Marvel star Kumail Nanjiani says he was very affected by negative Eternals reviews: "It was really, really hard"
Feb. 7, 2024The actor played Kingo in the movie
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Eternalsstar Kumail Nanjiani has spoken out about the negative critical reaction to the movie.
The Marvel film sits at 47% onRotten Tomatoes, which at the time was the lowest critics score for the entire MCU. It’s since been surpassed byAnt-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which scored just 46%.
“It was really, really hard, because Marvel thought that movie was going to be really, really well reviewed,” Nanjiani shared onInside of You with Michael Rosenbaum. “And so they lifted the embargo really early, and they also put it in some fancy movie festivals, and they sent us on a big global tour promoting the movie right as the embargo was lifted. And so we had to travel the world, while they thought we’d be going on a wave of raves, and it wasn’t true.”
He added: “I was too aware of it. I was reading every review, I was checking too much, because this thing had become too much in my head… I think that there was some weird soup in the atmosphere for why that movie got slammed so much, and not very much of it has to do with the actual quality of the movie. Anyway, it was really, really hard, and that’s when I was like, ‘This is unfair to me, it’s unfair to Emily [V. Gordon, Nanjiani’s wife], I can’t approach my work this way anymore, some shit’s got to change.'”
Nanjiani then said he started counselling in the aftermath. “I still talk to my therapist about that. Emily says that I do have trauma from it,” he commented.
In the meantime, check out our guide to all theupcoming Marvel movies and TV showsfor everything else the MCU has in store.
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I’m a Senior Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering all things film and TV for the site’s Total Film and SFX sections. I previously worked on the Disney magazines team at Immediate Media, and also wrote on the CBeebies, MEGA!, and Star Wars Galaxy titles after graduating with a BA in English.
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