It’s funny to me that Kumail Nanjiani’s current career reads like a fairy tale and a parable. A funny, nerdy Pakistani immigrant finds success as a comedian and actor, but only while playing variations on “the South East Asian nerd.” Kumail then transformed his body to play a superhero, hoping that it would open up conversations and break the nerd typecasting. And now… people just want to talk to Kumail about his body transformation. He’s still the same nerd! He’s just ripped now. And I’m not sure he’s still enjoying all of these interviews where he’s asked constantly about his body. Kumail has a good profile in GQ to promote The Eternals, and yes, it’s mostly about getting ripped. Some highlights:
When he was a kid, a classmate called him Chicken Shoulders. “It would’ve been better if I was like, ‘Hey, I like how I look. F–k ’em all.’ But I didn’t do that.”
He’s tired of people asking about his body: “I’ve found out over the last year and a half, since I did that picture, that I am very uncomfortable talking about my body—and it’s become less and less and less comfortable.”
He really wanted to take The Eternals seriously: “If I’m playing the first South Asian superhero, I want to look like someone who can take on Thor or Captain America, or any of those people,” he says. But also because the character shrouds himself in the guise of a Bollywood star. Nanjiani grew up watching Bollywood movies—“From the ’60s to the ’90s I know basically every big [one],” says Nanjiani—so he knows those guys are jacked. “I was like, I want this to be believable. I want to feel that kind of powerful in this role.”
He’s worried he’s perpetuating the toxic image of masculinity that he grew up idolizing. “It is aggression. It is anger. A lot of times we are taught to be useful by using physical strength or our brain in an aggressive, competitive way. Not in an empathetic way. Not in an open, collaborative way. It’s the same thing when you have all these guys, like, asking people to debate them on Twitter. That’s the same as arm wrestling. It’s about defeating. And that’s what the male ideal has been. Dominating. Defeating. Crushing. Killing. Destroying. That’s what being jacked is.”
Men look at him nowadays like they want to fight him: “I just see the little child inside them, like a little child pretending to be a big, strong man. It’s laughable if it wasn’t so f–king devastating—and causing so many problems in the world. I just want to be like, Dude, if you learn how to cry, you’d just be a lot happier.”
Why he’s posted photos of his jacked body: “I wanted different types of opportunities. I wanted the industry to see me differently. With brown people, there are very specific roles that we used to get. Either we’re terrified or we’re causing terror. Those are the only two options we had. Either I’m fixing your computer, or I’m, like, planning something at the stock exchange. I shared [those photos] specifically to be like, Hey, I needed to change how people saw me so I could have the type of opportunities I was excited about. And those did happen! Now I get those opportunities. I don’t just mean action stuff. I mean, like, now I get opportunities to play a normal guy. I was not seen as a normal guy before this.”
It’s crazy that he’s sort of seeing the darker side to being a strong, jacked-looking guy, which is that other men now want to start sh-t. I never would have predicted that, but I believe him. The toxicity of men is something I’ll never doubt or understand. And Kumail is right, it’s just like “dude, learn how to cry.” Learn how to deal with sh-t another way. You don’t actually have to live in this bubble of toxicity. You don’t have to perform your masculinity. Anyway, I love Kumail and I hope he gets all of the movies he wants!
Kumail Nanjiani for the November issue of GQ, photographed by Aaron Sinclair and styled by Mobolaji Dawodu. Read the full story by @SkipperClay here:
— GQ Magazine (@GQMagazine) October 7, 2021
Photos courtesy of GQ.
