Dev Patel Recalls ‘Insane’ Parties for Skins TV Show

Dev Patel is looking back at some of the memorable and “insane” moments from Skins, the show that gave him his start.

The Oscar-nominated actor, who played Anwar in the first two seasons of the racy teen drama series’ U.K. version from 2007 to 2008, was shown a throwback photo of himself at a party scene with his fellow castmembers during a recent interview with NME.

The picture quickly sparked some vivid memories for the Monkey Man star and director, saying he remembers some “really insane” Skins parties where he claimed teens were “drugged off their faces”.

“I’m wearing a corset with the Rocawear belt, and basically my arse is hanging out,” Patel said of the photo. “That was a crazy day.

He continued, “They did these commercials where they’d rent out these mansions of whatever and then just a bunch of kids, our age and older, would come and half of them were drugged off their faces, and [the crew] are like, ‘just… have fun.’ It was insane. It was really, really insane.”

Patel specifically remembered what he called “one of the best days of shooting” because of a specific song the crew played during the shoot.

“They played Shy FX ‘Original Nutter’ and they had this club scene and everyone was just going mental,” the Lion actor explained. “I remember that because they played like 60 times and I was like a Kenyan dude in the Maasai Mara jumping up and down.”

The controversial British show Skins went on to air for seven seasons total before wrapping up in 2013. It followed the secret lives of teens trying to grow up and find love and happiness despite questionable parenting and teachers.

A U.S. version of the series was also launched on MTV in 2011, however, it only ran for one season after it faced backlash over its sexual content. At the time, several advertisers withdrew from MTV due to the show, and executives at then-MTV parent Viacom also ordered producers to tone down the series’ content ahead of its premiere, as they were worried about violating child pornography laws.