Actor Kumail Nanjiani recently shared he entered counseling after the Eternals movie received poor reviews from critics. He also said he suffers trauma from the poor reviews.
(L-R): Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), Sersi (Gemma Chan) and Sprite (Lia McHugh) in Marvel Studios’ ETERNALS. Photo by Sophie Mutevelian. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.
During an appearance on the Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum show, Nanjiani was asked by Rosenbaum, “When you talk about Eternals and it wasn’t the response that you were hoping, how did that affect you? Did it really consume you for a while? Was it something you had to get counseling on? Was it something you took it to heart? Was it me? What was this?”
Nanjiani responded, “I knew it wasn’t me. I think there were a lot of things that went into it. I love that movie. I’m very proud of that movie. I’m proud of everyone’s work in it, and and I’m proud of my work in it. And I’ve seen that movie, you know, I’ve seen it a bunch of times because it’s like my kind of movie. And I don’t watch stuff I’m in. A lot and a lot of stuff I’m in I’ve never watched.”
He continued, “It was really, really hard because Marvel thought thought that movie was going to be like really, really well reviewed 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 like global tour promoting the movie right as the embargo was lifted. And so we had to like sort of travel the world while they thought we’d be going on a wave of raves, you know, and it wasn’t true. It just sort of was the reviews were really bad.
Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani) in Marvel Studios’ ETERNALS. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2021 Marvel Studios. All Rights Reserved.
Rosenbaum then asked, “And you were aware of it while you were on tour?”
Nanjiani replied, “Yeah. I was too aware of it. 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. Because this was also after right after the pandemic, you know, so we’re coming out after this crazy thing and I’m like, ‘Okay this is going to be the coming out party I worked so hard for this.’
“Everything’s heightened and I think that there was some weird soup in the atmosphere for why that movie got slammed so much and I think 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. I can’t approach my work this way anymore some s**t’s got to change and so very intentionally I did start counseling,” he admitted.
(L-R): Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani) and Karun (Harish Patel) in Marvel Studios’ ETERNALS. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.
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Nanjiani then shared, “I talked to, I still talk to my therapist about that. Emily says that I do have trauma from it. Emily and I just got dinner with someone else from that movie and we were like, ‘Man, that was tough wasn’t it?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah that was really tough.’ I think we all went through something similar. And this guy that I’m talking about is truly one of the best actors of our generation and has been nominated for an Oscar since then.”
“So I realized I can’t be so results based in my work anymore ’cause I can’t really control it,” he told Rosenbaum. “I can control my experience. I can control how I am to the people around me. I can control what I learn from it. I can control how I work, can’t control what people are going to think of it.”
(L-R): Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), Gilgamesh (Don Lee), Thena (Angelina Jolie), Ikaris (Richard Madden), Ajak (Salma Hayek), Sersi (Gemma Chan), Sprite (Lia McHugh), Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) and Druig (Barry Keoghan) in Marvel Studios’ ETERNALS. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.
Eternals has a rotten 47% score on the Tomatometer from critics. It received an average rating of 5.6 out of 10. with 194 fresh reviews and 218 rotten reviews. The top critics score clocked in with a rotten 36% and an average rating of 5.4 out of 10. It received 25 fresh reviews and 44 rotten reviews.
The critics consensus reads, “An ambitious superhero epic that soars as often as it strains, Eternals takes the MCU in intriguing — and occasionally confounding — new directions.”
Eternals Rotten Tomatoes score
On Metacritic, the film received a Metascore of 52. It received 20 positive reviews, 37 mixed reviews, and 5 negative reviews.
Eternals Metacritic score
What do you make of Nanjiani revealing he entered counseling and experienced trauma due to poor critic reviews for Eternals?
