Marvel's Eternals actor went to counseling due to trauma following massive backlash 

Since the success of The Avengers saga featuring Thanos, Marvel’s MCU has seen a range of movies underperforming comprehensively. The journey perhaps started from the 2021 release Eternals, which could only gross around $402 million worldwide.

While the cast featured a range of talented faces like Richard Madden, Angelina Jolie, and Gemma Chan, one of the major stars seems to have been grappling with the film’s lack of success for a considerable time.

Kumail Nanjiani starred in the movie as Kingo, an Eternal with powers related to cosmic manifestation. He was seen blending in by becoming a Bollywood actor in the movie. The MCU’s executives apparently expected the Eternals to kick off their next phase of the universe by introducing some compelling characters in the 2021 movie.

Regardless, in a recent podcast interview with Michael Rosenbaum, Nanjiani said he faced the prospect of counseling due to the backlash he received after the release of Eternals.

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"It was really, really hard": Kumail Nanjiani reveals his struggles after Eternals' box office performance

On the February 6 episode of Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum podcast on Youtube, Nanjiani revealed the extent of his struggles after he, Marvel, and the rest of the Eternals cast expected the movie to do well. He said he saw the movie as a crucial development in his career and was disappointed with how the situation turned out.

"I realised that the way I was evaluating what I wanted to do and what I didn't want to do was all completely messed up. I was looking at like, 'Okay, if I do this, this movie's going to come out in theatres, it's going to be a big hit, and I'll get more," he said.

Going to therapy helped the actor realize that the kind of pressure he put on himself was unfair. The actor said his expectations were also high due to the kind of talent Marvel had put together for the Eternals.

"I did stuff that should've been a home run and then it wasn't, like Eternals. It was an Oscar winning director, one of the craziest casts. You had legends, you had Salma Hayek, you had Angelina Jolie, you had new people who were amazing, Brian Tyree Henry, Barry Keoghan, who have both been nominated for Oscars. However, when that movie came out and the reviews weren't good, that was very, very tough for me," he said.

He added:

"I realised that too much of how I'm evaluating what I want to do is based on the result or what other people think of it."

Hence, the actor was determined not to understate his achievements simply because one movie did poorly. He suggested that simply being part of the cast was a great achievement, a notion that seems extremely logical. He said that the pressure was not only bad for him but also for his wife, which led to a change.

"It was really, really hard and that's when I was like, 'This is unfair to me. It's unfair to [my wife] Emily. I can't approach my work this way anymore, some s**t's gotta change.' So very intentionally I did start counselling," he said.

Nanjiani said that he continues to talk about the fallout from Eternals with his therapist, even today. The actor revealed that, like him, quite a few of the stars from the movie had a similar expectation.

The fact that the MCU was still breaking records due to the success of Avengers and that Eternals instead proved to be a huge box-office disaster had a similar effect on some other actors. Nanjiani concluded by saying that he could not always control what others thought of his work and could only focus on being the best actor he could be.