Kumail Nanjiani channels Wolverine, John McClane, & more for Men’s Health

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Following the events of AVENGERS: ENDGAME, Marvel Studios' upcoming THE ETERNALS begins as an unexpected tragedy forces The Eternals, a race of ancient aliens who have been living on Earth in secret for thousands of years, out of the shadows to reunite against mankind's most ancient enemy, The Deviants. Among this ensemble of new heroes is Kumail Nanjiani, who will be playing the role of Kingo, a cosmic-powered Eternal who has a secret identity which is hard to beat – a Bollywood star. While speaking with Men's Health, the actor said, "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." 

As we know, Nanjiani successfully managed to get incredibly ripped for the role, and he also posed for a series of photos for Men's Health where he recreated a few cinematic characters, such as Wolverine, John McClane, and Pete "Maverick" Mitchell.

Kumail Nanjiani has previously teased that THE ETERNALS may be more sci-fi, not to mention epic, than anything Marvel has done so far.

It’s really, really an epic. And it’s really such a science-fiction story. It’s a superhero story, but in some ways, it’s the most sci-fi of all the Marvel movies and it’s the most epic of all the Marvel movies. And the story spans thousands of years. So it’s really not like any of the other Marvel movies.

"I love superhero movies, but beyond that, this is exactly the type of movie that I love," Nanjiani continued. "If someone would say, ‘All right, what kind of movie do you want to watch? What are the things that’s going to have?’ I would say all these things. And that’s what this movie is. It really spans thousands and thousands of years. And the story is just so big and so epic. And I don’t mean epic in the internet way, I mean epic in the old-school way…It doesn’t look like any of the other Marvel movies. I was on set shooting, and the director showed me just a still of all of us together in the scene. And I was like, ‘I mean, look at all of us together.’ We all look so different. It’s me and a huge buff guy from Korea [Ma Dong-seok] and Salma Hayek and Angelina Jolie and Gemma Chan and Lauren Ridloff. You don’t ever get to see people like this together in the same room, let alone in awesome superhero costumes."

THE ETERNALS is slated to hit theaters on November 6, 2020.