In a refreshingly candid interview, actor and comedian Kumail Nanjiani has opened up about the profound personal and professional impact of his experience with Marvel Studios’ “Eternals,” revealing that the film’s critical and commercial disappointment “shattered” him and was the catalyst for him seeking therapy.
Speaking on Mike Birbiglia’s “Working It Out” podcast, Nanjiani detailed the massive expectations he had when he was cast as the superhero Kingo in the 2021 film. He explained that the standard Marvel contract had him believing his future was set for the next decade. “I was like, ‘Oh, this is going to be my job for the next 10 years,’” Nanjiani said. “I signed on for six movies. I signed on for a video game. I signed on for a theme park ride. They make you sign up for all this stuff.”
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He had envisioned a career where he would appear in a Marvel movie every year, giving him the financial and creative freedom to pursue his own smaller projects in between. “And then none of that happened,” he stated bluntly.
“Eternals,” released in November 2021, was met with the worst reviews of any Marvel Cinematic Universe film up to that point. Its global box office of $402 million was considered a theatrical disappointment for a $200 million blockbuster from the typically invincible Marvel Studios. Since the film’s release, Nanjiani’s Kingo and the other Eternals have not been featured in another live-action Marvel project, and they have not been announced as part of the ensemble for the upcoming team-up film, “Avengers: Doomsday.”
Nanjiani shared that the public reception was personally devastating after a year and a half of anticipating the film’s release. “It came out and it got really bad reviews and it didn’t do that well. It shattered me too much,” he shared. “That’s when I was like, ‘Oh I need to go to therapy to figure this out.’” The experience led him to a crucial realization: “For me, what really hit me was just realizing that too much of my self-esteem is tied up in other people’s reaction to my work.”
The actor is now channeling this difficult experience into his art, revealing that the story is a key subject in his new stand-up special, which is set to be released on Hulu later this year.
