10 Outrageous Ways Movie Directors Got Performances Out Of Actors

7. Chloe Zhao Lied About Kumail Nanjiani's Bollywood Dance - Eternals

mADONNA Evan
Marvel Studios

He may have been fully prepared to put his body through the wringer in order to get into superhero shape for his MCU bow in last year's Eternals, but that still didn't mean Kumail Nanjiani was fully confident in his frame being up to the task of pulling off an entire Bollywood dance number during ChloƩ Zhao's ensemble epic.

So much so that the Kingo star outright rejected the concept of having to shake his hips in the eventual super-flick, with the director going out of her way to seemingly rewrite the sequence as an action set-piece in order to convince the comedy star to get physical on her set.

Despite actually writing said action sequence into the script, however, when Nanjiani did eventually rock up to set in London later down the road, he was met with the revelation of "I lied. It's a Bollywood dance number," from a sneaky Zhao.

Sensing there was no getting out of the routine this time, the actor tasked with playing the hero-turned-Bollywood-sensation begrudgingly put four months of dance training into getting into Kingo jigging shape, with the resulting routine and experience eventually being classed as "really cool" by the once hyper-reluctant star.

Contributor
Contributor

Lifts rubber and metal. Watches people flip in spandex and pretends to be other individuals from time to time...