Deli Boys

On February 2 at 1497’s IndieWire’s chili party at Sundance, the cast and creators of Hulu and Onyx Collective’s Deli Boys took center stage to share a teaser of the series. The clip previewed the rich-to-somewhat-illegal-but-still-kinda-rich story of Pakistani brothers Raj (Saagar Shaikh) and Mir (Asif Ali) on the cusp of discovering their late Baba’s underground drug business as they witness Lucky Aunty (Poorna Jagannathan) shooting the clerk of their deli convenience store. A gasp was heard amongst the crowd, most of whom were already two drinks into the night. The teaser signalled that the series was going to be edgy, cool, and unforgettable.

The chemistry amongst the cast and creators—including surprise guest and cast member Tan France—was displayed in full glory on stage. They were happy, chaotic, and extremely affable with one another. Afterward, the hallway turned into a dance hall with the cast and crew remaining on stage with the DJ. It was a dance party reminiscent of weddings where the uncles and aunties outshine their younger counterparts. It was so much fucking fun.

Since its release on March 6, the show has received so much attention and acclaim and its cast has been flying all over the country to promote the series. Timid spoke with the leading trio at a photoshoot about the strength of the characters, intended audiences, influences in the industry, and the power of desi moms. And just like at Park City, their chemistry was on fire to the point that they started interviewing themselves.

Timid Magazine: At its heart, this is a story about a family legacy that gets passed down across generations. What drew each of you to the story and your characters?

Saagar Shaikh: When I first read the script, I had such an attachment to Raj because he just feels like an extremely heightened version of me. I feel like every, every character you get to play is a heightened version of a version of you, but this is a version that I really wanted to explore, and  I had to be a part of this project the moment I read the script.

Poorna Jagannathan: For me, I’m so used to getting South Asian scripts for the message and a very strong beating heart that after you watch the show, you want to call your parents to understand them better, and all that. This is not that. That's what drew me to it. It just built around laughs and jokes, and that is representation as well.

Asif Ali: It’s super funny, and it felt like a show that I would be obsessed with when I was a kid. It’s just crazy. There's blood splatter, there's drugs, there's, you know, people getting slapped by their auntie, there's there's so much. It's just so fun. It's fun first.

PJ: I know. And this whole script is in constant seesaw opposites. Brothers are opposites. Lucky, my character is nurturing—

SS: She is two people within herself.

PJ: Yeah, a menace and a mother at the same time.

TM: Poorna, you now have established an incredible body of work playing strong willed and determined women. What was it like for you to be the “matriarch” and the leading woman in this show?

PJ: It wasn't so much all that. It was just the physical aspect of Lucky that I've never explored before. This is the first show that I really felt like I had to step into the position of the matriarch because these two are complete idiots. So it's not so much the matriarch. It's just someone who has to rein these two in and help us, you know, not only keep the business alive, but keep ourselves alive. So in order to do that, I have to tame and teach these two at the same time.

TM: Saagar and Ali, your chemistry and dynamic as brothers is very touching. How have you drawn on personal experiences and maybe relationships with family to establish the connection between the characters?

AA: We both have a lot of brothers!

SS: Between us, there’s seven brothers!

AA: We don’t have any sisters.

SS: I do think about how it really sucks that I never got to experience the love from a sister.

AA: Same. We don’t know what we missed out on.

PJ: What do you think it is?

SS: I just think it's a special, unique bond between a pair of siblings that we'll never experience. I grew up with brothers, it was all laughing, like jokes, and fighting. It's all bits. It's all like trying to get each other under each other's skin.

AA: Poorna, if you were there, you’d be like “we should really have a moment, grow up.”

SS: Yeah, guys, let's “do something together.”

AA: Guys never look at each other.

SS: We could be watching TV, and to us, it's like we are doing something together, you know. But that being said, it was easy for us, I think, to fall into this because we both only had brothers. We knew to really play in the vibe. We know that nothing is personal. Don't take anything too seriously. We're here for work, and work is fun.

PJ: I mean these two are really brothers on set and off set.

AA: We go shopping together.

SS: We spend a lot of time [together]!

PJ: I would kill them. But then how are you so good with the women on set? I’m lucky. What is that?

AA: Because we have moms.

SS: We have desi moms who taught us to love. I have a lot of cousins. I love my aunts very much.

PJ: Is the Lucky dynamic familiar to you?

AA: Kind of. My dad was, I would say, more like one of the boys. I feel like my mom would be like “No, but we have to do this particular event, and we have to go to this wedding, and we have to go to this.”

PJ: It sounds like your mom had her shit together.

AA: Yes.

PJ: Like she was the one all the boys would be around.

Asif: Yeah!

SS: My mom is definitely the one that would whip us into shape. My dad would really try, but, you know, it just becomes an anger thing—fighting guys, fighting against guys. My mom is the one that—

PJ: Laid down the law?

SS: Oh, yeah. We wouldn't talk back. We would try to, but she would talk through her teeth and open her eyes really widely.

PJ: We’re going to take over this interview.

TM: In episode 9, Lucky has a reaction to Raj dropping the “aunty” part when he addresses her. The show does a great job of showing deference and respect when it comes to family or community dynamics to the point where viewers who are desi probably had a visceral reaction when the boys, or men, stopped saying aunty.

AA: The specificity of South Asian characters on a show just naturally make things a little bit more detailed and different. But what was cool about the show is we didn't have to do subtitles or overly explain things. It was more like you watch any show. If you watch The Wire or Breaking Bad or something like that, they're not stopping and explaining everything. The expectation is that the audience is being drawn into this new world, and then they will figure out, through context clues and all that, what's going on. And I feel like from the response of the show, that's part of why people like watching shows and movies that take you to another world. It’s because you can get sucked into this new thing. And so all the specificities of all of the respective cultures involved just make it more interesting.

PJ: We’re not related by blood but we feel like we're the closest thing to family. [Lucky] is all they've gotten, and they’re all [Lucky has]. So the fact that they drop the aunty part is a really intense fracture in the relationship.

SS: But I will say that the Super Bowl episode opens with “Knock, knock, knock. Who’s there, the cops? Worse, Lucky!”—so it can be a playful thing. It just depends on context.

AA: In that moment, it’s disrespectful. It would be like if you were calling your mom “Mom” the whole time and then you’re like… Denise. But I think just a general thing of when you call someone that you see as like a parental figure, and you drop it suddenly with that kind of tone. I feel like that. That's pretty universal.

SS: You’ve created a distance in the relationship.

TM: Who are each of your influences in the industry?

PJ: For me, it’s Mindy Kaling. Mindy doesn't rest on her laurels. She is a prolific actor [who] realized that unless she's creating content constantly, our stories are not going to be out there. There's no one else doing it. I know she really enjoys producing and writing, but she has made such a conscious effort to put as many stories of us out there.

SS: She is constantly uplifting new voices. Others include Riz [Ahmed], Hasan [Minhaj], Ramy [Youssef], Mo [Amer]. They are all doing such amazing things.

AA: I would say for me, it's Brian [George] and Iqbal [Theba] on our show. I think specifically as a comedic actor, the amount of shit they had to go through and how lighthearted they still are. All the roles they had to do that were so bad.

SS: Imagine all the roles they did that left them unfulfilled.

Clearly, we have come a long way for a show like Deli Boys to make such a splash (metaphorically, I mean, but also a bloody splash on TV) for audiences to sit up and pay attention. In our shoot with the trio, the vibrancy of the electric nature of the story is reflected through the clothing and styling as well. The three actors look so at home being the leads. It’s almost like it was where they were meant to be all along—front and center in our screens.

Disclaimer: This interview was edited for length and clarity.