Kumail Nanjiani teams up with Issa Rae in a new romcom, Lovebirds, debuting next month at the South by Southwest Film Festival. Paramount unveiled the trailer this week ahead of its March debut.
Lovebirds reunites Nanjiani with Michael Showalter, the director of the hit, The Big Sick in which Nanjiani starred with his wife, Emily Gordon. According to Madamenoire, the producers did not plan for the hiring of a Black woman and Pakistani American man and made adjustments to the script because of that.
“Initially they were written for White people which, plot-wise, would have been a different story. It’s not a story about race but we wanted to acknowledge our race and the fact that we’re an interracial couple,” Rae told Madamenoire.
Indiewire says that in Lovebird the couple is thrust into the middle of a murder in which they are the prime suspects. They go into hiding in a bid to clear their names
Rae has been outspoken about stereotypes that relegate both Black women and Asian men to the back of the dating hierarchy. She wrote about it in her book, The Misadventures of an Awkward Black Girl. While giving props to Asian men, she managed also to take a swipe at Filipinos.
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“This is why I propose that black women and Asian men join forces in love, marriage and procreation,” Rae wrote. “Educated black women what better intellectual match for you than an Asian man? And I’m not talking about Filipino’s, they’re like the Blacks of Asians. I’m talking Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, et cetera.”
Lovebirds is scheduled to open nationwide April 3.
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