David Baddiel has revealed that he wrote The Infidel with Omid Djalili in mind to play the confused East-Ender from the very beginning.
Speaking to The Mirror, Baddiel who penned The Infidel said Djalili was perfect for the role which follows an East End Muslim who discovers he was actually born a Jew. Dun dun duuuuuuun!
Baddiel said: “If he’d have dropped out, either I’d have had to have stopped, or I’d have had to do it, because I’m the only other person I can think of who could look both Muslim and Jewish, and halfway through the film that would have been weird – we’d have had to suggest the character had lost a lot of weight or something.”
He continued: “The key thing about [Djalili] is that he looks like he could be Muslim or Jewish, and when I saw him I thought, ‘Well, what is he?’ And he is in fact Baha’i, which is neither, but in fact a religion which encompasses all religions, so perfect from that point of view.”
He added: “I just thought he was really, really funny…I just think Omid Djalili is like a funny-boned, naturally funny comedian, of the sort that you get quite rarely, like Eric Morecambe. The ability to just be funny almost by doing nothing.”
The Infidel is released on Friday.
Copyright : Comedy Central UK