KUMAIL NANJIANI CAN DO ANYTHING

Every day in the gym, as he was torturing himself to get into superhero shape, Kumail Nanjiani would hear that phrase in his head – part mission statement, part plea. The words first came to him early last year. That’s when the 41-year-old actor and writer began the workout regimen that would prepare him for this November’s Marvel adventure The Eternals, in which he plays an ego-swollen, muscle-packed alien among men. Nanjiani devoured comic books and action films while growing up in Karachi, Pakistan, and has spent the past few years quietly positioning himself for Marvel supersizing. When it finally happened, he thought: I’m playing the first South Asian superhero in a Marvel movie. I don’t want to be the schlubby brown guy – I want to look like someone who can hang with Thor and Captain America.

And so, for months, Nanjiani would leave his home in the Los Angeles neighbourhood of Los Feliz and head to a discreetly located megagym in Beverly Hills. During the hour-long trip, he would be filled with dread. He’d been hitting the gym since he was 16 years old but had never trained as intensely as he would for The Eternals; at one point, electric shocks were involved. The early workouts were so brutal he’d come close to vomiting. All Nanjiani could do was try to dissociate from the pain. Leave your body, he’d keep repeating. Please – do the movements, and leave your body.

It didn’t work. For a while,