More from IndieWire<\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cGrowing up, I was sort of raised to believe that the body was bad, that all of the body’s desires are bad, and that the soul wants goodness and the body wants bad. And so I guess my entire sense of humor is based around that dichotomy, too,\u201d Nanjiani told NPR. \u201cSo the fact that I didn’t like any body jokes was because since I was a little kid, I was taught to sort of be ashamed that everything my body wants or does.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201cWelcome to Chippendales\u201d actor added, \u201cIt’s really cruel that we had such limits on how much we could eat because Pakistani food is absolutely delicious. I’ve always had a weird relationship with food. I’ve always had guilt or regret associated with it. I’ve always used food as a punishment or as a reward.\u201d<\/p>\n
He continued, \u201cI didn’t really start thinking about it or trying to come to terms with it until after I was done with ‘Eternals,’ because doing ‘Eternals’ brought a lot of those issues up to the surface. I realized after that that I thought about food in a specific kind of way that I needed to explore and revisit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The preparation for playing real-life true crime figure and male exotic dance club founder Somen \u201cSteve\u201d Banerjee helped Nanjiani do \u201ca lot of that work for me\u201d when it came to addressing food concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cI realized that I had been so rigid with food and used it in so many unhealthy ways and then forcing myself to eat unhealthy amounts of unhealthy food in a way got me out of that trap,\u201d he said .\u201dIt’s still work to do , but it was freeing for months to just eat whatever I wanted, to eat as much as I wanted. It sort of freed me from some of the ways that I’ve been thinking about food.\u201d<\/p>\n
Story continues<\/button><\/p>\nAnd even after Nanjiani broke the internet by showing off a toned and stripped-down, shirtless pic for \u201cEternals,\u201d he didn’t feel \u201cpowerful\u201d in his strength anymore.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter that, it was by and large negative. In the beginning, having that reaction from people \u2013 I’d never had that reaction before and I think part of me had always wanted it \u2014 it felt powerful. It felt really exciting,\u201d Nanjiani explained. \u201cAnd then pretty quickly after that, it felt reductive, it felt naked, it felt vulnerable. And it made it so that the discussion of my body exists in the public sphere. It made it so that I can walk down the street and someone will just come up to me and say something about my body. That still happens all the time. I have a complicated relationship with it. I don’t regret releasing those pictures because they did change my life. However, I do wish it didn’t occupy as much of my head space as it does.\u201d<\/p>\n
The gendered double standard is also not lost on Nanjiani.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I understand like .00001 percent of what women have been going through their entire lives,\u201d the \u201cBig Sick\u201d writer said. \u201cThe big difference, of course, is that I don’t feel scared walking alone in a parking lot at night \u2014 you know, that power differential isn’t there. I feel like sometimes with women, men catcalling them or something feels a little bit like taking ownership of something that’s not theirs. Men are sort of, in a way, taking power away from women in that moment. I don’t have that. When someone comments on my body in public, I don’t feel that there’s like a power differential there, really. However, being reduced to how you look, that’s obviously still a big part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read Nanjiani’s IndieWire interview about all things \u201cWelcome to Chippendales\u201d here.<\/p>\n
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Click here to read the full article. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kumail Nanjiani has eternally had a \u201cweird relationship\u201d with food and diet culture, but Marvel’s \u201cEternals\u201d marked a turning point for the actor. While Nanjiani underwent a physical transformation to play a god superhero in the 2021 movie, he had to come to terms with long-lingering issues related to food consumption. More from IndieWire \u201cGrowing …<\/p>\n
‘Eternals’ Weight Loss Heightened My ‘Unhealthy’ Relationship with Food<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n'Eternals' Weight Loss Heightened My 'Unhealthy' Relationship with Food - harchi90<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n