Interview | Comedian Neema Naz on Iranian Parents, Comedic Hustle, and Finding His Voice
Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation
Chai & Conversation
4.9 • 548 Ratings
🗓️ 14 May 2025
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode of Growing Up Irooni, I sit down with Neema Naz—comedian, content creator, and the internet’s favorite Persian son—to talk about his rise from Scarborough’s multicultural neighborhood to international stages. Neema shares how being the “funny kid” at family gatherings led to his career in comedy, why his Iranian identity is core to his storytelling, and how his whole family (especially his mom!) became an essential part of his brand.
We talk about:
- Neema’s evolution as a comedian—from early sketches to working with Drake
- How his upbringing shaped his inclusive and culturally collaborative humor
- The pressures of representing the Iranian diaspora and navigating community expectations
- Why staying grounded in family is key to both his comedy and his sanity
🎫 Follow Neema & get tour dates: neemanaz.com
📱 On Instagram: @neemanaz
🧿 Learn Persian & more interviews: chaiandconversation.com
If you’ve ever wondered how to balance being Persian and pursuing a creative career, this one’s for you.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | and how much your parents will actually, weirdly enough, understand it later on. |
| 0:03.8 | But it's the first few years that might be tough. Thank you so much for joining me today. |
| 0:36.6 | Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me. Yeah, so we're recording later than we intended to, and I totally picked up on the fact that |
| 0:44.3 | Nima is usually a five minutes early kind of person, which he confirmed. |
| 0:48.3 | Yeah, I don't know what happened, but it happens. |
| 0:52.3 | But I can tell you're a very serious person. |
| 0:54.6 | You're very serious about your craft. |
| 0:56.1 | You're disciplined and all of that comes through with what you do all the time. |
| 1:00.6 | Thank you. |
| 1:01.0 | I appreciate that. |
| 1:01.7 | Yeah. |
| 1:02.1 | I definitely, I take pride in all that for sure. |
| 1:04.9 | And it's definitely the model I like to live by. |
| 1:07.5 | Yeah. |
| 1:07.9 | So this series is called Growing Up Errone. |
| 1:10.6 | So let's go back to your first of all, if anyone doesn't know who Nima is, which I would be very surprised by, but you're a comedian working in Canada. |
| 1:19.6 | You're currently in Canada. |
| 1:20.8 | You were in Australia for a little bit, but right now you're back at home base and you're coming to America at a really awesome time. Nothing's going on here. |
| 1:30.5 | It's going to be smooth sailing. Some wild stuff happening. I don't know. I don't know what's going |
| 1:35.0 | out of that. I'm ready for battle. Yeah. It's going to be a big American tour this year. |
| 1:40.5 | But yeah, introduce yourself. Tell us what you do now. And then let's go back to the beginning and see how you got here. Yeah, I'm a comedian and actor, content creator, |
| 1:48.2 | whatever you want to call it. I've been doing comedy for almost 10 years now. |
... |
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