Kumail Nanjiani’s favourite movie: “I just love it every time”
People who enjoy Taskmaster, and there are many of them because it’s an excellent show, are very excited indeed at the moment after the line-up for the 21st season was revealed, and even as someone who stopped watching it after about the eighth series, I have to admit I saw it and thought, “OK, that’s impressive,” Armando Ianucci. Joanna Page. And perhaps most impressively, former Marvel actor and comedian Kumail Nanjiani.
Nanjiani is a major name, especially in the US, where he went from New York stand-up to starring in the hit comedy Silicon Valley on HBO to writing and getting Oscar-nominated for his own film, 2017’s The Big Sick.
It pushed him into the big leagues, earning him roles on films like the latest Men in Black and headlining Jordan Peele’s reboot of the Twilight Zone. Then came his really big movie, Marvel’s 2021 movie Eternals, which many hoped would be the start of a franchise to rival some of the brand’s biggest.
But it wasn’t to be, Eternals was seen as a flop despite bringing in a big chunk of change at the box office and the negative reviews affected Nanjiani badly; he eventually admitted to having therapy in order to deal with the fallout from the film. But he continued to be involved with large scale projects including Disney’s Star Wars spin-off Obi Wan Kenobi with Ewan McGregor.
Nanjiani more recently has returned to stand-up comedy, with his one-off TV special Night Thoughts getting considerable acclaim, and it’s interesting to note where his initial inspiration to grab the mic came from, an unusually British source, especially given he grew up in Karachi, Pakistan, before moving to America at 18.
He admits to being a huge fan of Richard Curtis’ 1994 comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral, saying that he saw Hugh Grant’s stuttering character in the film as essentially doing a long stand-up routine, especially during the pivotal best man’s speech. Nanjiani found himself wishing he could do a job in which he simply gave wedding speeches all day, leading him to what he felt was the next best thing in stand-up.
In selecting Curtis’ movie as one of his favourites of all time, Nanjiani said, “I would say Four Weddings and a Funeral, just because I have seen it the most times, and I just love it every time. It’s so funny and charming, and everybody’s great in it. It just looks good. It just feels good. I’d be lying if I put any other movie on top, because that’s the movie I’ve seen the most.”
The film was a revelation on release in the early 1990s, rocketing Grant to worldwide fame and a 30-year career as an A-lister, as well as setting Curtis on the road to writing future hits like Love Actually and the spiritual successor to Four Weddings, 1999’s Notting Hill, which also starred Grant alongside Julia Roberts.
Aside from Taskmaster, Nanjiani has also been appearing in the hit video game adaptation Fallout and has several other projects in development, including an intriguing sounding spin-off to the Insidious world called Thread opposite Mandy Moore, in which a couple travel back in time to prevent their daughters death, but predictably due to the fact they’re using some kind of ancient spell, things do not go well at all.
