Kumail Nanjiani
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Kumail Nanjiani, who broke out big time last year with the comedic tearjerker ‘The Big Sick’, has been offered a significant role in the upcoming ‘Men In Black’ reboot.  We already knew that ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ pair Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson were playing the leads, but now it appears that they will be joined by an extraterrestrial sidekick named Pawny, which would be Nanjiani’s role, who is described as:

The third side kick. A funny, wise-cracking, sex-driven alien from a civilization that exists on a Chess board.

Nanjiani just wrapped two movies, ‘Stuber’ and ‘The True American’, so he appears to be free.  And ‘Men In Black’ is set to begin filming within the next few weeks.

This ‘Men In Black’ isn’t a hard reboot, as Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones‘ Agents K and J still exist in this world.  The new movie will simply focus on their colleagues who will have their own separate adventures working for the same agency.  Hemsworth’s character is Agent H, a suave yet goofy James Bond type.  Like Will Smith’s character in the first movie, Thompson doesn’t start out as an MIB agent, but she firmly believes in aliens and strives to become part of this organization.  Liam Neeson is rumored to play Hemsworth’s character’s commander.

Barry Sonnenfeld directed the three previous movies.  F. Gary Gray (‘The Fate of the Furious’, ‘Straight Outta Compton’) takes over for this one, which should give it a different style, which the studio is referring to as more “contemporary.”  Steven Spielberg remains as executive producer.

Other than ‘The Big Sick’, which was based on his own life, Nanjiani may be best known for being a series regular on the series ‘Silicon Valley’ and frequently pops up on IFC’s sketch comedy series ‘Portlandia’.  His voice can be heard on the Cartoon Network’s ‘Adventure Time’ as the recurring character Prismo.

Sony has already set a release date for the new ‘Men In Black’– May 17, 2019.

Source: That Hashtag Show