Photo: Rodin Eckenroth/Getty
Kumail Nanjianienjoys a good challenge.
While speaking to PEOPLE at the premiere of his new Hulu showWelcome to Chippendales, theEternalsstar discussed his leading role playingSomen “Steve” Banerjee, an Indian immigrant who founded the male-stripping empire.
“I’m not interested in playing boring, good, noble characters,” the actor, 44, explained. “And the idea that I can’t play a certain type of character just because I’m not right is not acceptable to me. So for me, my goal is to play interesting, flawed characters. I really was, I was excited to play this guy.”
Kumail Nanjiani as Somen “Steve” Banerjee inWelcome to Chippendales.Erin Simkin/Hulu
Noting that he has “never done a performance that’s this outside my wheelhouse,” he also told PEOPLE, “I hope they [the audience] think he’s very different from me.”
“A lot of types of people I know, a lot of types of people I’ve met in the business, so it is that,” he shared. “Nobody specifically, because I don’t know anybody like him. It was just a matter of taking pieces of people that I knew or types of people I knew and trying to make a new character.”
Phillip Faraone/The Hollywood Reporter via Getty
Welcome to Chippendales, an eight-episode limited series, will tell the “insane,darkly comedic, crime-ridden storybehind the unique male revue that became a cultural phenomenon.”
The late Banerjee was an Indian American entrepreneur who struck gold in 1979 when he added a male stripper dance troupe for female audiences to the lineup at his Los Angeles nightclub. The first of its kind, Chippendales has evolved into a Broadway-style burlesque show franchise with residencies all over the world, including a Las Vegas flagship.
Banerjee was alsoindictedfor plotting to kill some former Chippendale dancers he allegedly considered a threat.
Murray Bartlett as Nick De Noia inWelcome to Chippendales.Erin Simkin/Hulu
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Welcome to Chippendalesis streaming on Hulu now, with new episodes dropping Tuesdays.
source: people.com
