Dev Patel broke up a knife fight in Australia after 'natural instinct' to help kicked in

The Green Knight and Slumdog Millionaire actor Dev Patel broke up a knife fight in Australia, EW has confirmed.

Representatives for the 32-year-old told said in a statement that Patel and his friends were on the streets of Adelaide when they "witnessed a violent altercation that was already in progress outside of a convenience story," and that he "acted on his natural instinct to try and de-escalate the situation and break up the fight."

The group was "successful in doing so," the statement noted, with the actor reportedly staying on site until the police and ambulance arrived to transport a male victim after a woman allegedly stabbed him in the chest at around 8:45 p.m. local time, per local news.

"There are no heroes in this situation and sadly this specific incident highlights a larger systemic issue of marginalized members of society not being treated with the dignity and respect they deserve," Patel's representatives continued. "The hope is that the same level of media attention this story is receiving (solely because Dev, as a famous person, was involved) can be a catalyst for lawmakers to be compassionate in determining long-term solutions to help not only the individuals who were involved but the community at large."

In addition to his breakout role in the Best Picture-winning drama Slumdog Millionaire, Patel has appeared in critically lauded films like Lion — for which he received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor — The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Personal History of David Copperfield, and the aforementioned Green Knight adaptation alongside Alicia Vikander.

Patel can next be seen in Monkey Man, his feature directorial debut.

Hear more on all of today's must-see picks on EW's What to Watch podcast, hosted by Gerrad Hall.

Related content:

• A patricide reveals a dark family mystery in Netflix's I Just Killed My Dad trailer
• Nominated for Nothing: The Oscars overlooked Dev Patel's heroic turn in The Green Knight
• Modern History: Dev Patel dives into The Personal History of David Copperfield