By Peter Tonguette
The premise of the hit Hulu series “Deli Boys” could be the stuff of a tough-minded crime drama or gritty thriller.
The show revolves around the exploits of Mir (Asif Ali) and Raj (Saagar Shaikh), the grown offspring of a Pakistani-American family that has settled and prospered in Philadelphia. Their father, known as “Baba” (Iqbal Theba), presides over DarCo, a corporate behemoth that operates a deli chain and has provided a comfortable — perhaps too comfortable — lifestyle for his sons. Upon Baba’s out-of-the-blue death, Mir and Raj reckon not only with the prospect of parental loss but their father’s business dealings: As it turns out, Baba owed his wealth to his sideline as a drug kingpin. After his death, his sons find themselves not at the helm of a mere deli but a sprawling criminal enterprise.
The show also stars Poorna Jagannathan, Kevin Corrigan, and, as FBI officials, Alexandra Ruddy and Tim Baltz.
“Deli Boys” might sound dark and complicated, but series creator Abdullah Saeed sought to use the plot as a vessel for comedy — sometimes antic, often in the spirit of “The Sopranos,” and always human and believable. For picture editors David Dean, ACE, Taichi Erskine, and Varun Viswanath, ACE, the challenge was to make the material as funny as possible.
“If we had a list of priorities, the last thing to sacrifice is the joke,” said Viswanath. “The writing was really sharp, so we didn’t spend too much time explaining plot and what’s happening and who’s where. How much information do you need for the crime aspect of it so that we can get away with pumping in as many jokes as we can?”
Although each editor worked on three episodes among the nine episodes that followed the pilot (which was edited by Libby Cuenin and Matt McBrayer), Dean, Erskine, and Viswanath developed an unusually close collaborative approach. While they had never worked together before, they realized that to develop and sustain the show’s unusual mix of elements, they would need to view and offer feedback on each other’s work. “It was the most collaborative experience so far in my career,” Erskine said.
CineMontage recently spoke with the trio about how their working methods helped make such an unlikely and unpredictable show into one of the brightest spots on streaming.
CineMontage: How did you all get involved in the show?
Varun Viswanath: I actually knew about the pilot maybe a year before they shot it. I was like, “Oh, this is what I’ve been waiting for — a South Asian comedy.” I’ve worked on quickly cut, sharp comedies before. There was a personal connection because I’m South Asian, as well. I didn’t get a chance to work on the pilot — I was busy on another show — but when it got picked up for series, I really chased it. I DM’d Abdullah on Instagram, but I don’t think he ever saw it. I thought, “I hope my agent can make this work.” When I finally got the interview, [executive producer] Jenni Konner said, “Oh, we’ve been trying to work with you for so long,” and that sealed the deal. I had also seen both our Deli Boys — Asif Ali and Saagar Shaikh — perform stand-up comedy and improv comedy before. I was familiar with their work as stage comedians. I was very excited coming in.
Taichi Erskine: I heard about it from a friend of mine, [assistant editor] Michael Scotti, Jr. We were at a wedding, and he had worked on the pilot. He was raving about this show that he worked on called “Deli Boys” and how it was this weird dark comedy featuring an all South Asian cast. And I had previously worked with Michelle Nader, one of the EPs, so I’m sure that helped secure my interview.
David Dean: My involvement in the show originated with my relationship with the EPs, Jenni Konner and Nora Silver. We had previously done some projects together, and they had me look at the pilot to give my thoughts while they were working on it. When it got picked up and they asked me to join them on the series, I met the creator, Abdullah Saeed, who gave me the short pitch for the trajectory of the season. I thought it was so funny in a fresh way.
Erskine: The three of us had not worked together before “Deli Boys.”
Dean: We had not even met each other, but when I saw that Tai and Varun were the other editors on board, I was super-excited because they had edited some of my favorite comedies of the past dozen years [“What We Do In the Shadows,” “PEN15”]. I was stoked for what was ahead.
CineMontage: David, what tonal possibilities did you see for the show coming out of the pilot?
Dean: I ended up working on the episode that immediately followed the pilot. A lot of it was about setting up their father’s death, so the initial challenge was: “All right — what is this show and what’s the pace and how do we do it?” We established a lot of stylistic elements in the second episode to carry it through the rest of the season. The composer, Wendy Wang, had set up a lot of musical sketches when they were establishing the sonic tone of the show, and we used a lot of her sketches that weren’t even in the pilot to set up the sonic template of the music. She made some cues loosely based on tracks I sent her by Yoko Ono and Bauhaus that became heavily used in all episodes. In the beginning of Episode 2, we started this concept of using flashbacks instead of doing a recap. That became a strong anchor for the style of the season.
CineMontage: Varun, how would you define the style of the show?
Viswanath: The invented new word mashup that got thrown around a lot was “crimedy.” People started calling it that, and I think it IS that. The unique thing here was to find the balance. It’s always going to be a comedy first, and that was the well-established North Star right from the beginning.
CineMontage: It sounds like the mechanics of the plot are less important.
Dean: I think the dominant approach to this show was to service the tone, the characters, the interpersonal interactions, and the vibe of what’s happening. The plot was always a matter of: “All right, what do we need to explain just enough to keep the ball rolling?” It was never getting too into the weeds. It was more like: “In this scene they have a mission. They have to do this to get that.” The outer mechanics of it are largely irrelevant; they just feed the panic of whatever the characters are going through at the moment.
CineMontage: How did you three divide up the episodes?
Erskine: They were assigned to us. I think part of it might’ve been based on availability, too. Maybe Varun was still busy at the very beginning of post.
Viswanath: I think we came into it expecting the standard structure: “OK, there’s three of us editors, nine episodes to go.” We just went in order. The collaboration came after the fact. With a new show and a new voice and so many actors in an ensemble cast interpreting tone and style in their own ways, I think our collaboration came out of curiosity first, then necessity. We’d say to each other, “Hey, what do you think of this?” We kept going with it, and I think we landed in a pretty great place by the end.
CineMontage: Varun, how important was it that each of your episodes cohered as a whole?
Viswanath: You can really play with how you let it unfold: how quickly, how much suspense you want, how much drama, how much comedy. I remember one of the first things that happened when I was on the show maybe three days. I was just wrapping my head around a very intense set of dailies. Then I got a message: “Hey, jump on Evercast [a real-time remote collaboration streaming service] — we’ve got to look at something.” I didn’t have anything to show anybody yet, and then suddenly we’re on Evercast. It was Tai working with Jenni, saying, “Hey, can you guys look at the opening of Episode 3? We’re restructuring it.” It was all three of us as editors. We just got thrown in that way. Then, suddenly, we were passing around sequences. It just felt so natural after that. We were making the same show, and we wanted to make each other’s ideas better. We had two more voices to bounce it across, and it kept getting better every time we did that.
Erskine: For me, it was a bit of a shock in the beginning: “Oh, wow — we’re weighing in a lot with each other’s sequences and playing with each other’s episodes here and there.” Obviously, I was very aware of both Varun and David and really respected their work, but this was our first time working together. Amazingly, we immediately got along so well, even though we were remote the whole time. They were hilarious, great, and easy to work with. After a while, you get so numb to what you’re looking at that you need a fresh set of eyes — and in this case, two fresh sets of eyes.
Dean: Once we each finish our editor’s cut, before we send it to the director, we send each other the sequences to watch and comment on
any thing either unclear or not working. What could be funnier or sharper? Even if it doesn’t necessarily get applied at the beginning, it’s immensely valuable to get each other’s first-look perspectives to think about as we go forward.
CineMontage: What changed the most as you’d be working on episodes, or looking at each other’s episodes?
Viswanath: We spent most of our time on structure and pace. Most of our collaboration was about how to intercut scenes in a certain way, or finding clever ways to hand off information from one scene into an intercut of a different scene that wasn’t written that way. My first cuts were very tight, but some of them were still 35 minutes long. We had to cut a lot of really good jokes and performances to get them down to 25 minutes-ish. That came through clever story structuring that we frequently passed back and forth between us. I think seven out of the nine episodes had their openings restructured.
This show has a strong sense of place.
Erskine: So much changed throughout the process. There were various iterations of every episode. I miss the good old days of DVD deleted scenes because I think we would’ve had quite a little reel there. But at the end of the day, the reaction I’ve gotten from people I know who’ve watched it was that it moves at an amazing pace, almost relentless. Most of them binged the entire thing in a day, which I think speaks to how tight we were able to get it.
CineMontage: Taichi, talk about the performances.
Erskine: The performances were incredible. One of the big challenges for me was that there were so many different ways you could go with some of these scenes and characters. Sometimes I would have three or four different versions of a scene. Tim Baltz, who plays the FBI agent, had a lot of crazy material. There was only so much you could cram into it without it feeling overindulgent. That was where it was most helpful for this to be an all-hands-on-deck effort: “Let’s all look at this. David, Varun — which of these versions makes you laugh the most?” But performance-wise, there wasn’t a whole lot that had to be adjusted from a tonal perspective. They were all pretty much right where they needed to be, especially the core actors, Asif, Saagar, and Poorna.
CineMontage: Varun, you mentioned that your South Asian heritage made the show resonate with you. Can you speak to why it was important that “Deli Boys” represents this community?
Viswanath: Having moved around a lot and trying to find where I’m from and where I belong, I gravitate towards shows about a sense of belonging. This show has a strong sense of place. It’s very well-rooted in Philly and in this community. We’re not trying to explain their lives or cultural nuances. They just are who they are. I didn’t want any earnest explanation of culture.
Erskine: At the end of the day, it is about these Pakistani brothers and their family, but it’s also a universal show. I think that’s why it’s reached the audience that it has. The South Asian fans have been incredible, and the reaction has been so overwhelming. My parents also love the show. My dad is a white dude from Jersey, my mom is from Japan, and it resonated with them because they’re curious about these characters as human beings and how they navigate this crazy situation they’re in.
CineMontage: Even though you hadn’t worked together before, the three of you formed a great editorial team.
Dean: That our EPs, Jenni Konner and Nora Silver, and Kim Maree Smith at 20th TV, brought the entire editing team from “Deli Boys” onto their next show, Season 2 of “Nobody Wants This,” is an extreme vote of confidence that makes us all feel like we’re not just drinking our own Kool-Aid. We’re all happy to get the opportunity to take another lap around the track together.
