Wanted to be the other of nerdy brown stereotypes: Kumail Nanjiani

By PTI

LOS ANGELES: Actor Kumail Nanjiani says he wished to vary the way in which individuals from Pakistan and the Middle East are portrayed within the American popular culture by making certain that his character of a superhero in “Eternals” was freed from ‘brown dude’ stereotypes.

As a part of his preparation for the position of Kingo, a superhero who lives on Earth as a preferred Bollywood film star, Nanjiani had a whole bodily tranformation, which the actor stated was his means of going in opposition to the portrayal of nerdy brown guys in American movies.

“I’ve been in this industry for about a decade and I looked at the usual opportunities that the brown dudes get. We get to be nerdy. I wanted him to be the opposite of that I wanted him to be cool. With nerdy goes ‘weakling,’ and I wanted him to be the opposite of that and to be strong physically. Or we get to be terrorists, and I wanted him to be the opposite of that,” the actor informed The Los Angeles Times.

“I wanted him to be this character full of joy. In working with Chloé (Zhao, the director), we were like, let’s take every single thing that I haven’t gotten to do and make a character who’s the exact opposite of the way a lot of American pop culture see people from Pakistan or the Middle East.”

The 43-year-old actor stated he had determined to have enjoyable taking part in the superhero within the highly-anticipated drama that has a few of the greatest Hollywood stars in Angelina Jolie, Richard Madden, Gemma Chan, Lauren Ridloff, Brian Tyree Henry, Salma Hayek, Lia McHugh, Don Lee, and Kit Harington.

“I was very lucky that Chloé was really on board with that. Because when you have like 10 characters, you’re trying to set yourself apart from the other characters and find your own shadings. You’re not going to get a ton of real estate. So you want it to come from a very specific place. I decided going in, I’m going to have fun during this process.”

The film is in regards to the titular group who has been dwelling on earth for the previous 7,000 years.

Created by cosmic beings known as Celestials, the Eternals have been despatched to Earth to safeguard the planet from their evil counterparts Deviants.