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" I'm a massive rom-com head! Like, every rom-com in the '90s and early 2000s, I've watched. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Every
Early
Head
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" I started doing standup because of Hugh Grant's best-man speech in 'Four Weddings,' which is basically a standup routine. "
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Routine
Started
Doing
" I think, you know, a lot of the business of comedy is taking your personal experiences and making them relatable to other people. "
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Know
You
" I moved to New York first and was really apprehensive about moving to L.A., but I really, really like it. "
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Like
Moving
New
" You really need to have that discipline. It's not even discipline. I just put down these rules. It's not like a vague, 'Motivate yourself!' and do something. It's specific hours set aside every day for certain things. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Day
Rules
Discipline
" 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
Challenge
Time
View
" 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
Me
Good
Say
" 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
You
Everyone
Game
" I didn't know if I could be funny on stage or write a joke. But I saw that there are no rules. If you're funny offstage, you can figure out a way to be funny onstage. "
Kumail Nanjiani
You
Way
Stage
" 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
Place
America
You
" I'd love to be in action movies. I've been trying to convince people. I don't think it's anything physical holding me back. I think it's a general vibe thing that's holding me back. I don't project action confidence, maybe. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Confidence
Love
Me
" I don't go, 'It is now time to change Americans' perception of Muslims. It's going to be a long day.' I think you just try to be unique and try to be yourself, and if something good comes of that, then great. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Change
Day
Yourself
" Because of the Internet, you're sort of forced to deal with people from very different backgrounds and beliefs. It's a great challenge of our time, and depending on when you ask me, I feel optimistic or pessimistic about it. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Great
Challenge
People
" When I was studying comedy in Chicago, it wasn't long after 9/11. There were a lot Middle Eastern comedians who were doing bits about hailing cabs and being terrorists. So the first two years, I didn't do any of that because I wanted to separate myself from those guys. But race is a big part of who I am, and it should be a big part of my comedy. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Comedy
Doing
I Am
" 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
Theory
Big
Daily
" I don't want to generalize, but the target audience for a lot of the YouTube people is fairly young - under the age of 16. You still want to know what those people are watching, because I think it's interesting, but sometimes it just makes you feel old. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Interesting
Think
People
" The plan was always to come to America, because Pakistan's a scary place. They don't have religious freedom. It's very poor, and there's a lot of violence and corruption. "
Kumail Nanjiani
America
Freedom
Corruption
" 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
Stupid
You
Brain
" My parents don't really understand my career. They don't really bring it up that much. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Up
Understand
Parents
" A lot of times, it seems like social media has devolved into people just yelling at each other and not really conversing. "
Kumail Nanjiani
People
Like
Just
" 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
Life
People
Choose
" 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
Stand
Stand Up
Choice
" Stand-up is successful if they laugh. It's unsuccessful if they don't laugh. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Laugh
Unsuccessful
Successful
" I was not a cool kid. There was no reason for me to be marginalised. I was just a nerd. I was kind of weird, and I found solace in video games. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Weird
Video Games
Cool
" I love, love, love the street-cart food. Gyros are like a meat-flavored fruit roll-up. A meat roll-up. "
Kumail Nanjiani
I Love
Fruit
Like
" Most of my exposure to American pop culture was through this weird prism of 'Mad' magazine. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Culture
Through
Weird
" 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
Know
Play
You
" When I started working on 'Michael And Michael,' it was my life for three to four months, and then suddenly it's gone. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Life
My Life
Working
" TV requires a lot more patience. No one's ever like, 'I gotta get up at 5 A.M. and write my stand-up!' It's an easy life. With 'Silicon Valley,' it's long hours and very unglamorous. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Patience
Easy
Valley
" If you do a sketch, that's a very short narrative. Stand-up, it's bit-to-bit, minute-long narratives. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Sketch
Short
Narrative
" Living in Pakistan, you didn't have a sense of how huge and varied America was geographically. I had visited once. I thought of it as this crazy, happy, exciting place where everybody's rich, and there's stuff everywhere. Compared to Pakistan, it's not untrue. Compared to Pakistan, the streets are paved with gold. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Rich
Thought
Happy