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" I thought, from watching TV and stuff, that America was one place. They only show you L.A. and New York. They don't warn you about Iowa. "

Kumail Nanjiani

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" I had this very strict rule when I began auditioning that I wasn't gonna do a thicker accent, because it was like, 'I can't tell if it's supposed to be funny because he talks funny.' And now I feel like there are certain characters that I could play that could involve doing a thicker accent, as long as it's specific to that character. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I know what is funny coming out of my mouth and what is not funny coming out of my mouth. You have to figure out, What is the joke that I can do that nobody else can do? "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I started doing standup because of Hugh Grant's best-man speech in 'Four Weddings,' which is basically a standup routine. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" My parents aren't the demographic for a lot of things I do. If I did a stand-up show, and I saw 62-year-old Pakistanis in the crowd, I'd be like, 'I'm gonna bomb.' "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I remember my jaw would hurt because I wasn't used to speaking English all the time. Like how, even if you exercise, you'll play kickball one day, and then you're like, 'Wait, I run, but new places are hurting because I don't use my muscles this way.' My mouth was not used to making these sounds. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" If you do a sketch, that's a very short narrative. Stand-up, it's bit-to-bit, minute-long narratives. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I never decided I wanted to be an actor. I just started doing standup because I love standup. Everything else has sort of been these tiny steps leading to this. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I've always played some version of a nerdy guy or something like that. I mean, one of my story lines on 'Silicon Valley' is that I am very bad with women! "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I used to like to come up with inventions because I hated working so much when I had my day job. I thought, 'All I need is a great idea, and I'm out of here.' "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I want to be so famous that I'm the pop-culture reference that people would make to try and be racist to me. So I'd be walking down the street, and someone would be, like, 'Hey, look at this Kumail Nanjiani.' "

Kumail Nanjiani

" A lot of people say video games can be stifling. Older people say, 'We had to go outside, and we had to make up stories!' For me, video games broadened my horizons. Playing 'Golden Axe,' I was those characters. I imagined myself being in that world, so honestly, it was a really good thing. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" The world is getting smaller. And people are bumping up against people from different parts of the world with very different points of view. The challenge of our time is going to be, how do you allow other points of view to exist within what you traditionally see as your world? "

Kumail Nanjiani

" You just don't see Muslims being matter-of-fact Muslim. They're always defined by their Muslim-ness. We're either terrorists, or we're fighting terrorists. I remember seeing 'True Lies' and going, 'Why are we always the bad guys?' "

Kumail Nanjiani

" Studio execs were like, ''Lord of the Rings!' People want to see sword-and-dragon-type things!' No, people just want to see great stories. Hollywood always takes the wrong lesson from successes. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" A lot of times, it seems like social media has devolved into people just yelling at each other and not really conversing. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" Honestly, I would love to be friends with Fox Mulder on 'The X-Files.' That's almost a little too obvious, but that would be my answer. I'd love to hang out with him. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I grew up watching 'Ghostbusters' and 'Knight Rider' and Hot Wheels commercials. When I got to college, having never set foot in America, I knew more American pop-culture references than my friends did. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I stay home. It's the best place to be alone. There is hardly any walk-through traffic. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" Populate your life with people different from you. Once you leave school, you get to choose the kinds of people you're going to be around rather than forced to be around them. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I always felt that it was never the duty of a person to really stand up for their gender or their race or anything like that - I always felt that was a personal choice. But I do feel now that maybe my opinion is evolving or changing a little bit. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" You can go slow. Allow your dreams and goals to change, but live an intentional life. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I still don't have a real appreciation for music because I didn't really start listening to it until my 20s. My wife knows everything about music, and I try and get her to educate me, but it's just not part of my DNA. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" Think about when you were 12 or 13. The stuff I watched was awful! I tried to watch a 'He-Man' cartoon recently, and I was like, 'Oh my God!' I just had, like, a small brain. I was stupid. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" There was one week where I got mistaken for Hasan Minhaj, who is on 'The Daily Show;' Kunal Nayyar, who's on 'Big Bang Theory;' and Karan Soni of 'Ghostbusters.' This was one week. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" When generally people make race-based jokes to me - even if they're not technically racist, they're sort of based on me being Pakistani or whatever - on Twitter, you know, I block a lot of people who say something weird about my name or something. It does bug me generally, but it is all about context. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I've found that the common humanity of people is the most relatable thing, and even if your stories are very specific about a different place, if you have a relatable core of humanity, people will go along with it. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" Stand-up is successful if they laugh. It's unsuccessful if they don't laugh. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I know a lot of brown actors who play terrorists because they're physically intimidating. For me, it was like, 'O.K., you'll be the nerd.' So I've played the nerd. I've played food-delivery guys. But I always tried to find something in the characters so that they weren't just defined by what they looked like. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I never really got into game shows. The easiest one is 'Wheel Of Fortune' because you just have to know words, and for the most part everyone knows words. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" In popular culture, there isn't any other conception of Islam and Muslims other than what you see on the news... When you go to a theme park, you see Muslims riding roller coasters and eating ice cream. Why doesn't anybody think of those Muslims when they think of Muslims? "

Kumail Nanjiani