Kumail Nanjiani will play Chippendales founder Somen “Steve” Banerjee in a limited series that has been ordered by Hulu, according to Variety.
It will tell the true story of Banerjee, the Indian-American entrepreneur who started Chippendales. The series will detail the insane, darkly comedic, crime-ridden story behind the unique male revue that became a cultural phenomenon.
According to Vanity Fair, the first time Kumail Nanjiani was asked to play Somen Banerjee, the founder of the male exotic-dance troupe known as Chippendales, he didn’t feel ready—to embody somebody so different from him, to play a dramatic role of such epic scope. Robert Siegel, the writer behind acclaimed films like The Wrestler and The Founder, pitched Nanjiani hard to take on the part. “Kumail was always my first choice,” Siegel says. “I think he was a little reluctant, or maybe nervous, about playing a bad guy.”
Although scripts have been written in the past for actors such as Dev Patel and Bollywood actor Aamir Khan, years went by and this “arms race,” as Siegel calls it, flamed out. That was until the streaming titans entered the game and now small indie films seem to be receiving a second life with these limited series.
The episodic format only helps a tale as dense, complicated, and wild as Hulu’s Welcome to Chippendales. Put simply, there’s a lot of ground to cover. Welcome to Chippendales introduces Nanjiani’s Somen as an ambitious immigrant with eyes toward a grand American dream. He saves enough money from his day job at a gas station to open a nightclub, while exploring various gimmicks to stand out in a starry Hollywood town, a sexy male striptease routine, exclusively performed for women, proves the marquee that sticks. He builds it into an empire that still exists today.
Welcome to Chippendales is set to premiere later in 2022.
