“The hardest part was really trying to pretend to be straight,” Tan France said of his new role in the new darkly comedic Hulu series “Deli Boys,” where he plays a Cockney gangster with a flair for violence. Yet, the “Queer Eye” star is also talking about the first several years of his life.
Growing up in a Pakistani family in Yorkshire and as a gay man in a Muslim community, he told me on “Salon Talks,” he was “constantly reminded that you must code-switch at every turn, but it was great training,” he added. “It put me in a position to be able to navigate any situation I’m in.” Nevertheless, when it came time to play a straight character for comedy, “it doesn’t come naturally,” he said. “I tried for 17 years of my life.”
After launching his fashion career in the UK, France eventually landed in the United States and, with the encouragement of his husband, wound up becoming one of the Emmy Award-winning Fab Five back in 2018. Over the years, he has turned down acting offers that he felt were too close to his real life persona. Instead, he auditioned four times for the colorful “Deli Boys” role of Zubair.
“I saw the outline of the show, and I just thought [series creator] Abdullah Saeed was so brave in wanting to depict a South Asian community this way,” France said. “I really wanted this.” Then he added, “I did vomit before my final audition.” The effort and the nerves paid off. “Nothing about Zubair should be identifiable as Tan France,” he admits.
During our conversation, France also opened up about why he feels safer raising his family in Utah than anywhere else in the world. “I can’t handle what’s happening in our country right now,” he said. And France promises he’s not judging your outfit. “I don’t really care what anyone’s wearing. If you feel good, that’s all that matters.”
Watch my “Salon Talks” with Tan France here on YouTube, or read below, to learn more about how France became close with his “Deli Boys” cast, the story behind his new hairstyle, and why he’s been studying acting for years.
The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Tell me about your character in “Deli Boys.” You come in halfway through the season, you get called “dapper” and are still dressed to the nines, however, you and your character are different in many ways.
There’s a wardrobe designer or a costume designer on the show who’s wonderful. She was quite nervous when I was coming in because I do this for a living also. She was like, “I’m really worried. I want to make sure you are happy.” I was like, “It’s not about me. I’m not playing myself. I’m playing a guy called Zubair.” So she said, “Okay, great, that makes it easier. Here are the looks we’ve got for you.” I put the look on and I was like, “Yes, it’s very nice for a straight man, this is the look we should go for.” I personally hate it, but for a straight man, this suit is perfect. It is very dapper for a straight man, but it couldn’t be more boring for Tan France.
What was the biggest challenge in this? Is it doing your Cockney accent? Is it beating someone up?
There was so much that was difficult. It’s not natural for me to be on a scripted set. I’ve become so used to being on an unscripted set where I just get to be myself, I say what I want, even when I’m doing “Next in Fashion” because there’s a script, but it’s me. I work on the script with them to make sure it’s my voice. The hard thing with this is it’s not just that I’m playing a different role, it’s a character actor’s job, which means my accent is different, my voice is different and the way I move is different. Nothing about Zubair should be identifiable as Tan France, and I would like to believe that we achieved that.
The hardest part wasn’t necessarily the accent. I would never suggest I’m method because I’m not that kind of an actor. This is my first acting role, but I did try and stay with the accent the entire time I was on set and even a few days beforehand, and it’s a Cockney accent. The hardest part was really trying to pretend to be straight. It doesn’t come naturally. I tried for 17 years of my life and I was really good at it, and then finally at 17 I was like, “Okay, I can be free.” I am who I naturally am, which is a lot swishier. Now it’s funny to play a straight person again.
You’ve also been taking acting lessons for years?
I have. I didn’t expect to do an acting job ever. I was taking acting classes to make me feel more comfortable, not necessarily on camera [for] “Queer Eye,” but doing talk shows. Late-night shows were intimidating quite honestly. When I first got the job, my agent suggested taking an acting class might make me feel more comfortable on set, and it did. I never thought that I would use that for anything other than to build confidence.
“I loved that he was nothing like me, that it was going to be real work, a real challenge.”
Then this audition came along for Zubair on “Deli Boys,” and I wanted to make sure that I gave it everything. I did a self-tape. I auditioned four times for this job and my acting lessons really came in handy because I felt relatively comfortable doing it. I did vomit before my final audition which was in front of people — the director and the producers — and I couldn’t believe that I was having to do a live audition. I’ve not auditioned for anything in eight years. It was a very odd feeling to audition.
You’ve been offered things in the past over the years. You auditioned for this four times, why did you want this?
I saw the outline of the show and I just thought Abdullah Saeed, who created this, was so brazen in wanting to depict a South Asian family this way, or a South Asian community this way. We’ve worked so hard over decades against this stereotype, which is violence and crime, and show that we are just like everybody else. We live normal lives, we’ve got normal jobs.
Poorna Jagannathan, the main female lead on the show, says something really funny, which is, “We’re just trying to show that we’re not just terrorists, we can also be drug dealers and killers.” And I thought that’s actually really funny that somebody just leaned into that. Why not? We can do everything, including crime.
I just thought this is profound what they’re trying to do. They sent me the script of Zubair, and I loved that he was nothing like me, that it was going to be real work, a real challenge. Then being on set, I was just blown away by how incredible this show is. If you’ve had an opportunity to see any of it, it’s so unexpected. It’s so dark, but it’s so funny. The cast is incredible. I’m so glad I waited for this.
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It is very funny, it’s very violent, but it is also about casual racism, it’s about code-switching, it’s about people having conversations about things that they don’t always say in front of white people. You know what that feels like. Tell me a little bit about what your experience has been like growing up in Yorkshire.
I haven’t lived in England for a very long time, so thankfully this experience is old. When I was living in England, life was not like what it is like here. I’m not talking about the fame part of it, I’m talking about just everyday life. In England, there are pockets of South Asian communities in small towns, and when you are one of a very few people within a community of white people, they’re not always the most welcoming. From a very young age, my earliest memories were that we are unsafe in this community, so we run to school, we run home from school. We don’t hang around in public just strolling and enjoying the day. You get to where you need to get to and make sure you get there safely.
When you learn that basically at day zero, that puts you in a really weird mind frame. You realize that safety is such a luxury for everybody around you, but not something that you get to benefit from. That’s a weird thing to teach a child, so I always knew that England wasn’t going to be my home.
“I can’t quite articulate how hard it is to be a queer person coming out to a Muslim brown family, and then having to do it over and over again.”
I learned to code-switch very early on at home. I’m very Pakistani. Even now, I’m very Pakistani. We didn’t watch a lot of Western television. We spoke Urdu, we ate our own culture’s food, and then I’d go to school. My parents made it very clear, you don’t speak with an accent, you must learn to have a generic English accent. If we hear you using local words, we’re going to correct you. We need you to seem like an average British person. You are constantly reminded that you must code-switch at every turn, but it was great training. It put me in a position to be able to navigate any situation I’m in. [Moving] to America and then getting into entertainment, I thought, “Oh, I know how to do this. I know how to fit in with any group I’m in.”
At the same time, in your own family and in your own community, you’re also code-switching because you’re queer. You’re not telling them that for a long time.
I was destined to act in some way because I’ve been acting my entire life, whether it be out on the street or in my own home. I didn’t come out to a lot of my family until just before “Queer Eye” came out, then everyone in the extended family found out once the show dropped. Some of my immediate family knew since I was 16, 17, but in our community, no one talks about that. Coming out is not just coming out to your community, it’s educating them on what gay means. My family had no concept of what that meant because nobody is like that in our community as far as they were concerned. What they don’t realize is no one is out because they understand the pressure of coming out, and it is massively overwhelming. I can’t quite articulate how hard it is to be a queer person coming out to a Muslim brown family, and then having to do it over and over again, and then doing it very publicly.
Then as an entertainer – and I’m not suggesting that anyone forced me to do this, I chose to do this and I’m the luckiest person in the world – that also comes with the expectation that you have to be the perfect version of everything. The pressure on me I think is very different from all my classmates, especially on “Queer Eye.” They all got to experience the joy of fame as soon as the show came out. Instead, mine was fear. That’s how I navigated my first couple of years, just making sure I was safe.
We are in a very fearful moment in our country right now. I wonder what you’re feeling, and when you look at your sons, what you’re thinking about the country you’re building for them.
Quite honestly — and this is such a luxury and a privilege, and everyone out there will say ignorant — I can’t handle what’s happening in our country right now. I hear about it through my husband who looks at the news all day. I’ve tried to bury my head in the sand, which I know is not the way, but I just think there’s nothing I can do. Over the last four years, even before Trump got into office, I tried to articulate what was about to happen, and clearly it fell on deaf ears. So I just think there’s nothing I can do. All I can do is protect my own mental well-being throughout this, because it does affect so many of the things that I represent. I can’t process how that feels and so I’ve tried to avoid it. There’s nothing I can do at this point.
I just think we’ve led ourselves to this, not the left, but the right, and it’s going to affect us all. You guys have to think about it now. I’m sick of having to be the one that’s fighting. Actually, Karamo [Brown] and others on [“Queer Eye”] have mentioned that we’re sick of always having to apologize for all of this, or fight for all of this, or explain who we are, or push for people to see us as humans and see our humanity. I want other people to do that now. Other people with the great privilege of not representing marginalized groups, I want them to become allies, and for them to start to say, “They don’t need to fight for themselves anymore. They’re sick of fighting. It’s our responsibility.”
You live in Utah and you have said you feel safer there in a community that is not particularly diverse than you would living anywhere else. What is it about that environment?
It’s so funny, people always assume I live in LA or New York because you can’t possibly come from England and then move to Utah. However, Utah for me has been amazing. For many people, that may not be the case, but for me personally, I’ve only ever experienced love and acceptance in Utah, even before I became the Tan France that the world knows.
“I wanted to cut my hair for a long time, but always avoided it thinking, I’ve had this look for almost 20 years, how would that be received?”
I feel safe because the Mormon community, even if people aren’t Mormon, they’ve encouraged an environment where even if they think something negative, they’re most likely not going to say it. I’ve never had anyone say anything inappropriate to me on the street, anything racist or homophobic, and I can’t imagine a world where that could ever happen. That’s much more likely going to happen or much more likely to happen in a larger city where people are probably a lot more forthright, but they’re a lot more passive in Utah. For me, it’s the safest place. Also, our crime rate is so low there, it’s just an easier place to live.
After “Queer Eye” came out, it would’ve been so easy to move to LA and New York, that’s where the work is. Instead, I travel every week for work. This is just my job, this is not my life. I’m the luckiest person in the world to get to do this as a job, but I’ve never conflated life with work. So I do my job, I go home, I don’t live a famous life. You will never see me stumbling out of a party or an award show. I do two of those a year. I have a couple of weeks in LA a year where I’ll do the parties. Other than that, I’m just a person who does this very weird job for a living.
I’ve heard you say that when you tried out for this show, your husband encouraged you because you didn’t have enough gay friends. How has that changed now?
Obviously, I have my castmates who I love and the other people that I actually hang out with, which is so nice. Also, they’ve taught me so much about what it is to be a member of the queer community. I’ve learned so much from them, so that’s really opened my eyes to the world.
Being on “Deli Boys” has given me another community. Again, I live in Salt Lake City, Utah, there aren’t that many South Asians. Even though I was only [on “Deli Boys”] for a week, I became so close with every one of the cast members where I now go to events with them. Poorna is my date to this event and that event, I took Saagar as my date to an Emmys event. They’ve become my community also.
The greatest joy of being on “Queer Eye” and now “Deli Boys” is the celebration of that community. You don’t get to be on shows very often where these marginalized groups are the focus. They are the ones we’re celebrating, they’re the ones we’re championing. It’s not necessarily about what they represent, it’s just they are great humans who just so happened to be that thing. I’ve said this about “Deli Boys” before, if it was an all-white cast, it’s still a d**n good show, but the fact that it’s so specifically South Asian makes it even more appealing globally. You’re getting a window into our world that is so much more entertaining than you would ever imagine a Pakistani community to be. They expect us all to be in a mosque and building bombs. That’s not the case at all.
Your whole thing is how we dress, how we look. Does that turn off?
Always. It’s a thing I’m hired for on unscripted, but to be quite frank, I don’t really care what anyone’s wearing. Unless they ask me and they want help, it comes so easily to me that I’m always willing to say, “Yeah, let me give you some advice.”
This is so arrogant or narcissistic, but I’m so focused on what I’m wearing because it’s my job, and therefore people will have an opinion on what I’m wearing. For the average Joe on the street, I just think, wear what makes you happy, be comfortable, as long as you’re happy. If you’re not happy in what you’re wearing, ask my advice, but if you feel good in what you’re wearing, that’s all that matters.
People do have opinions about you. You cut your hair. I heard that was based on feedback from the fans?
I had really tried hard to not look at comments online for about seven years, but we have a new cast member on “Queer Eye”, his name is Jeremiah Brent, and I wanted to know how the audience was receiving this new version of [the show]. I looked online and there were so many comments about how much people hated my hair, and how it made me just seem so unapproachable and pretentious.
I just thought, “Gosh, I would like to believe I’m so affable. I’m playful. I’m not a very serious person, typically.” On the show, if you were to meet any of my castmates, they’ll tell you how annoyingly peppy I am. I’m usually in a very good mood — much to many of their dismay. Much of the dismay on the show is, “Calm down, Tan. Be more serious.” And so I thought, “Oh, well, let’s give a different look a try.”
I wanted to cut my hair for a long time, but always avoided it thinking, I’ve had this look for almost 20 years, how would that be received? I was so anxious about cutting it. And I cut it, and I was even more anxious about the world seeing it. I posted about it at the start of the year and thankfully people were so kind. They were like, “Oh, finally he’s chilled out.”
I have a very selfish last question here. As a former Philly girl, this show takes place in Philly. What’s your favorite Philly treat?
It may not be a specifically Philly treat because I don’t have one in mind, but can I give you instead a restaurant?
Of course.
My two favorite restaurants that I’ve practically lived in whilst I was in Philly are [first] Little Nonna’s. All the food was amazing. The savory food was amazing. The tiramisu was the best I’ve ever had in my life, and I love a good tiramisu. And then second, but arguably the first, is Zahav. It’s the best meal I’ve ever had anywhere in the world—Zahav.
Philly will sneak up on you. It’s a real food town. Plus the Tastykake are good too.
I don’t know what that is.
It’s a prepackaged cake brand.
Okay, here’s the thing. I’m a very keen baker. Very, very keen baker. It’s very rare I will go for a prepackaged baked good. I always want something freshly made and from a mom-and-pop style situation.
I’m there a lot, I will try it. But my husband was obsessed with Little Debbie’s, and everyone I knew was going on about it and I tried it and I was like, that’s a packaged thing. So obviously I want fresh, I want moist, but not oily moist. I want heaven on a plate. I’m really particular about calories. I don’t count my calories, but if I take a bite of something and it’s not gorgeous, I won’t eat the rest. I just think I don’t want to waste my calories on something that’s subpar. I want heaven. Food is really important to me.
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