The Definitive Deli Boys Interview

Poorna Jagannathan, Saagar Shaikh, and Asif Ali in Deli Boys. / Photographs courtesy of Disney/Sandy Morris

Hulu’s wild crime comedy Deli Boys is set in Philly, but it shoots in Chicago, so its stars came to town earlier this week to take it all in. Asif Ali (from Arizona) and Saagar Shaikh (from Texas) also did the weather on Action News, sat down for a bunch of press interviews, and finally got a firsthand look at things like SEPTA and the Schuylkill — words they’ve previously encountered in Deli Boys scripts. (For pronunciation and nuance, they can always tap series creator Abdullah Saeed, a Temple grad, and showrunner Michelle Nader, who grew up in South Philly.)

Ali and Shaikh also swung by the Art Museum on Tuesday, where they ran into a local mom and gave her the hard sell while her daughter was running up the steps. “I was like ‘Deli Boys! It’s on Hulu on Disney Plus! Season 1’s out, Season 2 will be out the 28th!’ And she was like, ‘Oh, okay.’ She wasn’t ready for a full pitch,” recalls Ali with a laugh. “I love talking about the show. I love being on the show.”

That isn’t always the case in Hollywood, especially for South Asian actors where the opportunities are slim and the parts are rarely juicy. Ali and Shaikh used to see each other at auditions. Now they’re starring in this crazy but thoughtfully made comedy full of action, smart dialogue, and lots of non-white actors. Says Ali: “It’s a dream to be employed regardless, but to be on a show that you actually like? That feels like something new? It’s really special.”

Did you ever think you’d play drug-dealing gangsters?
Shaikh: Not even in my wildest dreams.
Ali: I always thought like it was one of those things. You watch The Sopranos or Breaking Bad or something, and think “Man, that’d be cool, to be on a show like that.” But I never thought —
Shaikh: But to marry the comedy world to it, it’s really fun.

How have your lives changed since the show started?
Shaikh: I feel like my family treats me exactly the same.
Ali: As they should.
Shaikh: Like, my opinion still doesn’t matter.
Ali: That’s how you know they’re really your family.
Shaikh: It’s so true. Yeah, my friends will still shit on me. But strangers … still don’t know who I am. So I would say it hasn’t changed at all.
Ali: It hasn’t changed at all, outside of having employment. But I think artistically what’s been really cool about being on the show is seeing how far and how much more we can do as a community, as an industry, telling different stories and [presenting] unique takes on things. That’s been really nice, to talk to other artists who’ve said like, “Hey, you know, your guys’ show is in our deck now.” Or part of our pitch, like “Our show is Deli Boys-meets-something, something, something.” And that’s like that is really cool, because —
Shaikh: We’ve inspired future creators to really take a big swing. And do it with the hope and the audacity that it can happen.
Ali: That’s been really nice.

As an Italian American from New Jersey, I’m glad somebody else is playing gangsters.
Shaikh: We said, “Take a back seat for a second.”

With pleasure.
Shaikh: You guys can be terrorists for a few years.

[We all laugh]

It’s hard to measure success sometimes with streaming. I like Deli Boys but you never know who else does? But you got a second season, you had that giant billboard, you’re on Hot Ones. Your profile and the profile of the show are definitely big.
Ali: Yeah. It feels good to be on something with Onyx and 20th Century Fox, and they’ve done a really good job of like getting us out there. And it’s actually really fun to do press. Like, sometimes you know people do press and they go, “Man, this is so much work.” But for us it’s such a joy. We like each other, and to do press on a show…
Shaikh: Because this is not normal for people like from our community, right? So we feel like we are a part of this, like, graduating class of people. There’s been a few people that got to do stuff like this before us — like Hasan [Minhaj], Riz [Ahmed], Zayn Malik, and that class of people. And now we feel like, “Oh, they’re just letting anybody do it.”
Ali: Yeah this is our soft launch, we’re gonna make an album.

Well, we’ll see how you feel in season 10 when you have to do press.
Ali: I’m still gonna be excited.
Shaikh: Me too, honestly, because these are champagne problems. And it’s truly what we wished as we worked for this. Knowing Asif and knowing myself, I think we will both always be grateful to be in this position, and we’re so happy to continue doing the work.

Saagar Shaikh and Asif Ali play rookie cocaine kingpins on Deli Boys.

The show is really funny and frenetic, but there’s a high quality to it. You can see that money was put into.
Shaikh: That’s the Abdullah of it all. He’s a very comedically inclined but also high-concept person. And he married both of those.
Ali: Also the richness of the colors and stuff, that’s Nathan Salter [the show’s cinematographer]. He made a conscious choice — he really wanted to make it not look like sitcom-sitcom. He wanted that almost filmic look to it, which makes it easier to get into that world. And Jessie Haddad who did our production design, and Cailey Breneman, who did our costumes. They really built the whole theme of the show. Which is why it’s so great working on a show like this. Everyone bought into the idea and they all —
Shaikh: They all went maximum effort.
Ali: If you look at Lucky Auntie’s [played by ravishing badass Poorna Jagannathan] outfits or Raj’s [Shaikh] outfits, down to the jewelry. And even the details of the deli. There’s water stains on the ceiling tiles.
Shaikh: In the pilot we shot at an actual deli. Episodes two through the end of Season 2, that was a stage that Jessie Haddad and her team built to be an exact replica of the deli from the pilot.
Ali: It’s outstanding, that kind of dedication.
Shaikh: And love.
Ali: And it makes it easier as an actor, because it’s easier getting into that world.
Shaikh: Yeah, and suspend disbelief.

By the end of Season 1, Mir and Raj are not the spoiled idiots that they were. It must be awesome to have it have a role you can like sort of sink your teeth into, and change with.
Ali: It’s so special for people, especially that look like us, that have been guest stars or even series regulars on things, but you’re not high up on the call sheet to have enough meat on the bone. Up until then you’re like “Okay, fine,” because that’s all you’ve ever experienced. So you think, “All right, this is cool.” But to be in a situation where you get to play a character that looks like you, but also it’s comedy, it’s drama, it’s genre, it’s action. Having that much meat on the bone —
Shaikh: The characters that we get to play [before Deli Boys], we don’t ever get to portray growth.
Ali: We’re always just like really hot guys, and they bring us in for the sex appeal.
Shaikh: But to be given an opportunity to do that for the first time — it’s really special to have such a reversal in demeanor.
Ali: To have a story arc in general in TV, like an actual good story arc, is really rare, and so to be able to do it on a show like this, it’s so much fun. Because we don’t know where it’s going. At the end of Season 1, we’ve completed this arc of these two almost like sheltered kids getting into this dark business. And then in Season 2, you know, it’s like we are more eased into it, but now we have a whole new set of problems. How we deal with this responsibility, and how do we honor our father’s vision, and each of our very different pathways, or ideas of how we would fulfill Baba’s dream — it’s such a great direction for Season 2. It created a lot of good conflict.

Fred Armisen joins the cast for Season 2 of Deli Boys.

What happens when a big shot gets brought in for Season 2, like Fred Armisen, Andrew Rannells, or Kumail Nanjiani? Are you like “Fred Armisen, this is our turf?”
Ali: Honestly, we beat the crap out him day one.
Shaikh: Gave him a black eye. The makeup department had to work overtime to make that go away.
Asif: I did the thing where I got on all fours and then Saagar pushed him.
Shaikh: Pantsed him a couple of times.
Ali: Gave him a swirly.
Shaikh: But no. He’s such a respected guy in the comedy world. He’s amazing, a good guy. You never know if he’s serious or if he’s doing a bit, and that’s exactly what you want out of a guy like him.
Ali: He’s a great hang. Really funny.

[They play me a voicemail by Fred Armisen, done in the style of “The Californians.” It’s … kind of hard to make out over the phone.]

Ali: He’s just game for doing bits and stuff. I love that. That’s the kind of vibe we try to cultivate on the show. Nobody’s trying to create some sort of big-dog environment. We really wanted to create a kind of community, a we’re-all-making-this-together kind of thing.

That’s cool, because pretty much everybody plays someone with strong egos.
Ali: I think that’s something we’ve learned from working on other shows, from experiences that we may have had on other shoots that weren’t great. On this show, we really made a conscious effort to be like “Hey, these are like crazy hours, and it’s all so compact, to do so much in such a short amount of time, that we’ve got to really make this the most fun experience we can.”

What’s it like working with Poorna Jagannathan, who plays Lucky Auntie?
Shaikh: The show is called Deli Boys, but it is very clear to me and Asif both that it’s her show. We’re her lapdogs on the Lucky Show. She has the gravitas that we can’t bring.
Ali: She has the it factor. She’s been in the business longer than us. We’re both 17. She’s been on such amazing things and even then, she’s like “I’m so excited to get back to set with you guys.”

She’s involved in a lot of stylish stunts and gunplay. There’s a lot of that on Deli Boys.
Ali: It’s a show that even if we had nothing to do with it —
Shaikh: We’d be like, “Man, I’m the biggest fan.”