor, strong yet vulnerable, slowly allowing himself to forge new connections—to try again, to rebuild.

The first episode of the 10-part miniseries sees Jeevan in isolation as disease tears through society, Patel shot those sequences before Covid, digging deep to conjure up a seemingly-impossible world, only to see striking parallels between Station Eleven and our own world unfurl in the months that followed.

“Although the experience of making this show was very testing at times, it ultimately was a lifeline for so many of us. It gave us something to focus on during a very difficult time,” Patel said. He goes on to explain: “In having this experience, telling this story, and seeing the impact that this story has had on people, it’s really been a reminder that there is a really profound value to what we do.”

Awards Daily: I just wanted to start by congratulating you on your Emmy nomination. I said this on our podcast, but yours was my absolute favorite nomination of that morning’s announcements; I was so, so excited to see your name there! How are you feeling?

Himesh Patel: Thank you. I was very surprised because I had an idea of the other amazing performances that have been around this year. [Laughs] and I really didn’t think I was going to make the cut, frankly. And I’m honored to have done so, and honored to be alongside the other actors in that list— I’ve heard of one or two of them. [Laughs]. I’m really thrilled. I was also kind of surprised because it slipped my mind that nominations were coming out that day. I was busy doing other stuff. And then I checked my phone, and I had a lot of missed calls and text messages; definitely a pleasant surprise.

AD: Of course, there are parallels between Station Eleven and everything that we’ve gone through with COVID. What thematic elements have resonated with you the most, and how do you feel about those specific parallels now, especially having come away from the show and having the chance to reflect on it?

HP: Yeah, what’s really heartening is that we didn’t change the show in any way to reflect what was going on because I think it would’ve just felt exploitative. The parallels are there—we can’t deny that. And I think what’s been heartening is that those themes of connection, of rebuilding communities in the most positive ways, using art and theater and music and joy have really spoken to me. That’s something that I took away from the experience and this story. And also, I imagine that’s what a lot of people have felt connected to because, as I say, we can’t deny that the story has taken on a whole different resonance and a whole different meaning for people that we couldn’t have expected when we started making the show.

AD: Thematically, so much of the show is about art’s role in healing and how we need art to survive. As an artist yourself, has Station Eleven changed your perspective on this?  I spoke to Jeremy Podeswa, and that’s something we spoke a great deal about—how you can’t help but feel appreciative, and you just hold onto these things a little bit more dearly now that we’re sort of in this post-COVID period.  And also, I think the show just really helps us appreciate that beauty.

HP: Yeah, I agree completely. Although the experience of making this show was very testing at times, it ultimately was a lifeline for so many of us. It gave us something to focus on during a very difficult time, and reminded us of how lucky we were when so many people lost their jobs or had their shows canceled and all this sort of stuff. We were so lucky to have had this experience and to have found each other and had this time. And so, in that way, this art has really brought us together and reminded us of what we value. And also, it reminded me of how important [this art] is in my life and just how valuable what we do can be. On one hand, I’m the kind of person who likes to sort of take everything with a pinch of salt. And I love what I do, but I’ve always had this thought of, ‘but it’s not as important as X, Y, Z.’ But actually, in having this experience, telling this story, and seeing the impact that this story has had on people, it’s really been a reminder that there is a really profound value to what we do.

AD: Throughout the show, there’s so much trauma that Jeevan experiences—in episode one, in particular. How did you prepare for those really emotional moments? Was there something, in particular, you did to allow yourself to enter that mindset?

HP: Yeah, that’s a good question. It was all very new for me, in a lot of ways. I feel like I was pushed as an actor on this in ways that I hadn’t been before. And I love that; I thrive on that. I want to be challenged every time I do a job. When we were shooting episode one, with the whole idea of something like this coming down the road—when he gets that phone call from his sister, and she tells him basically that the world [and] society’s about to collapse—that was something that I just sort of had to imagine really as it was happening to me. There wasn’t really anything at the time that I could draw on because we shot all that before the pandemic in the real life. But going forward, there are elements of episode seven and episode nine that I really had a lot to draw on in my personal life— stuff that had happened in the intervening year, basically between shooting episode one and shooting those episodes.  Episode seven was an episode that’s sort of set in an apartment [where] you’re trapped in there—we’ve all been through that to some degree or another, we’ve all had to isolate, or be in lock-down. And in episode nine, he’s struggling to come to terms with the fact that he’s now sort of a father, and he has to literally be a birth partner to a group of women. And funnily enough, in the intervening year, I became a father. Though I was planning on becoming a father, so I was coming to terms with it in a much healthier way [laughs]. But certainly, there were things that felt a lot closer to home. And I was literally a birth partner to my partner. So all that stuff was research that I inadvertently did— I didn’t know that that’s what Patrick [Somerville] was writing for me, but that’s what happened. So there were certainly happy coincidences. But in terms of getting to those emotional moments, that was something that I just had to dig into for myself and really push myself to find that within myself. And yeah, hopefully, it worked out [laughs].

AD: Oh, absolutely. And I did want to ask about episode nine because it’s so visceral.  It’s these two people that are strangers, really having to forge this connection immediately. How was it shooting that episode and being in that moment?

HP: Yeah. Shooting episode seven and nine – I did those back to back. So we did three intense weeks in the apartment, and then I went three intense weeks out in the snow and getting into all that pretty heavy stuff. All that snow was real, by the way – I was genuinely trudging through four feet of snow, which was challenging at times, but also, there’s a part of me that really kind of loves it. I quite liked the intensity of it, really. I quite liked sort of getting into it and going, ‘We’ve gotta go. We’ve gotta do this thing. We gotta tell the story.’ because I could draw on that. To sort of answer your previous question as well, I could draw on the intensity of the schedule and the intensity of all being back at work and being like, ‘We’ve gotta get this done, there are X amount of things to do in a day.’ Sometimes the weather was against us, all this sort of stuff. It was stuff I could draw on because, ultimately, Jeevan and Kirsten [Mackenzie Davis] are going through this really intense experience. And then Jeevan spins off in a whole direction of his own once he loses Kirsten. There was pressure there that I could use, in a positive way, which was a really great thing. And ultimately, it was a period of time where I was felt so lucky to get to work, to the extent that I was working, and meet new people and be in a new place. To take the second half of episode nine, for example all those actresses were amazing; we were all just stuck in this old supermarket. And weirdly, in between setups, all the lights had to be off so that they could light the scene properly, so we all just sat in a circle in the dark, basically, all getting to know each other, and they were all so lovely. And I think that eventually built up to when we did that huge birth sequence, and there was an element of trust that we all had between each other. And all those moments are just really precious to me now, you know because they’re so unique. I don’t know if I’ll ever do anything like that again, in such a strange circumstance.

AD: The series ends with Jeevan with a family, he has children, and it’s like a literal and thematic rebirth, sort of a second chance at life. How do you feel about his journey and where he ends up?

HP: I love it. It was something that was sort of evolving as we went along, especially during lockdown, as Patrick had more time to work with his writers’ room and really develop what was going on. But he’s very collaborative, so he would be feeding it back to me. And I’m very proud of it; I know he’s very proud of what we do with Jeevan. It’s such a huge arc. From episode one through to episode 10, it’s almost the biggest sort of character arc in the show in terms of how far we take him, not just in terms of time, of course, but just in terms of who he is between those two points. And to have taken a character on such a journey and ridden those challenges, between shooting episode one and then holding onto that character for a year, and then sort of picking back up right where we left off at the beginning of the next year – that was a challenge in and of itself. And then in the middle of all that intense shooting, making sure that we were riding the right beats and making it as truthful as we could, I think we really landed on something really special, and I’m very proud of it. And he’s a character I’ve really loved playing— I’ll be very lucky if I find another character that fulfills me as much as he does. But, you know, let’s see.

AD: Are there any particular scenes or moments that I haven’t asked you about that maybe stand out to you? Is there a particular moment that you want to highlight?

HP: I felt like at the end of my journey with Jeevan, there was a really special moment. The last scene I shot was the scene at the end of episode nine, where we’ve fast-forwarded 20 years and he’s at that lake. That was my last day, and I got there in the morning, this was the end of May, and it was snowing in Canada. It had been blazing sunshine for weeks, and then suddenly, it was snowing. And I was like, ‘We’re not going to get to the scene, and I’m going to have to stay around for another week or something. And then just after lunchtime, the sky broke, the sunshine came in, and we had this beautiful scene. We had this mist rolling off the lake because of the temperature change, and it just felt so right. It just felt so special. And it felt like some sort of release; it felt like something…ethereal had happened. And it just felt like the most perfect end to my journey with the character, and almost a lovely way to sort of say goodbye to him, surrounded by his family and this new beginning that he’s having. So that was a really special moment for me.