Kumail Nanjiani Quotes
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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.'
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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.
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I'll tell you, nobody was more excited than me, in the entire world, that there is a 'Silicon Valley' Funko set.
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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?
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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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I started a podcast about 'X-Files' and ended up on it. Then I started a podcast about video games, and I'm in the new 'Mass Effect' game. I have to pick the stuff I love and do a podcast on it.
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Rom-coms have been one of my favorite genres of movies since I can remember. My favorite movie of all-time is 'Four Weddings and a Funeral,' and then 'When Harry Met Sally,' and 'Annie Hall' is top five.
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You can get stuck in the trap of reading your YouTube comments all the time. Sometimes I regret it. Not everyone is going to love you. And for some reason, stand-up has this thing where everyone thinks they can do it. So everyone thinks they're an expert.
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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.
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I have a reward-and-punishment system: If I have done this much work, then I can play video games this long. It gives my day structure.
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One of my favorite comedies is 'Shaun of the Dead.'
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I loved the Oscars, and I had V.H.S. tapes for the Oscars, and I used to watch them over and over. There was probably one year where I watched it, like, 20 times or something.
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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.
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I would say I try to make my comedy really personal. I try to tell stories that happened to me, experiences from my life.
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When I started working on 'Michael And Michael,' it was my life for three to four months, and then suddenly it's gone.
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I love, love, love the street-cart food. Gyros are like a meat-flavored fruit roll-up. A meat roll-up.
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Being a fish out of water is tough, but that's how you evolve.
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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.