Kumail Nanjiani as Somen ‘Steve’ Banerjee in Welcome to Chippendales
(Picture: HULU)For years, the only roles Kumail Nanjiani was offered were nerds. Even after the stand-up comedian-turned-actor’s indie film The Big Sick became a worldwide sensation, the parts stayed the same, though they did get bigger. “Instead of the nerdy food delivery guy, I was now the nerdy guy in a weird action story.”
Then he landed a role in Marvel blockbuster Eternals, for which he bulked up, and everything changed – though not necessarily in the way he expected. “It’s not that I got to do action stuff, but I got to play all kinds of characters. Just normal people who were married and had kids.”
So it took playing immortal, chiselled-torsoed, superhero-turned-Bollywood star Kingo, opposite Angelina Jolie, for him to finally get the chance to play a normal bloke? “Maybe that’s what it is,” he laughs. “If you’re a South Asian guy in the industry, if you become a superhero, then maybe you can play just a husband.”
His latest role is anything but normal. Nanjiani stars in Welcome to Chippendales on Disney+, which follows the rise and fall of Somen Banerjee (who changed his name to Steve), the founder of the world-famous male striptease empire.
The show is based on the book Deadly Dance: The Chippendale Murders, by K Scot Macdonald and Patrick MontesDeOca, which gives the first indication that this is not a nostalgic look at a kitsch curio from the Eighties and Nineties. Banerjee is a socially awkward outsider who goes from gas station attendant to wealthy club owner, only for everything to fall apart in a flurry of murders and arson. “I didn’t know the founder of the Chippendales was Indian or all this crime happened behind the scenes,” Nanjiani says. “So much wild stuff happened.”
The show’s creator Robert Siegel had approached Nanjiani some years before with the idea for a film, but at that stage he was intimidated by the role. When Siegel returned, this time with the idea of an eight-part series, things had changed. “It felt like the right time,” he says. “I wanted to do something really dramatic and dark.”
The 44-year-old found his way into the character through a photograph of Banerjee surrounded by Chippendales dancers. “It seemed to me he was king of a world that would not have him, unless he was king,” Nanjiani says. “That was a big piece of the puzzle. It was like, ‘Okay this guy does not fit into the world at all. How does that make him think about himself, how does that make him think about all the people around him?”
What starts as a classic story of an immigrant working hard to make it big soon goes horribly wrong. “The nightmare is the other side of the American dream,” Nanjiani says. “I wouldn’t say it’s a story that pivots to another thing; it’s a story that goes to its own logical conclusion. That is kind of the end point for the American dream.”
Nanjiani was delighted to play the complex role of a guy who goes bad; he feels in Hollywood’s laudable attempts to cast more diverse actors, filmmakers tend to limit the parts to positive role models. “[Banerjee is] a real character. If this wasn’t a real story, I don’t think they would have cast me, as they would have had the same thoughts like, ‘What are we saying by casting a brown guy in a bad role.’ And that’s really limiting too.”
He found great support on set from the stellar cast of actors including Murray Bartlett, Juliette Lewis, and Annaleigh Ashford. He also received help from British star Riz Ahmed, who advised him on working on prestige drama – Ahmed had starred previously in the acclaimed The Night Of – in contrast to a movie. “I’m just a fan of his and we’ve run into each other and become friends. We’re both Pakistani. I forget who reached out to who first. He’s so good.”
They’ve never worked together, but as Haja Estree in the series Obi-Wan Kenobi, Nanjiani followed Ahmed into the Star Wars universe – the latter starred in Rogue One in 2016. “That was before I met him. Just seeing someone who kind of looked like me on screen, an action star in a Star Wars movie, was very affecting.”
As a huge fan of comic books and science fiction growing up, being in superhero films and Star Wars must be career highs? “I absolutely love it, and I honestly don’t sit and think about it too much because I think it would play with my head.”
The challenge of doing Star Wars, he says, is to forget you’re doing Star Wars. “The advantage is you know this stuff in your bones, because you’ve been watching it your whole life. The same with Eternals, I’d been watching superhero movies my whole life. You just have to forget that’s what you’re doing, otherwise every day you’d be like, ‘Oh my God I’m talking to Obi-Wan Kenobi right now!’ I don’t think that’s conducive to good acting.”
He adds, “You approach it like any other job and the work is to try and ignore that people are carrying lightsabres.”
Nanjiani grew up in Karachi, moving to the US at 18 to study before embarking on a career in comedy, gigging for over a decade. In 2013, he released a stand-up special called Beta Male (which can be found on Spotify) as his profile rose, before landing the role of Dinesh – yes, a nerd – in the sitcom Silicon Valley.
The Big Sick in 2017 was a defining moment. Written with his wife Emily V Gordon about their relationship – and when she fell into a coma – he played himself, taking acting lessons to do it. “Shooting a specific series of scenes in Silicon Valley I realised I was quite limited in what I could do on screen. That I didn’t have the toolset to dial in some of these things. And I was like, ‘If The Big Sick gets made, I’ve got to put myself in the best position for success.’” It became one of the most successful independent films of the year.
Then, in 2021, came Eternals. Nanjiani went through an extraordinary physical transformation for the role, into the sort of Adonis who would feel comfortable gyrating at Chippendales. He posted two shots of his ripped physique on Instagram and instantly went viral. Many hailed the look but, in the way of things on the internet, others criticised his transformation as a vision of toxic masculinity.
What is it like when your body becomes internet discourse, a discourse that can turn negative very quickly? “There’s nothing I can do… anything people talk about online will have a negative aspect to it. I can’t control that.
“It’s the side effect of me getting to live my dream, so it’s a small price to pay – everyone gets an opinion on my work and what I look like. I just have to disengage from it and let them do it and try and worry about the things I actually can affect.”
After a hugely restricted diet for Eternals, Nanjiani was able to cut loose for Welcome to Chippendales, as he was adamant he wouldn’t wear padding for the role. “I wanted to look different from the dancers around me and make sure he was someone who didn’t fit into that world, and the way he looks is a big part of it.”
The show had set him up with nutritionists who advised on the healthy way to gain weight “and I was like, ‘None of this really sounds that fun. I should just have fun and eat whatever I wanted to eat. So I did.’”
What did it involve? “There were a lot of cheesecakes and croissants and fried chicken sandwiches and French fries. To eat as many French fries as you want without feeling you’ve done something bad, as someone who has a weird association with food, it was very freeing. It actually unlocked me from some rigid mindset I’d fallen into since doing Eternals. It actually mentally helped me, even if physically it wasn’t the best while I was doing it.” He adds that he is back to eating healthily though with fewer restrictions than before.
As for what’s next, he and Gordon have written “a couple of movies” they want to get made and he is appearing in a forthcoming action-comedy, though can’t say more. Then there’s the stand-up.
“I would love to do stand-up again. The hard thing with stand-up is it takes a while to get the rust off, and you have to write a lot of stuff. And now I’m a little more known, getting on stage, the expectations are a little different so that’s what’s scaring me about it,” he says.
