I'm actually surprised that Dev's career has managed to survive even though most of his parts are ether ethnic or supporting (in fact, he got the role in Slumdog because they needed an Indian guy and that fit with the story). Not only he is ethnic but he is not what you call attractive. He should consider himself lucky with the way things have gone.
Indeed, he should count himself lucky. Its basically because he is he go-to guy when producers want to cast a young Indian dude that will appeal to an international market (outside of Bollywood). He has no one to compete with. How many other young Indian guys famous in Hollywood can you name?
Same goes to Katie Leung of Harry Potter. You need a young British Chinese girl for One Child or Jackie Chan's The Foreigner? Get Katie, she's the go-to young British Chinese girl. Studios will always try to cast known names as much as possible for certain roles to pull in audiences and to assure themselves they have an experienced professional.
Dev didnt even have any professional acting experience before Skins. He even said on day 1 of shooting he didnt know what he was doing. He was cast after 2 auditions and then Boyle's daughter recommended him to her dad for Slumdog Millionaire and then M Night Shyamalan (a fellow Indian obviously helping a brother out) cast him in Last Airbender.
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