KUMAIL NANJIANI would like to remind everyone about his brain, but I’ve brought him to the gym to talk about his muscles. He gets that this is all people—especially men—have wanted to talk about since the photos. You’ve seen them. He strikes a superhero pose, his shirtless torso slicked with baby oil, displaying branching veins that crisscross his arms like a complex irrigation system. Brows arched, he gazes at something in the middle distance— more muscles? He posted them from the set of Eternals in December 2019, the culmination of a 14-month process that began almost immediately after the director Chloé Zhao cast him in the movie as a (roughly) 7,000-year-old Earth defender named Kingo. There was no mandate from Zhao or the studio to remake his body in the mold of the Hollywood Chrises. This was all him. If he was going to be the first South Asian superhero in a Marvel production, then he wanted to look like a guy who could stand in a lineup alongside Captain America and Thor and the rest of them. Plus Kingo lives in the modern-day world as a Bollywood superstar. I mean, have you seen Hrithik Roshan? Have you seen those melons?
These were the rationalizations he gave to Zhao and the studio as he embarked on a serious quest filled with trainers and nutritionists and a cardiologist. Really, he just wanted it in a primal, adolescent way and has wanted it since he was a kid so painfully shy he worried shopkeepers thought he was ugly. This was his chance, and if he didn’t take it at the age of 40, he never would. He would enter the Marvel laboratory as a fan and emerge as a superhero. A comic-book dream.
Denne historien er fra October 11 - 24, 2021-utgaven av New York magazine.
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Denne historien er fra October 11 - 24, 2021-utgaven av New York magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Early and Often: David Freedlander - Momentum vs. Machine The Trump and Harris campaigns battle it out for every last vote.
WIth two weeks left to go, the contours of the 2024 presidential election are clear: Both campaigns need voters who usually don’t vote, and Kamala Harris needs to bring the Democratic coalition, including its Trump-curious members, back home.While the Republican side plans to spend the remaining days of the contest trying to lure low-propensity voters to the polls, the Harris team will attempt to persuade voters of color to return to its side and will try to increase numbers among white voters in previously red suburbs.
Drowning in Slop - A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with AI garbage-and it's only going to get worse.
SLOP started seeping into Neil Clarke's life in late 2022. Something strange was happening at Clarkesworld, the magazine. Clarke had founded in 2006 and built into a pillar of the world of speculative fiction. Submissions were increasing rapidly, but “there was something off about them,” he told me recently. He summarized a typical example: “Usually, it begins with the phrase ‘In the year 2250-something’ and then it goes on to say the Earth’s environment is in collapse and there are only three scientists who can save us. Then it describes them in great detail, each one with its own paragraph. And then—they’ve solved it! You know, it skips a major plot element, and the final scene is a celebration out of the ending of Star Wars.” Clarke said he had received “dozens of this story in various incarnations.”
The City Politic- The Other Eric Adams Scandal The NYPD shot a fare evader, a cop, and two bystanders. He defends it.
On Sunday, September 15, Derell Mickles hopped a turnstile, got asked to leave by cops, then entered the subway again ten minutes later through an emergency exit. This was at the Sutter Avenue L station, out by his mother's house, five stops from the end of the line. Police said they noticed he was holding a folded knife. They followed him up the stairs to the elevated train, asking him 38 times to drop the weapon.
Can the Media Survive?
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A Matter of Perspective
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Creator, Destroyer
A retrospective reveals an architect's vision, optimism, and supreme arrogance.
In Praise of Bad Readers
In a time of war, there is a danger in surveying the world as if it were a novel.
Trust the Kieran Culkin Process
First, he nearly dropped out of Oscar hopeful A Real Pain. Then he convinced Jesse Eisenberg to change the way he directs.
The Funniest Vampires on TV
What We Do in the Shadows is coming to an end. Its idiosyncratic brand of comedy may be too.
