EXCLUSIVE: Emerging U.S. production company Marginal MediaWorks has attached Squid Game actor Anupam Tripathi to star in its upcoming scripted audio series Scammers.
Tripathi, recently nominated for a SAG Award for Squid Game, will play a telemarketer-turned-phone scammer from India and the drama will chart his journey to create a new identity. The series arc moves from India to Detroit and Silicon Valley and follows a trio of characters, led by Tripathi.
The show is created by Vishnu Vallabhaneni and Karan Sunil. B&C Content’s Chris S. Lee (The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil) is aboard as a producing partner.
Sunil previously wrote and directed the web series Code-Switched which is now being developed as a TV series. He is also developing a dark comedy series with Sony Pictures TV and was previously a 2020 Writing Fellow for Film Independent’s Project Involve.
Vallabhaneni has previously worked with filmmaker Justin Simien on Netflix series Dear White People, feature Bad Hair, and cut his teeth producing podcasts with Simien’s conversation series, Don’t @ Me. He was also a Directing Fellow in the 2019 AT&T Hello Lab with Lena Waithe as his mentor, and is a nominated filmmaker on Alma Har’el’s film advocacy platform, Free The Work.
Marginal is soon to release Harlem-set crime-thriller audio series Corner Wolves, made in partnership with Luminary.
“I know this character inside out, in fact, I worked in a call center early on while getting my acting career off the ground in India,” said Tripathi. “I’m thrilled to join forces with Marginal on this series and breathe life into this rich character and story universe that Karan and Vish are creating. I was immediately intrigued by the nuance required from the role, between confidence and arrogance, empathy and compliance, and the stretching needed to construct a complex character using only my voice.”
Marginal works in film, TV, animation and podcasts. Credits include The Killing of Kenneth Chamberlainfor HBO Max, Madres for Amazon Prime, and The Obituary of Tunde Johnson for Hulu.
The company’s next feature, Cypher, will open SXSW in March. The company recently wrapped Four Samosas, a South Asian American-rooted comedy shot entirely in LA’s “Little India.” The company sold its first series to Amazon in 2021, a LatinX hour-long genre series called Hummingbird.
“We’re shooting for the first global audio franchise,” said Marginal MediaWorks founder & CEO Sanjay Sharma. “The power of global storytelling is increasingly undeniable, we see it in hits like Squid Game, Lupin, and Money Heist – all created outside the US. The opportunity in bridging the South Asian experience and diaspora with the West, and frankly anyone who loves genre stories, is massive. Our mission at Marginal from the beginning has been to center outsider voices and the story that Vish and Karan have created, coupled with the brilliance of Anupam, we think will be a first of its kind moment for audio storytelling – culturally hyper specific, but with broad global appeal. We’re excited to partner with Chris S. Lee at B&C to bring our shared vision to ears around the world.”
“As filmmakers, we’ve always been interested in finding new and genre-bending ways to tell our stories,” added the directors. “For us, the feeling of existing as immigrants and fighting for the American Dream can feel like a scam in and of itself. With Scammers we’re playing with the thriller genre to tell a story rooted in, and empathetic to, a South Asian character, while at once appealing to all those who have felt like outsiders in a system that wasn’t made for them to succeed. We’re so excited to have Anupam bring our lead character to life, where he can bring his own personal narrative as an immigrant to the forefront.”
