Kumail Nanjiani opens up about being super excited for Eternals

Ah, for the sunny days of 2019, when the most entertaining thing that could happen on an otherwise slow news day was something simple and enjoyable, like the The whole internet is losing its mind over Kumail Nanjiani’s Instagram reveal that he was suddenly, unbelievably inflated. And reveal that he did, in the quiet December of this year in hindsight, triggering an Instagram photo of his new physique that was clearly prepared and ready for his appearance as a superhero in Marvel’s upcoming Eternals.

There have been much discussion, then and since, about Nanjiani’s choice to radically transform in such a way, especially in light of a public figure who has been heavier to X-Files fandom, video games and Silicon Valley.

The stand-up / actor gave an interview to GQ this week–literally titled “How Kumail Nanjiani Got Huge”—Who dives quite openly in some of the psychology of this choice. Despite the name, the piece as a whole is much less on his exercise regimen, and much more on Why it happened, and how it changed her life. (The guys are trying to fight him now, first, which is apparently new.)

“I know the look of racist people, ”Nanjiani notes at one point in the interview., describing an “unusual glare” he had of a stranger he physically met at a restaurant shortly after growing up. “But it was a new one!”

Nanjiani says he was motivated to make the switch – which he clearly says, repeatedly no one at Marvel has asked him to do – for factors related to both his career and his own self-image , recalling a childhood watching guys like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone the fweather situation. “We saw these guys who were like Adonis and gods and we were like ‘Oh, that’s what strong men look like, ‘Nanjiani recounts, linking Sylvester Stallone and Adonis in a way few classical scholars have ever known. “Not that they can access their feelings, or cry, or say when they’re sad, or say when they’re scared. They have a six pack up to their necks.

The latter, more self-mockery asides run throughout the room and are the clearest sign we’re getting than this is still the guy who wrote Beta male and The big sick, grappling with the realities of suddenly ready for Wrestlemania form.

At the same time, Nanjiani makes it clear that he really wanted to break away from the roles of nerdy friend he felt trapped in before that.– jumping on Stuber split, so to speak, noting that he now feels like he’s getting offers like “normal” guys instead. “I wasn’t considered a normal guy before that, ”he notes, pointing out that actors with his skin tone are usually stuck playing either nerds or terrorists..

The most interesting parts of the play, however, come from Eternals director Chloe Zhao, who chose Nanjiani to play her character Kingo (an immortal hero living “undercover” as a Bollywood star) long before he made big physical movements. Zhao denies Nanjiani’s claim that she was “a little upset” with him for making such a drastic change, but clarifies that she always wanted it for the role:

Kingo is a classic movie star of the Golden Age. We watch Kumail, and it makes sense to us. Obviously, it transformed to make it even more emphasized. But let’s just say it’s a shame that he’s cataloged, that it’s been attributed to him. This was obviously wrong because what attracts us to him is a level of self-confidence thanks to the show and yet that soft heart and big heart below. And that’s also the character we wrote. It was just the same person.