Fail Again: Kumail Nanjiani’s New Ambition

Fail Better with David Duchovny

Grace Cohen-Chen

Society & Culture

4.6 • 534 Ratings

🗓️ 24 February 2026

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This episode originally aired August 13, 2024 When I first met Kumail Nanjiani, we were on set on the X-Files, chasing down the shape-shifting Were-Monster. Since then, I’ve seen Kumail undergo his own transformation — into a leading man and big-screen superhero, playing memorable characters with depth, heart and humor. Only, he doesn’t always see it that way. We chat about his love of the X-Files and how he’s recently found new ways of approaching his life, relationship and career with more presence and joy, rather than stressing about the outcome. Follow me on Instagram at @davidduchovny. Stay up to date with Lemonada on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia. Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our show and get bonus content. Subscribe today at bit.ly/lemonadapremium. And if you want to continue the conversation with other listeners, join the My Lemonada community at https://lemonadamedia.com/mylemonada/ For a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this and every other Lemonada show, go to lemonadamedia.com/sponsors. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	It's morning in New York.
0:02.8	Oh, God.
0:06.2	Hey, everybody.
0:07.3	I'm Mandy Patinkin.
0:08.7	And I'm Catherine Grady.
0:09.8	And we have a new podcast.
0:11.7	It's called Don't Listen to Us.
0:14.1	Many of you've asked for our advice.
0:16.1	Tell me, what is wrong with you people?
0:19.2	Don't listen to us.
0:20.3	Our Take It or Leave a Device show every Wednesday out now.
0:24.7	A Lemonada Media Original.
0:30.2	The first time I met Kumel was on The X-Files reboot, and it was a Darren Moorigan episode, and he's a tremendous writer, and it was a great script.
0:42.1	The Curse of the Were something?
0:45.2	Ware Monster?
0:46.0	I can't remember, exactly.
0:48.9	But I knew Camel had done a podcast on The X-Files, which is how he got, you know, came to the attention of
0:57.1	the writers.
0:59.8	And one of the things I'm proud of on The X-Files is Chris Carter and company hired really
1:06.2	good actors.
1:06.7	So we had, you know, Shy LaBuffe on the show before he was shy of LaBouf.
1:10.5	We had Lucy Lou on the show before she was Lucy Lou.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Grace Cohen-Chen, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Grace Cohen-Chen and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.