Actor and comedian Kumail Nanjiani continues to parlay his lifelong nerd-dom into starring roles in some of sci-fi and horror’s most celebrated franchises; the Big Sick star—who had a major role in an episode of the first revived series of The X-Files, after years of doing a podcast about the show—has now scored a main gig in the upcoming Twilight Zone reboot. Per The Hollywood Reporter, Nanjiani joins the already-cast Adam Scott and Sanaa Lathan in the anthology series, which is being produced by Jordan Peele for CBS All Access. (To be fair, the delay on the upcoming season of Silicon Valley means that he probably had a little time to kill.)
Nanjiani’s role on the new show is being kept quiet, so it’s not clear whether, like Scott—who’s been cast in the franchise’s latest take on “Nightmare At X0,000 Feet” series of stories—he’ll be riffing on a classic TZ episode, or if he’ll find some new sort of affable horror to wander into. Either way, we’re sure that Peele—who’s taking over the Rod Serling duties on the revived show—will have something suitably droll to say about whatever grim ironies the Silicon Valley star ends up embroiled in when the show makes its 2019 debut.