Deli Boys stars Asif Ali and Saagar Shaikh are excited for their new Disney+ and Hulu series to break new ground for the crime and comedy genres.
The two leads star as brothers Mir and Raj Dar, Pakistani Americans who believe their father, Baba Dar (played by Iqbal Theba), is a successful convenience store tycoon.
However, their world is rocked when Baba is suddenly killed in a freak accident and they discover his secret life as a crime lord, leaving them to pick up the pieces with a little help from their aunt Lucky (Poorna Jagannathan) and uncle Ahmad (Brian George).
Speaking exclusively to Express Online about the series, Shaikh said: “Man, we’re beyond excited.
“We know historically that the roles we’ve been allowed to play on TV have been very stereotypical, so we’re just so excited for people to see people who look like us do something so different and so wild.
“I really hope it opens the door for people to explore different projects similar to this.”
And his co-star Ali admitted: “It’s very rare to find jobs like this for people like us, so there’s that sense of, ‘Hey we really want to do this, we want to do this right’ and we all came with the right intention to the show.
“That’s what drew us to the script to begin with. It’s a really unique story about these guys who get into the world of the mob, something that I’ve never seen in my career up until this point and was something that was like, ‘I’ve gotta take advantage of this opportunity because stuff like this does not happen often’.”
Throughout the series, created and written by Abdullah Saeed, Mir and Raj find themselves wrapped up in darkly hilarious hijinks as they struggle to adjust to their new life of crime.
Hot on their tail is the ruthless, if slightly inexperienced FBI agent Mercer (Alexandra Ruddy), while the brothers are also forced to rub shoulders with other local kingpins.
Their co-star George also agreed Deli Boys is unlike anything audiences will have seen: “I really think so.
“I think of it as an American story, not a South Asian story, not an immigrant story, it’s just an American story of success and greed and idiocy. Let’s not underestimate idiocy.”
And special guest star Tan France also opened up about his experience with a cast and crew of majority South Asians, a rarity in Hollywood.
“Having a production of Brown people did make me feel so at ease,” he shared.
“They understand your jokes, even though they’re quite different from British Asians they’re still Asian, so we’ve got this really easy dialogue without having to explain a joke or comment.
“It flows very easily with this crew. I fell in love with them completely and I couldn’t be more proud of what they’ve done with this show.”
Shaikh was previously part of the cast of another groundbreaking Disney+ series, the Marvel Cinematic Universe event Ms Marvel, although fans should expect the surprisingly gory and chaotic Deli Boys to take things up a notch.
Deli Boys is available to stream on Disney+.
