Hulu dropped the teaser for its upcoming miniseries Welcome To Chippendales on Tuesday, which stars Kumail Nanjiani as Somen “Steve” Banerjee, an Indian immigrant who “became the unlikely founder of the world’s greatest male-stripping empire — and let nothing stand in his way in the process.”
Although the brief teaser showcases plenty of ’80s nostalgia, mullets, rock-hard abs, and Journey, the limited series is being billed as a “sprawling true-crime saga,” telling the seedy, lesser-known story of the Chippendales phenomenon. In 1987, Banerjee hired a hit man to murder his business partner, Emmy award-winning producer Nick De Noia (played by Murray Bartlett of The White Lotus), and plotted to have two other former associates killed.
“You and me stick together — or, you and me go to war,” Bartlett’s De Noia says in the teaser, before Nanjiani’s Banerjee voiceovers, “you can’t take this personally, this is business” — as the camera pans across a blood-soaked body on a bed with a shotgun lying nearby on the floor. Could this series clinch Bartlett’s second Emmy nomination in a row for playing an ill-fated character? We shall see!
Banerjee later pleaded guilty to attempted arson, racketeering, and murder for hire but was found hanged in his cell before he could serve out his 26-year prison sentence. But perhaps the biggest tragedy in Hulu’s series is that it seems unlikely that Nanjiani will be showing off his own impressive physique onstage.
In addition to Nanjiani and Bartlett, Welcome To Chippendales stars Annaleigh Ashford, Dan Stevens, and Juliette Lewis, with Andrew Rannells and Nicola Peltz appearing in recurring and guest roles.
Welcome to Chippendales premieres Nov. 22 on Hulu.