‘Welcome to Chippendales’: Kumail Nanjiani and Annaleigh Ashford Talk Crafting Characters From Real-Life People in New Hulu Drama (Exclusive)

This month, Hulu is debuting Welcome to Chippendales, a partially biographical drama about the rise and fall of America’s most notorious male exotic dance company. In the show, Kumail Nanjiani (Marvel’s Eternals, Silicon Valley) portrays Chippendales founder Somen “Steve” Banerjee, with Annaleigh Ashford (Masters of Sex, B Positive) playing Banerjee’s wife, Irene. Ahead of the series premiere, PopCulture.com spoke with the pair, and they shared some insight regarding what it was like to craft dramatized characters from real-life people.

Offering his approach to depicting Banerjee, Nanjiani said, “I can’t look into the soul of the real Steve Banerjee and so that wasn’t ever my task. I wasn’t like, ‘I have to figure out what made that real person tick.’ My job is to figure out how to play this character as written. And the fact that we don’t know that much about him beyond what other people have said about him and the things that we know he did, those are just the starting points.”

He added, “So for me it was like, ‘How do I play a character who does all these things that we know he did, but do them in a way so that it makes sense for someone like him to do? And how can I start him so different in many ways from how he ends up, but also similar?’ So that’s why, in the beginning, he hopefully comes across as very innocent and enthusiastic with almost childlike wonder, and then we see how that changes over the course of the season if I’ve done my job right.”

This is the first time that Nanjiani has portrayed a real-life person on-screen — “Other than Kingo, who is also real,” he quipped, referring to his Eternals character — but Ashford has taken on biographical roles “multiple times” in the past. Most recently, she appeared in Impeachment: American Crime Story, playing Paula Jones, “who is somebody that was really identifiable, somebody that I had to feel and look like and also help change the narrative of the way that we felt about her.” Jones brought a sexual assault lawsuit against former President Bill Clinton in 1994 but was not often painted in a positive light by news media outlets.

Noting how taking on the role of Irene Banerjee was different, Ashford said, “In this instance, I could find one photo of this person, and so I was really able to really create her out of nothing from what [Welcome to Chippendales creator Robert Siegel] created on the page.” She added, “Then we really wanted to make sure that she not only complimented Steve’s arc and helped him on his journey, but also she had her own arc, we need to watch her change and grow, and also, she’s the woman behind the man, she’s using their relationship and their partnership to express herself and her own interest, which is the business world.” Lastly, she said, “I think it’s really important that we see her love him because then we’re able to love him too.” Welcome to Chippendales premieres Tuesday, Nov. 22 on Hulu.