Asif Ali, Saagar Shaikh, and Tan France Talk Epic Fight Sequences In Deli Boys
Deli Boys is a hilarious, action-packed series that will leave fans praying for season two! Ally Bonsall spoke with Asif Ali, Saagar Shaikh, and Tan France for Pop Culture Planet about the new Hulu series, and let’s just say, we’re dying to learn some fight choreography from the legendary Tan France.
Ali and Shaikh play brothers who learn their business mogul father had quite a long roster of secret skeletons in his closet. When he unexpectedly passes away, the boys are thrown into a criminal underworld they had no clue had been right under their noses their entire lives — or right within the walls of their deli shop.
The two brothers couldn’t be more different from another as they’re forced to band together to learn the family business. Ali and Shaikh praised the show’s creators for letting them throw in fun film references, including a callback to a hilarious Chris Tucker line that made it to the final cut. “I really hope people notice that this is an homage to Friday,” gushed Shaikh.
While most know France for his keen fashion eye and diverse slate of unscripted work, the Queer Eye star is taking over the scripted side of Hollywood starting with this guest starring role. “The funny thing is that nothing I've really ever done has had a script. It's usually just, ‘Here's a mic or we'll put a mic on you and just go.’ So it was very difficult having a script that you have to memorize and doing a voice that is not my voice,” France explained. “The hardest part is just reminding myself constantly that none of his can be you. You cannot be yourself in any at any point, but it was the most exciting part of the job. I loved getting to play somebody completely different to me.”
Rest assured, France was a natural in front of the camera and shines during his epic fight scene with Poorna Jagannathan. France revealed that he’s actually been boxing his entire life, which made this a particularly fun scene to film. “When I found out there was going to be a fight scene, I was like, ‘Yeah, this is my moment!’ And getting it to do it with Poorna, who's one of my very close friends, was a dream. I mean it was a problem because we kept giggling,” he laughed. “It was so funny. Imagine with your best friend you're just pretending to knock them out, like it's so funny! It was arguably my favorite moment of the entire week.”
France continued: “We had been training every day. Every break that we had we would work with the stunt coordinator to make sure it looked as realistic as physically possible and I think that the edit is perfect on it.”
The series does an amazing job at balancing humor and action simultaneously, which isn’t an easy feat to pull off. “They allowed us the freedom after we got what was on the page to play around with jokes,” shared Ai, with Shaikh adding that the creators would let them “get the words in our body for the day and then, once we got a clean cut of each scene, they’d let us play with it. It was a very collaborative environment, which was really fun to work on.”
The first season of Deli Boys is streaming on Hulu.
