Kumail Nanjiani is dishing about the transformations he underwent for Marvel’s upcoming Eternals.
In a recent interview with Good Morning America, he talked about the various new skills he had to undergo for the role, including getting really fit, spending four months to learn a Bollywood dance routine, and doing stunts that involve something other than pretending to write computer code for his role as the nerdy Dinesh Chutgai in HBO’s Silicon Valley.
“The most stunts I’ve gotten to do before was just like typing in front of a screen. And now I can pretend that I can shoot blasts from my fingers. It’s very different. It was very, very fun,” Kunjiani.
Indeed, the comedian and Academy Award-nominated screenwriter said before his turn as the immortal hero Kingo in Eternals, it was fairly commonplace for him to play “nerds,” but that this new film will cause people to see him “in a different light.”
When viewing a video clip of himself, Kunjiani remarked his change in appearance surprises even him, saying, “I don’t know who that is, but he looks confident.”
Perhaps epitomizing the transition Kunjiani made from more meek characters to action heroes is the fact that the actor now has an action figure based on him, with which his dad even took a selfie and sent to the actor.
“As soon as I got the action figure I was blown away,” he said. Kunjiani clearly isn’t ceasing with his self-deprecating demeanor, however, despite the transformation.
“I saw the profile, and I told my wife, I was like, they messed up my profile. And she was like, no they didn’t. Learning a lot about myself,” he quipped.
Eternals comes to the theaters this Friday, Nov. 5.