Kumail Nanjiani: ‘Poker Face,’ ‘Silicon Valley,’ SNL and More

The Last Laugh

The Daily Beast

Comedy Interviews, Comedy, Interviews, Tv & Film, Society & Culture, Tv, Movies, Film

4.6 • 661 Ratings

🗓️ 14 May 2025

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For most of his career, Kumail Nanjiani has been asked to play the same type of brash nerd character that he perfected over six seasons on HBO’s ‘Silicon Valley.’ Then, a few years back, everything changed. The Pakistani-American comedian transformed his body to appear in the Marvel movie ‘Eternals’ and ever since, strange new doors have opened for him in Hollywood. One of those unexpected opportunities came when Natasha Lyonne reached out to him to play the bleach-blonde-haired, heavily tattooed Florida panhandle cop named Gator Joe on this week’s episode of her Peacock hit ‘Poker Face.’ At first, he thought she might have been joking. In this episode, Nanjiani talks about how he nailed the character’s very specific Southern accent only days before they started filming. Then, he looks back at the earlier part of his career, including how close he came to playing Abed on ‘Community,’ what he learned about “amoral” tech giants like Elon Musk through ‘Silicon Valley,’ and the deeply rewarding experience of bringing his real-life story to the screen in ‘The Big Sick.’ And he also discusses his long-awaited return to stand-up comedy with his first special in 12 years set to hit Hulu later this year.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the Last Laugh. I'm Matt Wilstein from The Daily Beast, and this week I am so excited to finally have on the show one of my favorite comedians, Kumail Nanjiani.
0:17.3	You might know Kumail from his six seasons playing Dinesh on HBO's Silicon Valley,
0:23.1	or from his Oscar-nominated film The Big Sick, or maybe even from his role in the Marvel
0:28.1	universe movie Eternals that prompted him to get super jacked. Now he's putting those huge arms
0:34.1	to good use on the second season of Natasha Leone's excellent peacock series,
0:38.8	Pokerface. In the fourth episode of the new season, which starts streaming tomorrow night
0:43.7	May 15th, Kumail plays a sort of Tiger King-inspired Florida Panhandle cop named Gator Joe.
0:51.4	It's the type of part he says he never would have been offered early in his career when he was exclusively auditioning to play giant nerds.
0:59.0	But a lot of doors have opened for him in recent years, and we get into all of it in this conversation.
1:04.0	Later this year, Kumail is also set to make his long-awaited return to stand-up comedy,
1:10.0	with a new hour-long special on Hulu
1:12.3	that comes a full 12 years after his previous special, Beta Mail, aired on Comedy Central in 2013.
1:20.0	We talk about how different he is as a comedian now than he was back then.
1:24.8	But just to give you an idea, here's a clip from that special
1:28.1	in which Kamail talks about his personal connection
1:30.8	to one of his favorite video games.
1:34.7	Do you guys into video games at all?
1:37.8	Yeah, oh my God.
1:42.7	I play Call of Duty.
1:43.9	You know, my issue with Call of Duty, those games,
1:46.0	is that they're based on like real wars,
1:48.0	like World War II and shit,
	...

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