Performer Kumail Nanjiani: A New Act

Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

Lemonada Media

Society & Culture, Film Interviews, Tv & Film

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2022

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today, we’re joined by actor, writer, and comedian, Kumail Nanjiani! We discuss his new series, Welcome to Chippendales, playing real-life entrepreneur Steve Banerjee (4:39), his fascination with American culture growing up in Pakistan (11:45), moving to America as a teenager (17:23), and performing standup as a college student in Des Moines (22:21).

On the back-half, Nanjiani describes performing in Chicago in 2006 (26:17), his family-inspired solo act, Unpronounceable (31:46), and how he and Emily Gordon captured their personal events in the acclaimed film, The Big Sick (35:12). To close, we walk through his dramatic pivot in films like Eternals and Obi-Wan Kenobi (41:55), the aftermath of that transformation (45:58), and how he continues to tell rich and complex immigrant stories through Little America and now, Welcome to Chippendales (53:37).

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Pushkin. This is talk easy. I'm Sam by actor and comedian Camille Nancion. He might have seen his work in The Big Sick,
0:49.6	Eternal's, or the hit HBO series Silicon Valley.
0:54.6	His latest performance comes in the sprawling true crime saga,
0:58.4	Welcome to Chippendales,
0:59.9	which charts the rise and fall of Steve Bergy, an Indian American entrepreneur who founded the
1:06.1	world's greatest male stripping empire.
1:08.9	You can watch the first three episodes of the show on Hulu right now with the rest of the series
1:14.2	premiering weekly on Tuesdays through January 3rd. As you hear at the top,
1:19.2	Ninjani and I met back in 2017 just before the Big Sick debuted in theaters. That film, in
1:27.0	case you forgot, told the love story of Camille and then-girlfriend now wife
1:31.4	Emily Gordon who was suddenly rushed into a medically
1:34.8	induced coma at age 27. The film was met with great enthusiasm out of Sundance and
1:41.4	landed one of the largest deals in the history of the festival.
1:45.7	And so today we reflect on the changes he's experienced in the intervening five years.
1:52.0	We also discuss his upbringing in Pakistan, his early work as a
1:55.9	stand-up comic in Des Moines and Chicago, his very public physical transformation, and
2:01.9	how he continues to tell rich and complex immigrant stories
2:06.2	through both Apple TV's Little America and now welcome to Chippendales.
2:11.6	So without further ado, this is Camille Nancioni. How you doing?
2:24.0	I'm good. How are you? I'm excited to have you. Oh, I'm glad to be back.
2:38.0	This is the first time you've been on the show. But we've spoken before, we have spoken before. But it wasn't here. It wasn't here. It was at like a coffee shop or something. We're at a coffee shop. Right. It was five years ago. Is that when it was? We were doing an interview for Playboy. Is that what it was?
2:54.8	That's what I know we've spoken but I didn't realize it was for. I forgot what it was for.
	...

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