Kumail Nanjiani has opened up about his experience working on Marvel’s Eternals, revealing that he signed up for six movies and even a theme park ride before the film was savaged by critics
Kumail Nanjiani had signed to six Marvel films following Eternals, but found himself requiring therapy after critics absolutely slated the superhero flick.
The 47-year-old star took on the role of Kingo in Chloe Zhao’s 2021 blockbuster The Eternals and initially thought his character would become a crucial element of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, after the film flopped spectacularly, Marvel scrapped all their plans for Kingo.
During an appearance on fellow comedian Mike Birbiglia’s Working It Out podcast, Nanjiani disclosed that the Marvel letdown features prominently in his latest stand-up special.
He explained: “I talked about how I was in this big movie. It came out right after COVID, so I had a year and a half at home to just be like, ‘Oh, when this thing comes out!’ But then it came out and it got really bad reviews and it didn’t do that well. It shattered me too much. That’s when I was like, ‘Oh I need to go to therapy to figure this out.'”.
“I was like, ‘Oh, this is going to be my job for the next 10 years’. I signed on for six movies. I signed on for a video game. I signed on for a theme park ride. They make you sign up for all this stuff. And you’re like, ‘This is the next 10 years of my life, so I’ll be doing Marvel movies every year and, in between, I’ll do my own little things, whatever I want to do.’ And then none of that happened.”
Kumail has previously opened up about his struggles to handle the aftermath when the movie failed to win over critics. Speaking on Michael Rosenbaum’s ‘Inside of You’ podcast, he confessed: “I knew it wasn’t me. I think that there were a lot of things that went into it. I love that movie and I’m very proud of that movie. I’ve seen that movie a bunch of times because it’s my kind of movie, and a lot of my stuff I don’t watch.
“It was really, really hard because Marvel thought that movie was going to be really, really well reviewed, so they lifted the embargo early and put it in some fancy movie festivals and they sent us on a big global tour to promote the movie right as the embargo lifted.
“The reviews were bad, and I was too aware of it. I was reading every review and checking too much. I think there was some weird soup in the atmosphere for why that movie got slammed so much, and I think not many much of it has to do with the actual quality of the movie.
“It was really hard and that was when I thought it was unfair to me and unfair to Emily (V. Gordon, his wife) and I can’t approach my work this way anymore. Some s***’s gotta change, so I started counselling and I still talk to my therapist about that.”
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
