Nellie Andreeva

NBC will tackle the thorny issue of Muslim-Jewish relations in a sitcom. The network has put in development a comedy series based on the 2010 British comedy feature The Infidel, with British-Iranian actor-comedian Omid Djalili, who starred in the movie, attached to reprise his role. Mark O’Keefe (Bruce Almighty, The O’Keefes) will write the adaptation, which is being produced by Avalon Television and the company behind the film, Slingshot Prods. The Infidel centers on a devoutly Muslim family man (Djalili) who is shocked to discover upon the death of his mother that he was adopted, and was actually born a Jew. Trying to make the best of his new identity, he places himself in the hands of a cab driving mentor, played in the movie by The West Wing alum Richard Schiff. Also co-starring in the cross-cultural feature comedy was The Good Wife‘s Archie Panjabi (trailer below). Djalili and O’Keefe will executive produce the series version with the film’s writer-producer David Baddiel, producer Arvind Ethan David and Avalon’s Jon Thoday. (O’Keefe, Avalon and Baddiel are with UTA.) In the U.S., the film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and was picked up by Showtime. It is unclear if that happened under Bob Greenblatt, who now bought the TV series project as head of NBC.

For Djalili, headlining his own NBC series projects has been a decade in the making. The network first signed a talent holding deal with Djalili in 2002 following his standout performance at that year’s Edinburgh festival with a stand-up routine that revolved around his Middle Eastern ancestry and what that entails in the post-Sept. 11 world, as well as a self-deprecating look at the collision of his Iranian and Western cultural identities. At the time, then-NBC head of casting Marc Hirschfeld described Djalili to me as “the best comic that you don’t know, a character actor who is like a bigger-than-life John Goodman, a big lovable guy.” For Djalili’s starring vehicle at NBC, he and Annabel Knight, his wife and writing partner, came up with the idea of him playing an Iranian professor in New York who ends up helping his brother at his diner. The pilot script was barely finished when the U.S. invaded Iraq. The network told the comedian that America was probably not ready for an Iranian sitcom lead at that particular moment. Djalili went on to be cast in Whoopi Goldberg’s short-lived NBC comedy series Whoopi, and earlier this year, he appeared in his second American series, also on NBC, the ill-fated Paul Reiser Show. When I interviewed Djalili in 2003, he was realistic about the challenges his ethnic background presented for a TV career in the U.S. “It’s an uphill battle for me, you know,” said the actor, whose feature credits include the blockbuster The Mummy and Pirates Of The Caribbean franchises. “Like when Mr. Cunningham in Happy Days walks on the set and they go ‘Whoo!’ That’s not gonna happen for a long time.” Eight years later, it may.

TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.