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Eternals’ Kumail Nanjiani To Star As Chippendales Founder In Limited Series

Kumail Nanjiani will play Somen ‘Steve’ Banerjee, the Mumbai-born businessman who started the iconic male revue show.

Eternals’ Kumail Nanjiani To Star As Chippendales Founder In Limited Series

Kumail Nanjiani is set to engage in some risqué business.

The Silicon Valley star, 43, is to headline Immigrant, an eight-part Hulu limited series about Somen ‘Steve’ Banerjee, the Indian American entrepreneur who founded the stripper troupe Chippendales.

According to the trades, the series — which is also executive-produced by Nanjiani — will detail the insane, darkly comedic, crime-ridden story behind the unique male revue that became a cultural phenomenon.

In 1979, the Mumbai-born Banerjee made adult entertainment history after he introduced a male stripper dance troupe for female audiences to the lineup at his Los Angeles nightclub, Chippendales.

By the late '80s, Banerjee was at the helm of a US$8-million-a-year business and had clubs in New York, Dallas and Denver. But the Chippendales empire was also mired in scandal.

Banerjee was later embroiled in a plot to kill a number of Chippendales producers, dancers and choreographers and eventually pleaded guilty to arson, racketeering and murder for hire.

In 1994, just hours before he was to be sentenced for having his business partner and choreographer Nick De Noia killed in 1987, Banerjee hanged himself from a coat hook in his cell, using a bedsheet.

The series is written by Robert Siegel, who also wrote Pam & Tommy, another Hulu series, about the true story behind Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s honeymoon sex tape that became the first-ever viral video in history.

Nanjiani, who received a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination for the rom-com The Big Sick, will next appear alongside Angelina Jolie and Gemma Chan in Marvel’s Eternals, in a role which required him to be really, really ripped. Perhaps this will jot your memory.

No word on when production will start on Immigrant but it’ll probably be after Nanjiani is done with the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi, which started filming this month.

Big guns: Kumail Nanjiani spotted leaving a gym in Los Angeles last month. — check out those guns! Even after the filming of ‘Eternals’, Nanjiani continues with his training regime. “I feel like it’s the only thing tethering me to sanity [during the lockdown],” he told People last year.

Marvel’s Eternals opens in cinemas Nov 4.

Photos: TPG News/Click Photos, Chippendales/Instagram

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