The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - South Beach Sessions - Kumail Nanjiani

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

Kumail Nanjiani is returning to his roots. After reaching heights most actors can only dream of (like being a Marvel superhero!), he’s come back to the world of stand-up, where he made his start. Kumail opens up about his journey through self-acceptance: from being bullied as a kid, to dealing with typecasting, to achieving ground-breaking success and not knowing how to process it. He and Dan also get into masculinity culture, learning to manage their anger, and how therapy helped them understand their anxieties. Watch Kumail’s Golden Globe nominated new standup special, “Night Thoughts”, out December 19th on Hulu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to Draft King's Network. Maybe it's just a phase you're going through. You'll get over it. I can't help you with that. The next appointment is in six months. You're not alone. Finding mental health support shouldn't leave you feeling more lost. At CAMH, we know how frustrating it can be trying to access care.

We're working to build a future world. the path to support is clear and every step forward feels like progress, not another wrong turn. Visit camh.ca to help us forge a better path for mental health care. I'm very excited about this one because Kamail Nanjiani is a man of much range. It's not just that he's an actor, he's a writer, and I think his first love is stand-up comedy. He's returning to stand-up. Night Thoughts is the special, Hulu, December 19th. He's in theaters now with Ella McKay.

I wonder which of these, you've shown an extraordinary range, and your journey is fascinating. So thanks for being with us. But which of these gives you the greatest joy, because you're going back to comedy now, and you didn't have to do that. No, which brings me the greatest joy. It changes day to day. What I love about stand-up is it's really on you, your mistakes. It's you and the crowd.

If something doesn't go right, it's completely your fault. When you're acting and stuff, truly when you're acting and stuff, you're at the mercy of other people. So you really have to trust the filmmaker that they like make you look good. The actual doing of it, I enjoy acting the most, I would say, because I find it to be challenging and it's exciting because the goals are so varied. Whereas with stand-up, your goal really is to make people laugh, right?

And it's not limited. There's so much you could do with stand-up. But with acting, you could really, it can be very cathartic. You can, like, it kind of feels like it can't feel like therapy, you know. Stand-up you can do really well. just have it be outward facing with acting you can't do that you have to sort of be inside your own self but therapy how how because you you say inside your own self but it's also the one that is most not you right you're i don't think the welcome to chippendale's character that you played

is very you but parts of them are me you know the part of me that's like oh if i could kill this guy and get away with it wouldn't that be great i mean there's i have you know i certainly have a list of I'm like, if that person could die and it doesn't come back to me, I would not even consider not doing it. I would do it right now. So with acting, I mean, it's all, you're playing different characters, but at least the way I do it, I wasn't trained or anything in acting. I mean, I've been taking acting classes now for about 12 years,

but I didn't go to school for it. I have to use parts of myself. I have to put parts of myself into the character, and I have to take parts of the character and put them into myself. So it is very personal, no matter how different the character, character is on the surface, you really are using a lot of your own insights for it. Well, I want to get to a bunch of this stuff because you're very vulnerable, you're sensitive. So let's dive into the deep end.

Which are you more? Sensitive or anxious? Sensitive. I'm more sensitive. I think so. Although, you know, with anxiety for so long, it was just like what I thought being a person was, that is just sometimes it becomes like background noise so you don't even know

like for me the biggest I've had journeys with both those things about myself and I'm at different points with them with anxiety it took me a long time to even realize I was anxious and I was with my wife family you've been together for years and at one point I was like

you know I'm a very laid back person she's like what are you talking about you're like the most anxious person who've ever met and I realized like all this thinking and overthinking and what am I going to do next or what did I do was that okay shouldn't have done that shouldn't have done that the regret of doing something hurting myself for something I did that's already in the past not basically not being able to live in the moment I realized that's just how I've been my entire

and sort of numb right because I recognize this one like numb to it where because I always argued that I'm here and I didn't realize that I went lower than that because of whatever the suppression of feelings were or eating my feelings or not understanding what my feelings were, speaking them more than feeling them? 100%. I wasn't even speaking my feelings. I was just, it would push, push, push, come out as anger. So I've had, I would say until fairly recently, since I was a kid, I've had like anger issues. Since I was a kid, I remember being 10 and being so angry that I didn't know what to deal with it. The anger felt bigger than the world.

And that's a thing that my parents have known about me my entire life. Because everybody else, you know, thought I was a very nice kid. I was very good. I got good grades. I never got in trouble. Really, you know, I was really was like kind of a golden child. And I really was, you know, kind of still am to the family. I was like the prince of the family.

But what they got to see that nobody else got to see was this explosive anger that would happen every now. And all that came from suppressing feelings. but also not, in some ways, not liking myself. And I didn't realize that I didn't like myself until just a few years ago. And I think when I sort of understood that, I was like, oh, a lot of these behaviors are now making sense. So that was what the anxiety, and sensitivity is tied to that too. You know, I knew I was always sensitive, but then not liking that about. myself, the fact that my feelings get hurt very easily, that I get sad very easily, and realizing

that that's not how men are supposed to be, and trying to push that down led to a lot of anger, led to a lot of self-hatred too, because I didn't like that I was this sensitive. And you know, when you're like in high school and stuff, you're supposed to be kind of like badass and you have this armor and nothing gets to you, everything got to me. And it wasn't until I would until my 40s where I was like, oh, I'm really, really sensitive and it's okay to just, that's just my like cross to bear. My feelings get hurt. Nothing's going to fix that. I have to accept it. Why till 40, though? Because I buried myself in my work so much that I didn't realize any of that until I got to my 40s too. Like there are a lot of parallels here for me.

Well, at a certain point, it just became a part of it was the pandemic, just having to really sit with myself, just me and Emily. We didn't, we took it very seriously because my, wives in a high-risk group. So for a year and a half, we did not leave the house. Just having to like spend all that time. And we would separate for the day. So we'd wake up, we'd have breakfast together. We'd spend all day separately. I would work. She would work. We'd write. I'd work out. And we then would come together for dinner and watch a movie at night. So spending all that time with myself, I became very aware of like how things make me feel, how what my reaction to things is. and I also actually do think acting did help with that

realizing like oh I have all this stuff I can tap into which means that stuff is in there and I've been denying it how did you identify though as laid back when you're angry like how does how does that self-assessment become so wrong are you in denial there because I wasn't angry all the time I would get angry every now and then it was a hundred percent denial it was certainly denial um I just because on the surface

you know, in my 20s, I was smoking a lot of pot. I was doing stand-up. I was late to my work all the time. So I was like, these are all, like, to me, the signifiers of someone who's very chill and laid back. It's just someone who smokes weed. Yeah. Well, you know, it's like that, to me, the analogy is when a fan's moving really fast,

it looks like it's not moving at all. That's how I sort of felt. Where on the surface, I was just, like, kind of chill. But inside was a tempest. And it was just all these conflicting cyclones of feelings seemingly canceling each other out. But they really weren't. They were all, everything was spiking all at once. And so I knew I had an anger issue and I hated myself for that too.

You know, I hated that I had this anger thing. Like I'd get very angry and my pattern had become with people I love getting really angry and then saying the thing you can't take back and then that would be, that would sort of break it and then suddenly awful guilt about what I had said. What a wonderful cycle that is right there. It was, it was, oh my God. You finally get rid of the feeling and then just feel great remorse for having felt it, have it said it, and it just becomes a cyclone of self-punishment where you never forgive

yourself. I mean, self-punishment has been a big part of just how I deal with myself forever. It took me a long time to realize that. And I think it was just realizing, you know, when I got to my 40s, I've been with my wife family now. We've been married for 17 years, realizing this is the person I love most in the world. I'm making her life difficult because of this. And I owe it more to her to, like, be better about this stuff. And we started doing this thing where we had to tell each other three vulnerable things every day.

when we did that for months could be big small whatever and that's what made me realize like oh all the things that i thought i hated about myself just makes her love me more what great wisdom to have though to understand that you had to be vulnerable that you have to do that in order for the relationship to expand for her to see you completely yeah i mean that's the goal it became i realized like oh you know people still talk about like i don't tell my wife everything And I'm like, I really, really do. I now, it wasn't always like this. Genuinely, the goal is 100% true and genuine deep vulnerability.

Everything. Oh, because the love gets returned as self-love. Does it not? Like when you see that you give her the parts of you that you're ashamed of or that you think are ugly and she's like, no, I accept you that way too because it's part of who you are, like that's, I mean, that's where you're not alone anymore. That's why you're not inside your body with that tempest all the time.

Exactly. And to me, you know, truly genuinely that someone, Emily's the most wonderful person I've ever met. And obviously that's a very subjective statement. She's my wife. You're biased. I'm biased. However, when people meet her, they do see that there's something very special and magical about her. There just is an undeniable thing about her that everybody who knows her knows. It's not just me. People say that objectively there's something about her. And I think if someone as wonderful as that loves me, there's got to be something good about me.

Well, it sounds like she's cracked you open, though. Like it sounds like, you know, when I'm watching your special and you're romanticizing about the fact that you're doing it, not just in Chicago, but you said in the theater where you met her, correct? No, it's the city where we met, but I have a personal connection to that theater as well. not to do with our relationship. Okay, but you met around work, right? You were sort of obsessed with work. I was doing stand-up a lot, and we met at a show, yeah. Yeah, so going back to do that,

I got very emotional immediately when I came out on stage. And I had not expected that, and I did not, it's not something that I wanted to do. It just sort of happened. And to me, it was a good sign. It meant that I was situated enough in that moment to really feel it. And then we talked a lot about whether or not

to put that little moment in the special. And we tried it without it, but I was like, it sort of speaks to what the special is about anyway. And so we decided to leave it in. I want to talk about your journey. It's improbable. What do you regard as the most improbable part of it? Truly all of it.

I mean, I truly cannot. It's hard. to grasp, you know, if I'd gone back to myself at any point, even in my 20s to be like, this is what I would get to do, I would not believe it, especially because as a kid I was very shy, I was very, very quiet, very reserved. So it's very shocking to people that I do this. People who've known me, like, you know, now my parents have accepted it, but if you ask them, they'd be like, it's the last person we knew that we would expect to be doing this. There's a lot of luck involved, right place, right time kind of things. I've gotten a lot of

A lot of people have sort of, like, helped me and put their reputation on the line to give me chances, and I really appreciate that. I mean, none of it really makes sense. You know, if there are parallel universes, this is the only one where I'm doing this. Okay, so let me see if you've explored this part. Is part of your need to be vulnerable in public or to be autobiographical in public, how much of it comes from growing up in a city of 27 million? people and perhaps feeling not seen? I've never connected that. I'm not sure.

I don't know how much of it comes from how I was raised or whatever. I just have always been a huge fan of movies and TV, big fan of pop culture. And I don't know when it happened, but my entire life, as far as I can remember, I've always valued people revealing themselves through art. It's always been something that I've really connected to. So, like, you know, I was, I just did Conan O'Brien's podcast and I was telling him this. Like, I didn't, when I was a little, little kid, I liked silly stuff, but I really liked stuff that showed me who someone was, you know, or got at some sort of truth about something. I really always loved that.

Like, I fell in love with Bruce Springsteen. And to me, his music is intensely. personally, even though he's not, he's never been a blue collar, you know, even though it's all kind of fraudulent. Yeah, it's all, and he admits that, you know, he talks about that. Now he does. He sold us alive for many years. Now he's got the wisdom of age. Well, yeah, his one-man show on Broadway, which I watched was a phenomenon where he talks about that. He's like, I've been a fraud. But very empathetic, right? And getting at presumably, at least what I perceive as some kind of truth about being a human being in this reality.

And so when I started doing stand-up in the beginning, you're so terrified to get on stage that anything that you can hold onto when you're there is good. So I was writing very jokey jokes for the first few years, but it was fairly early, you know, it was like four or five years in, which is pretty early for stand-up where I realized, I was like, oh, I have to find a way to be myself on stage. That to me, otherwise this isn't worth it. I was sort of playing this persona of a guy who's really nervous because I was really nervous and it's very easy to lean into it.

And it was funny and I was good at that kind of comedy timing, like the funny, like the sort of nervous comedy timing. But four or five years in is when I felt like a fraud and I was like, this is only worth doing if I can really be myself on stage. And so then even in my writing and acting and all that, like you talked about playing, you know, playing Stephen, welcome to Chippendales. even in that performance, my goal is to show parts of myself,

is to reveal something of my insides on camera. And so that's always been something that I've really, really valued. Like I've never been, I've really, you know, like sketch comedy, for instance, which to me is in some ways the opposite of that, at least how I perceive it. It's never been something that I've really, really, it's never been one of my things. I've tried writing it. I've tried acting in it. I'm not good at it. I didn't grow up loving sketch comedy. A lot of my friends are very, very good at it. But wait, you grew up, you grew up wanting to be a scientist, right? Like, you're not having, you're not going to have the same upbringing as your friends in this field in any way, are you? Like, before 18, you're not in this country. What access do you have other than television to learning some of these things? Not at all. I mean, to me, watching movies and TV shows.

I was like, oh, these are made by gods far away. It's not something that people can make. I have friends like, you know, like Nick Kroll, who I think is one of the funniest people in the world. He was doing little sketches and skits in his summer camp, and I've seen, like, pictures of it. And so he's known for a long time. And a lot of my friends have known since they were kids.

Like, this is what I want to do. I did not think that that was a possibility in any way. and even so now it's sort of been like slowly I'm going to misuse this analogy the frog boiling in water thing there was never a moment where I was like and now I want to go act in movies

it was all like tiny steps that just sort of led to this so I started doing stand-up that was the first thing that I jumped into that I was like I need to do this I don't know how not to do this I don't know how to do it but I don't know how not to do it and the only thing that hurt more than getting on stage was not getting on stage

and from that it's all been like tiny little steps leading to this I don't feel like there was ever a decision to like there have been decisions within that like writing the big sick with Emily and acting in it was like I was like I want to tell this story and I want to be vulnerable in that kind of way but everything else has just sort of been like tiny little things I've heard you express regret for that being the one step that was too personal you thought that in the big sick

that you went so autobiographical that you're like something should be just mine. I don't have to give everybody everything. Yeah, and there's some stuff in that that we didn't give to people. And Emily was actually very smart about that because I was like, put everything down. And Emily was like, no, some things are just ours. And Emily changed her family's last name in the movie. I did not, which I do regret.

I think that was stupid. I do not regret doing the big sick. There are things within it that I would do differently. But I'm very proud of what we made with that. I do not regret it. I didn't mean to suggest. that you regretted that, just that the portion that you learned there, maybe I shouldn't give everyone to everything to everyone. Right. And at least you, if you're giving stuff to people

that hide it, you know, like write it into a zombie movie or something so that there's like a little bit more distance. That felt like uniquely naked, you know. It felt like I had no safety net with that movie. And I do like doing that. operating without a safety net, but this is, like, for instance, in, I realized the importance of a safety net even within acting. And in Chippendales, I was doing a scene that was emotionally very challenging. And so I was using a personal memory to do it. And I did it, you know, the reality of acting as you're doing it, like 30, 40 times. But halfway through, I was like, I was exhausted. And I was like, oh, I can't do this anymore. I have to figure out ways.

to, I don't, I can't like access real life stuff to get there. It works, but it takes a toll on me personally, and that's when I realized that I don't think what I do should be making my life worse. Hey, I mean. What's up, Jeremy? Well, people seem to really view this voice as a bit of a gift this week, not really having to hear my voice as often,

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you can. How different was it than when you came over here at 18 and how difficult was that transition for you? I mean, I loved my upbringing. Had a great, had a great, great parents. really really lucky upbringing watched I was always like I said Emily and I hosted a podcast called The Indoor Kids for many years about video games I was certainly an indoor kid

a lot of movies lot of video games I mean there was a time in my life where I watched a movie every single day I'd go to the video store I'd get seven movies watch each one take them back get seven more that was really what I really really loved like when I think back on like

And also having a, we have a big family that's very close. So my dad has four sisters. They all have kids. My mom has a sister and a brother. They all have kids. They didn't all live in Karachi. But every Friday, all of us would go out to dinner. So it was like 15, 20 people every single Friday.

So those were the things I really loved as a kid. I loved my movies, my video games, and I loved like just, the fun of my extended family because I really have a great, great family, like very fun, very, like, loud, very funny. Like I was in Toronto doing stand-up, and then afterwards a bunch of my family and I went out to a Pakistani restaurant,

Karachi restaurant. So good. But I was just so, like, proud of getting emotional, so proud of how, like, great my family is. So those are the things I really, really loved. Hate it's cool. Never liked it. It was very good at school.

got really good grades all the time, but put a lot of pressure on myself there, truly derived no joy from school. There were moments where I did derive joy from learning. Like, I really loved learning. Like, the reason I thought I wanted to be a scientist was I remember reading biology and chemistry, and when something made sense,

it was a very exciting feeling. And I was like, oh, I feel like I understand. Like, I remember specifically, I don't know how old I was, but reading about the digestive system and it all making sense to me when I was like, I don't know, 12, 13, that's the other thing. Like, what I was learning in college here, my first two years was stuff that I learned

already in, like, are in high school before that, especially, like, math and science. So I don't know how old I was, but I remember learning, rudimentary version of how the digestive system works and how exciting it was to me. And so I was like, oh, this is why I want to be a scientist because I like making sense of things in that kind of way. But I did not enjoy school at all. I hated going every single day. It was miserable.

When I was sick, it was really exciting. Like, Emily liked going to school. I cannot imagine that. But you were also getting bullied, right, in high school? Or weren't you? I got bullied in my last two years because I switched schools. In the other school, I was totally fine. Like, I was invisible to the bullies.

And I had, like, my group of friends. And we were all sort of, like, I wouldn't, there were no, like, I wouldn't say what, even what click we were, we were just, like, friends. Actually, one time I remember, everyone liked me, you know, and up until my last two years of high school. I was, like, the nerdy kid that I was also friends with the bad kids because I had a breakfast club situation where I was in, like, detention once because I got roped into something that I never got in trouble,

so this was a big deal. But I got detention with, like, some of the bad kids, and we had a great time together. And I was like, oh, these kids, I judged that they were like the can I swear yeah the shitty kids I was like oh they're great they're cool they're bad at school but otherwise they're great well it sounds like it sounds like you probably just had a family that was surrounding you that while loving was also pushing you toward ambition in some ways right like I mean it had to be it couldn't be the arts as a career

it would have to be science you had you weren't self-motivated to be great at things and not get into trouble right that had something to do with the environment you were in I mean sort of not really obviously my parents wanted us to get good grades but I did not really have parents who really were those kinds of like who were really I don't remember that being part of it I remember it being self-motivated because so much of it was I think not knowing who I was or not knowing what I was and thinking, oh, I'm kind of smart

and so if I'm good in school, that's the only way I can have that I saw having any value as a human being was being good at school. And so I think it came from that. Emily always says with me, she's like the call is coming from inside the house and it's been true my entire life.

My parents didn't really push me super hard in that kind of way. They were very, like my brother, my younger brother, I think he's okay saying this. He did not get good grades. And they, obviously, you know, he would get in trouble. But I wasn't like, oh, I can't be like my brother because my parents will do this to me.

They treated us pretty much the same. You know, we weren't like horribly punished kids or anything at all. So it was always pretty self-generated. Like, the need to study all the time. Like, sometimes my mom would be like, what are you doing? You don't need to study all the time. Like, I remember I would have a movie on and I'd just be studying, especially like our system was very based on like exams like you'd have testing at the end

and during those two weeks I literally studied morning to night all day every day more than anybody else I'd ever met like none of my friends were doing it my family wasn't doing and you know people in my family who got good grades weren't doing it I was the one who was doing it and I always had this math of like if I study this much then I can play video games for this long and I still have that math in my head and so So you're still, so you're doing the Marvel movie over here and I can still do video games over here. Well, now you're voicing video games as well. Yeah, if I've earned it, then I can do it.

And that's what, you know, these are all patterns that have been with me since I was a kid. And they helped me, obviously. I was going to say, your way of being, while it may have been anxious and may have been tormented, you probably also assigned it as the fuel for your success, I would imagine, right? Yeah. I mean, yeah, yeah, certainly. But the balance has been how do you have that be the fuel to my success while not being too hard on myself, you know? But like, for instance, today, I didn't realize I had this mess up on my end.

I woke up this morning and I had my morning. I had up until 11.30, my first thing was 11.30. And I was like, oh, I'm going to watch cricket this morning. And that's all I'll do. And even giving myself permission to do that is so much progress just to spend like three hours this morning watching something. And I've been like really doing stuff. I've been like very busy these days, you know. And even that, giving myself permission to do that was like some, it was like an internal

conversation. So you're just giving yourself little rewards for working hard. Yeah, but even that's hard. You know, it's hard to give myself those rewards because it feels like I should be doing something. That's, it's really a problem. Do you have that? I have trouble with balance, I would say.

But I also really enjoy my work. So the work sometimes is the reward in and of itself. I mean, truly I love my work. So if I'm like learning lines for a movie, there is a part of it that is work. But if I'm not enjoying the actual doing of it, I'm taking pride in the fact that I'm getting it done. There is, it's all positive feelings.

And there's no part of my work that I don't enjoy. I'm very lucky to be able to say that. I love that at the end of your special, of course, after telling us about bagel and your pathetic and extreme love of cats that I recognize because my wife also will do things like you do with bagel and make an assortment of names for the cat that are ridiculous. At the end of it, you tackle therapy and you just tackle the all of it in terms of pushing down some feelings. I'm curious which you think has more to do with your till 40 years old or whatever repression of feelings. Would it be cultural or would it be

gender if one were more responsible than the other for you not being comfortable the first 35 years of your life expressing yourself I mean the way that gender is defined it is defined culturally so if I had to pick one I would say gender in I'm wanting to be like a man but that is defined by culture right the culture where I'm from or the culture here men are supposed to be a certain kind of way and there's a big overlap men don't get sad men don't get scared men walk a certain way, men talk a certain way. And I remember, I think that if you were, if you had to, obviously they're very linked, but I think to me the importance of being a man, a certain kind of man was the driving factor for not feeling these emotions or thinking that they're, that their weakness

or not liking myself for being so sensitive. Being sensitive is not manly. And being very aware of that as a teenager or even younger, being aware like, oh, the way I, speak is a little bit of feminine. The way I walk is a little bit. I remember working on my walk to be more manly, trying to walk differently. I remember wanting to get more into sports and those kinds of things. I mean, you know, cricket really, I think, crosses all genders in Pakistan. So my love, I genuinely love cricket, but that wasn't, like my mom loves cricket too, you know, not as much as I do, but she really loves cricket. She, she cares. So I think it was being a man was a big thing.

And that came from knowing that naturally I did not have the signifiers of the mandolina. So changing my walk. Even now I know, like I see people making fun of the way I speak, not because of my accent, but because the thing is effeminate, whatever. I actually did a show with Nick Kroll last week. We were both on stage together. And he was like, what VHS did you have as a kid? And the first four that came to mind were Gremlins too, who for him, Roger Rabbit.

Sound of Music and Mary Poppins and he was like I always felt like you carry like the masculine and feminine together and I was like oh I'll take that as a compliment because for so many years I tried to deny that I mean I've watched Found of Music and Mary Poppins more than most human adults

I've watched it over and over it so it has to be most surreal to you to be on a Marvel set right from there if I take all of the things you've done and I mean you've done a lot of fun stuff whether it's V. I mean, you've done, your range is pretty spectacular. But in terms of you looking around and being like,

how the hell did this happen? It has to be a Marvel set, no? Yeah, being a superhero on a Marvel set truly was, like, to me, the pinnacle. And I decided a few years ago I did that movie. Before I did that movie, I was like, I want to play a superhero. Why not?

Why not me? And so, yeah, that really was the pinnacle of excitement. And it actually changed my relationship to my work, because this ties in a lot of stuff, so I'm going to try and make sense. A lot of the stuff we're talking about. For a long time, every new job, working, I realized, was more, the anxiety was too much. When I think back on my years doing Silicon Valley, I wish I'd enjoyed it more. I mean, I did enjoy it, but I wish I hadn't been so hard on myself the whole time.

For me, I would feel the sense of relief when the season was done, like, oh, I can't fuck this up anymore. Before it started, terrible anxiety fear. Do I deserve to be here? I shouldn't be here. They're going to find out that kind of stuff, you know, especially being on that show with so many naturally funny people. I felt like I didn't deserve to be with them. And I know how much anxiety that was, and that was four months out of the year. And before I was about to go to Marvel, I was like, this is so big, this is so important to me that if I don't figure this aspect of it out, it's going to flatten me. I'm not going to survive this. And so I made a conscious decision in 2019 before I went to shoot that movie. I was like, I am going to have fun shooting this,

no matter what. Joy is going to be my primary, it's going to be the primary way I engage with my work for the next six months. And just deciding that really worked. I had a great time doing that movie. Obviously, this pressure is in stress, but I didn't really feel that. For me, I was like, I can't believe I get to do this. It was really, really exciting. And that changed my relationship to my work. Since then, every single job I've had, I get excited to do it. I do a lot of homework.

I prepare a lot. I just did, you know, Oh, Mary, we were talking about before we started recording. It's a play on Broadway. Six years ago, seven years ago, I would not have been able to handle the pressure of that. We have to go out and nail every single night. after night. What an interesting self-awareness to come by, though, to be somebody who considers himself laid back and doesn't realize he's angry, but then gets conscious enough to know this movie that would be my dreams, the idea that I'm appearing in a Marvel movie would be

something a 17-year-old me could not have possibly fathomed to know yourself well enough. If I do not change my relationship with my work, this will crush me. And so you made the choice of joy which shows a spectacular self-awareness and then changes your entire relationship with work, which to me is crazy to just be able to choose it, to trust the preparation and that you're good enough, that you're not a fraud, that you're not fooling everybody, and then to just do it like that, that has to be a product of your relationship, midlife, and a lifetime of learning. Yeah, but it really was, I mean, thank you for putting it that way. It was self-defense. It really was a survival thing. I was like, I'm not going to

come out of this grinder alive if I don't change how I approach it. And I had little moment, like I had little previews of what that life could be like, even though I hadn't really lived it. Sometimes when I was doing stand-up on stage, when I was really loose, I could feel like I could riff and come up with stuff I could not come up with if I sat down and rode. So I understood that having no pressure, being completely in the moment, being completely loose and having fun, was creatively good for me. So I understood that that's, the mind space I want to be in is letting that go, forgetting, turning certain parts of my brain off is when I'm best.

On the side of Silicon Valley, you know, I planned stuff and whatever, but the stuff that happened just in the moment was the stuff I was like, that felt so much more alive than everything, than anything else. So it was self-preservation, but also knowing that I was going to be, I'm at my best when I'm loose and enjoying myself. Even doing something like Welcome to Chippendales, which is a very dark character. There was joy in doing that for me. But how much work are you doing before you come to this realization?

Three quarters of your body of work? Yeah, a lot of work. I mean, you know, when I shot The Big Sick, that was a very stressful experience. I remember we were shooting the last scene of the movie, and it was towards the end of the shoot. And, I mean, what a, Emily and I talk about how we need another word for blessed that isn't like religiously loaded. We need like a non-denominational blessed.

Because I say blessed, then suddenly you know it conjures images of religion. That was such a blessed, non-denominationally blessed experience. Like getting to work with those people, Zoe, Holly, Holly, Ray, Michael, Judd, Barry. I mean, all these amazing people. When I look back on it, the entire time I was just thinking, don't fuck this up, don't fuck this up, don't fuck this up. And this is true of Portlandia, a Veep, of Franklin and Bash, only murders in the building or only murders in the building is later and you've got a only murders is later it's certainly true for franklin and bash with portlandia it isn't really

because there's no script and it's all improv so there is truly no way to be like oh i got to nail this line you just really have to show up talk to fred and carry and go now i would do a lot of research for that my first thing i did on that was i was doing a cell phone salesman so i even that a lot of homework I looked up the scripts that they, because you know, you've called back in the day when you're calling to change your plan and you're like, I just want to talk to a person. I know you're a person at some point, but you're not a person right now. You're like reading like dialogue trees. So I looked up those dialogue trees and I learned them. I memorized them. I looked up a lot of cell phone models. I thought they were as ridiculous as car models, you know. So I sort of was like, okay, this is the area. So I went in with a lot of information there. And I was nervous to start. But as soon as I started, you have to be so present that.

it takes away. And that's also what I love about acting is that you're so present when the cameras are rolling. I'm not thinking about what I just did or what I'm going to do. I'm just listening to you, watching you and reacting to you. That's really exciting. You've realized your mind is a poison, right? I don't know when it is like I always trusted my mind thinking it's the reason that I get places. And then I realize, well, it's also the thing that defeats me. Oh my God. Emily always says your brain doesn't know anything. Your brain is stupid. And I think with acting with all my work writing obviously there is an intellectual aspect to it but really it's whatever is happening whatever's reacting you know is when I'm at my best so um so Franklin and Bash full of fear

the whole time Silicon Valley full of fear almost the whole time beep full of fear again all the people around me were so good right everyone's talented all the all the people you're working with are super talented and you know it and you know doing VEP was you know I are with Julia Louis Dreyfus and we improvised and I got that part and then we did like a bunch of rehearsals so I went yeah but full of fear full of full of terror um so that was and then now when I start a new job there's always nerves right but and the other thing is when I was going to these jobs full of fear nobody knew but me I wasn't telling Emily I wasn't telling Emily like hey I'm really nervous for this I just didn't think that that was a possibility I thought

saying it out loud would make it more real, but saying it out loud takes its power away, is what I've learned. So now I'm starting a new job and I'm nervous. I will tell Emily like, hey, I'm actually kind of nervous about this one. I'm a little scared. And that's been so helpful. Doing old Mary, you know, I was really, really open about how scared I was. That's the Broadway play. I'd never done a play in my life. I was very, very open and communicative about how scared I was going into that with Emily and with the other people, like with the director, with the other actors. I was like, I'm terrified. So you seeing the achievement in just speaking it out loud to your wife suggests that you were super repressed before that. Like just, like just alone with all of

it, stoic, no one would have any idea, right? Except when the anger makes an appearance and then it's just confusing to people. Yeah. I remember I did a live show years ago and someone asked me, she's like, she's like, how are you so confident? And I was like, what that is crazy? That that someone would think that about me. I do not, I feel more confident now than I ever have in my life just because, you know, Emily would often be like, and this is a very nice thing to say,

it sounds like I'm maybe talking myself, she'd be like, I wish you could see yourself the way other people see you. Or the way she sees you. Or the way she sees me, yeah. I mean the way she sees me, you know, she's so wrong. But yeah, it was really, really, I would not say any of those experiences were joyful and it was all completely my fault.

As Emily says, the call is coming from inside the house. But Eternals changed my relationship to my work in that way. So I just, you know, found out I'm going to be acting in something in a couple months early next year. And I cannot wait to get started. Now, in other situations, I would have been like, I know I have a lot of work to do. I have a lot of prep to do. Between now and then, the other time it would be like, oh, my God, I can't wait for this to be over. and now I can't wait for it to start.

I'm so excited to do it. It's really, and it really does come from the looseness of stand-up, you know. I always felt like when you're on stage, I know there's like a neurological thing that happens. It's called a flow state. It's like a real thing. It's the zone in sports. It's the zone, right, you know, when someone-

I recognized it in your special. I didn't think that the stuff you were doing with the crowd was rehearsed. No. I thought that that was all you off the top of your head. Yeah. Yeah, and I feel really lucky in that when I recorded that special, I recorded it at the exact right moment where I felt very confident in every single part of it, but I wasn't sick of it yet. I hadn't gone into the road because that happens with stand-up. You do it a lot and then suddenly you're like, before I was like recording specials when I was just doing stand-up to like crowds and it was disappearing, that was my gauge for a bit as done was when like, oh, they're not laughing anymore because it's wrote.

I never got to that point with any of the material I did on stage because I did that special really quickly like from you know deciding I want to start stand up again eight year you know hadn't done it in eight years from that to recording the special was a year and a half

which is very quick from like no material having not done any stand up to recording it year and a half was that scary tour were you excited about that about stand up was it scary you go eight years without doing it. It was very scary. You've got this new relationship with who you are. You're more confident than you've been. I would have assumed it was the muscles. You're giving it all these

other attributes. I would have assumed that you just became a marble. No, but we can talk about that. You're not tired of talking about your body at this point? No, but I can talk about it how it related to my stand-up specifically. Very scared to go back because I had not, I will be honest, I had not missed doing stand-up because I was feeling creatively fulfilled doing all this other stuff. What I missed was being good at something that was being good at something that I wasn't good at anymore. I hated the feeling of like, I remember at a certain, there were a couple of years when I was in New York where I was like, I've never been as confident about anything in my life as I was about stand-up in that period where I was like, I can go up in front of any crowd and do well right

now with no material. And when I think back on that, I was like, that felt like a different person. I could not imagine thinking like that. So it was very, very scary. And it was scary for a bunch of different reasons. It was scary. Most scary was, what if I don't, what if I can't do it anymore? What if I don't have it? It takes so long to like get good at it. What if that part of me is dead? Which is fine. You know, I don't, I like this person that I am now. Yeah, but you don't want to learn that on stage. Right. And that's the only way to learn it. You can only learn it on stage. And so, yeah, I was really, really scared to go back to stand up. I went back, again, out of necessity, because the strikes were happening.

And I was about to go shoot this movie. Suddenly the strikes happened. I couldn't do anything. And I was very frustrated creatively. And I was like, I have to go do stand-up. Otherwise, I'm not going to survive however many months this is going to be. Hack the holidays with the PC Holiday Insiders Report. Try this PC Porquetta.

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fitness, and allergies. There's so much of you and your heritage to discover. Visit ancestry.ca and get started with an ancestry DNA kit today. What represents the greatest fear in all of this stuff that we're talking about, what you regard as the most afraid you've been? They're not all the same, right? They're different every time. Is it Silicon Valley?

You said that had a great deal of fear, but I don't know what would classify for you as the most terrified you were. Out of all the jobs I've done. Yeah, just everything beforehand. Yeah, Silicon Valley, I would say, because it was, I was doing a show with people, you know, who I looked up to people I was friends with, but also like Mike Judge.

I mean, Beavis and Byrd was one of my favorite things, you know. Oh, so you're heroes, too. Yeah, so I'm working with people. I'm like, I know this is the big boy pool. You know, I know this is like adult swim. This is the real deal. I'm working with like legit people. It's not time to, the time to like practice.

and train is done. This is payoff. And you don't feel like you belong, right? And I don't feel like I belong. I don't feel like I deserve to be here with these people. They're so talented and funny. When I say that to them, I was like, you know how I, they're like, what are you talking about? Like, nobody else saw that. I'm the only one who. But none of them are feeling it either.

This is unique to you. Once you start expressing it to others, they're not all telling you, yeah, I have imposter syndrome too. No, they're not. They're confident in a way you don't understand. I think that crew felt pretty confident about the place they were in at the time, you know. Like someone like Martin, who I'm still really good friends with, knows he's a very good actor, you know?

He knows that he could do a lot of things. He has a lot of confidence in that, and rightfully so. He's phenomenal. I've told him since then, I was like, I wish I was present enough to learn from you for those six years, you know, because that's the thing I value most now. You can't control, if I'm acting in something, I can't control how it's going to turn out.

I can control my experience of it, and I can control what I learn. And I really, really genuinely, I know it sounds cliche, every job is worth it to me because I always learn something about myself or I pick up tricks from other people, all that kind of stuff. Age is so helpful here, though, right? It's not just that youth is wasted on the young. When I talk to athletes, because their careers so often end at about late 30s or whatever, they're like, I wish I'd enjoyed it more. But you feel like you feel like you're being chased all the time. You feel like part of what makes you good is that you always feel like you're being chased.

so you stay hungry and it becomes a cycle of you don't enjoy much of what you're doing. Right. This is the sweet spot for you to be confident and just take stuff that you know you can enjoy. I'm feeling like I still have a lot to learn and I cannot wait to get at it, you know. I truly, truly like, you know, Silicon, we were talking about Silicon Valley, like I said, I wasn't present enough to learn. I wish I had been. I feel like I personally, I mean, I learned a lot.

I truly did learn a lot. But I learned a lot later looking back. I felt like I internalized some of that stuff when I was already done with it. But doing Chippendales with people like Anna Le Ashford or Marie Bartlett or Robin, all these amazing actors. I learned so much.

That was like I was in like film school. I was in acting school for four months with the best actors in the universe, you know. And actively being aware of how much I was learning from them. So I am in the sweet spot because I do feel confident, but I still feel like I have like, oceans to learn in this regard. Well, this is wonderful because now the science book nerd and you who loved studying 12

hours a day, now the preparation, if you're ambitious and eager about learning, right? Then all of a sudden just all of Hollywood opens up to you. All of creativity opens up to you. Yeah, and I really, really am. I value it genuinely very much and I love it very much. To me, you know, whenever people ask me how I choose acting roles, I wanted to be like 10 to 20% outside of my, outside of what I know. So I remember reading all the scripts for Chippendales and being like, I don't know how to do this scene right now. I admired the choice that you made there.

Like when I saw you in that, I'm like, whoa. It's a big swing. Oh, just so different. It's so different. And I love doing that. I did a part in poker face last year that was also like I played like a. Florida panhandle cop, so different for me, but I learned the accent and I did it all. And that was really, really thrilling to do, you know.

With acting for me, it's like how many things can I find that I can hold on to as the character that helped me? And with Steve and Chippendale's, and there's always an image that helps me, and it takes months to get to the point. Like with Chippendales, I knew I had four months to prepare. And it's a little scary because the first couple months, you're like, what if I don't figure out what he is. And then for me, there's always an image or something that suddenly I'm like, okay, I understand what this is now. But getting to that image takes a while for me.

But yeah, but I think it's also trusting myself to be able to do a performance like that because he's so different from me. He walks so differently, he talks so differently. That's the other thing is realizing like, in certain ways, he's even hard to say, I do know what I'm talking about. I feel confident enough to be like, hey, this thing, I think it should be like this. So just like yesterday, I had a conversation with the director for a movie I want to do. And I was like, I love this script. Here's some things about this specific character that I think I would like to do. And just being able to like have that confidence to be like, this is a great script. The writer is phenomenal. You're saying as you speak it out loud now that it's

hard for you to say that I know what I'm doing here. It's even hard for me to say. I know what I want. Yeah. I know what I want is something that's hard for you to say. It's, I know what I want is hard for me to say. And also that I know what I want is going to make the movie better.

I know that if you listen to this, you don't have to listen to all of it, but if we can find a way to make this work, I think the movie's going to be better. But it's hard for you to say that I have the confidence in my expertise and my talent and my discernment that what I think here is going to make this better. It's hard for you to say. It is. It sounds arrogant. It sounds like, you know, it sounds like, who am I to say?

These people obviously know what they're doing. Well, you've done some learning over the last 20 years. Yeah, I really have, and I have learned, like, there's a movie I want to direct, no, I've never directed before. And I'm really having the strong feeling where I'm like, this movie, I know this movie. I feel like at this point in time, I didn't write it. Emily and I rewrote it, but I know at this point there's no one in the world who knows this movie better than I do.

There's truly nobody in the world. And that is a great feeling that happens when you're like playing a character too, where you're like, I know this character better than anybody else in the world. And being able to even articulate that, you know, I think it took me a long time to be able to say that. And even now I feel like you clocked. I feel a little weird thing. tell me about what sent you to therapy really um so i started taking acting classes uh because i knew i wanted to make make the big sick and actually i started getting acting

classes because there was a specific scene in silicon valley where i was like oh i don't have access to this there's a thing happening here that i need to do and what it was was i think it's the end of season two or three, it's really great where we're at the house and Thomas Richard is outside doing a court case, so it's intercutting back and forth. And each time it comes back to us, we're a little more freaked out. So the stakes are raised incrementally 20% each time. And I was like, oh, I know how to be freaked out. I know how to not be freaked out, but I don't know how to do all the steps in between. I remember specifically being like, okay, this is the moment where I decided need to take acting classes because you're afraid to open that door.

because behind that door is the knowledge of how much you don't know. You know, that's the most terrifying thing to me. Before you get to learning, you have to accept that you need to learn. And accepting that you need to learn is very, very scary. And so that was the moment where I was like, I need to figure this out. I don't have access to this. If I want to hang with all these people, I've got to get good at this. And then around that same time, we started talking about doing the big sick.

We were writing it. Juddapita was producing it. So I was like, if I want to have a shot at making this, I need to figure this out. So I started taking acting class at 10. And my acting teacher, Myra Turley, who I still work with, who's, you know, one of the people who's changed my life, you have to, like, access your own feelings. And as I was doing that, I was like, oh, my God, there is so much in here. There's so much in here, and I had no idea it was in here. You know, because you think you're a certain way.

I had a certain narrative about myself laid back. whatever and then as soon as I started like trying to access and you you can access it by doing things with the body suddenly was like getting a glimpse of everything that was inside and it was like it was like a horror movie I was like oh my god like you know do you know Hellraiser you know those movies you know when you get a glimpse of like hell with the cenobites it's like just a flash of character sees it this is the lagoon of feelings I've pushed down since I was yeah oh my god shut that door oh wow what was that yeah it was like that it was like you know what in Nightmare and Elm Street

when sometimes it falls in a second in the glimpse of hell world and then they wake up it was like that but I saw I was like okay I need to do this for two reasons one because I wanted to get really good at acting

so it really started from a practical place I was like I need to know all this stuff that's going on inside here that I know now is there and it's undeniable because you open the door and you're like shut it again

and that's when I was like okay there's a lot here in order to be a better actor I also need to go to therapy to see what all is going on in there you know so so I it was actually I took acting

classes for years I didn't start going to therapy until much later but it really was from that and Emily encouraging me being like there's so much inside you that you don't know you need to really because she was a therapist for many years and she really really encouraged me and pushed me to and I know how it sounds you know

so your spouse being like you need to go to No, but it's- It was supportive. It's not just supportive. It's just you need to love yourself better. Yeah. I mean, if you need to forgive yourself better. I've got a lot of questions about what it's like to work with Emily. And I want to get to those in a second. But when you're talking about all of the fear and anxiety and doubt in your path, where did you get to joy? Like where did you, was it just with the conscious decision? after the pandemic that I am going to do this Marvel film, which I've read didn't go the way that it wanted to in terms of you signed a six-part deal and some of that hasn't gone the way that it was anticipated, but you made a choice at the beginning end of it,

and that was it, that's all you had to do was choose joy. I mean, that was most of the battle. It's weird, you know, Emily always is like, it's not just self-awareness, it's also you've got to do something about it. So it came from that. By that point, I'd realized, like, oh, work is very hard for me. I make it very hard for myself. I do not enjoy it. So I'd understood all that, you know. And so I was like, okay, now it's time for the second step, which is doing something about it. And truly, when I chose, like, I'm going to be joyful during this. It was like a weight lifted off me. It's like I gave myself permission to have fun doing it. That was most, that was a huge part of it. I realized, I saw. thought that you are just the way you are, it's not true. You're choosing it. Like, and you, you know, I meditate every day now, almost every day. But when I meditate, I'm realizing, oh, I'm choosing

to be a certain way. You can change your mood at certain times. Well, the meditation, though, is forgive me for interrupting you. I would imagine it has to do with whatever you've learned about present. I have heard that phrase for many, many years. It is not until recently with age, with mortality that I've sort of recognized, ah, if I'm not living in regret or I'm not living in fear, if I'm not in the future, if I'm not in the past, if I'm right here and aware and conscious of what it is that's happening, but it took me a long time to get there. And meditation has been helpful in that regard in that you're just, you know, you're just trying to block out thought. You're aspiring to just be centered in your breathing. Yeah. And I find, you know, I sort of tell a lot of people

about it and I obviously you know in this industry have a lot of friends who are anxious and they're like it just I don't know what to do like I feel like I'm not good at it I'm like there's no good or bad at it the attempt is what matters so sometimes I'll have sessions where I'm done where I'm like wow that was transformative and then sometimes nothing happens but even when nothing happens a little something happens I've never had a meditation session that I've regretted or even one that I've thought didn't give me anything even from the very beginning the first time I did it, I was like, that was valuable. It's just the choice to still your mind, right?

Yeah, and it's hard. It's hard to still your mind. But even if you're not successful in it, just the attempt is worthwhile. Because then even you find out sitting there, oh, these are the things that are bothering me right now. Even that awareness is important. So really it was the choice to have it be a joyful experience that did a lot for me. But then it's sort of evolved since then, too. in that I'm trying to be able to, I'm trying to see how to articulate it.

There's, I find the joy in learning. I find the joy in knowing what I know and knowing what I don't know. And knowing what I know is, is hard to still admit. It just makes you, it makes me a better person. It makes me better at my work. It also makes me my writing deeper too. Like it makes me just, I don't know, just get inside myself more. You say the joy of learning, but you also say it's very scary.

You seem to have a much different relationship with learning than I do in that I sometimes shackle myself because learning requires failure and if I'm hard on myself about failure, I then don't try things that I know I'm going to fail at when I'm not going to learn them if I'm not willing to embrace the trying of the trying. Yeah. For me, I learned that lesson sort of undeniably in acting, where it's like, let's say you're doing six takes and I work with people who will do,

who will try different things every time. I don't mean they're trying new words. They're just taking different swings each time. And if it doesn't work, they're like, oh, that didn't work. That, giving yourself, people ask me, like, directors will ask me, like, what do you value as a director, in a director as an actor? and I'm like, just the room to fail,

the safety to fail is by far the most important environment that a director can create, is feeling okay with failure. And all through Silicon Valley, it wasn't their fault on me. If I had a take, that was bad, I was very hard on myself. Now, if I try something and a take doesn't work, it's like, okay, great, let's do something else.

Let's go again, let's try something else. So for me, the importance or the failure is necessary. and I realize that in acting. When I'm at my best, I'm failing more often than I'm not on set. Like, I'll do a take. You know, it takes you like two or three takes to like get one. You're like, all right, now I understand the scene. Now let's try different things.

When you're trying different things, more often than not, they don't work. But when they do work, it can be really magical. Tell me about working with Emily. What are the challenges that people might not see? There are great many dangers in working together. The foundation of your relationship, I would imagine, started with the work. Well, we were together for a few years before we started working together,

and we did go quite slowly in that, you know, I was hosting something and she was producing it. So it wasn't, we were working together, but it wasn't creative work together, which to me is the most challenging. And then we were hosting a podcast together. And that's creative work, but not really. You're not sitting down to be like,

okay, let's like figure this out. It's sort of very in the moment. So when we first wrote the Big Sick together, that was the first time we had creatively engaged. And there is danger in working with a spouse because the fight can go all the way down. You know, if you're working with a coworker, you can get into it.

But there's like a floor as to how deep the battle can go. With this, it can get personal and suddenly you're in. So again, it's been a lot. lot of conversation. I feel like we've gotten very good at it now. Still, there's still, you know, disagreements and challenges and all that. But you really have to go, okay, now we're in work mode. And again, just saying that does make a difference. So like me saying, I'm going to be joyful. It does make a difference. We're in work mode. It does make a difference. And when you live with someone who's a co-worker, you could really be at work the whole time. That's a danger.

So we have rules. We like, if it's a weekend, she has an idea. She has to ask permission. She's like, hey, can we talk about work for a second? We stick to that. We've had that rule forever. We don't talk about work in bed at all. That kind of stuff is very important.

It's also, you know, I mean, for me, the excitement of it is, I think she's a phenomenal writer, and I'm the first person in the world that, like, gets to read, that gets to look inside her brain. Like, I'm like, I'll read pages, and I'm like, You just sat there and you wrote this, this came out of you just like when you were like there when I saw you, this is what you were working on. It's such a privilege. But it's still challenging because writing is such a personal thing and it can be if she's like, hey, I don't like this.

Vulnerable, intimate, super intimate. Feelings get hurt. And again, for me, I have to say like my feelings are hurt about that. Well, your feelings being hurt. Like I can't imagine what happened to you post 9-11 where your student. doing stand-up and you're getting heckled and it... What a segue, by the way. Well, it just, I can't imagine.

Because you're sensitive, that seems like a terrible position to be in, choosing to be on stage doing comedy and now the heckler's in your feelings. A lot of things happen at the same time when someone heckles you for that. One, there is at its core a safety net where you understand it's not about me, it's about them. It's their fault. They're not really, if someone's really like heckling me in a personal one, way where they see inside my soul and they're heckling me, that's genuinely hurtful.

This, I understand it's how, it's what I represented them in this moment. I know the fault is theirs. However, you feel very reduced. You feel very flattened to like one aspect of you, you know, which is the fact that I'm brown. And even though you understand it's their fault, it does make you feel smaller. I get, I would, I would never, that wasn't something I ever internalized. So getting heckled in that way, wasn't, I say, damaging in the way that, like the Emily reading a line I wrote and going, I don't like this, has the potential to be way more damaging

than someone saying, hey, where is Osama? Right. Like, it's not going to get deep. It's, it's something that I am in like mortal danger, so that's something. but it's not something I'm going to carry with me all week. It's just something, for me, the heckling thing was, oh, I need to figure out how to deal with it. That's actually when I started learning to be more present on stage

and having to riff was from that stuff, was from getting heckled and being like, if I want to do this, I have to figure out how to react to something that's just happened in the room. Not just heckling, other stuff to other kinds of heckles, not just racist heckles. And that led to me realizing, you know, all this stuff we're talking about. So it does come, in a way, grateful for post-9-11 on-stage racist haggling

because it led me to where I am now, which is the value of understanding of being in the present. A non-denominational blessing of sorts. Yes. Thank you for being so gentle about that segue straight from your wife. Oh, no, no, no. Please don't be. Just heckling. Are you being hard on yourself for it?

I'm being sensitive more than hard on myself. Okay, don't be sensitive. I truly, truly, truly. Well, it was a terrible segue. No, no, do not. See, let me take this from you. This is mine. This is not on you.

You're going to take it back. I'm sorry I said that. I did not mean it. It was accurate. It was totally accurate. Yeah, it was. You shouldn't take it back. It was a hard truth I had to see.

It made the podcast better. It made it more interesting. It really did. So that, you brought up something that was interesting to that you wanted to talk about. And I think we sort of just made it an interesting moment. So be thankful to yourself for it. We didn't get to the muscles. We're out of time. Oh, we are. I'll tell you really quickly how muscles change that. When I started doing stand-up again, you're after rush. I was defaulting to how I used to be on stage 10 years ago. That was my muscle memory. Pardon the pun.

Emily said the way people perceive you is very different from how you perceive yourself and how people used to perceive you. So she's like, your delivery is going to have to change. Who you are on stage is going to have to change because people's experience of you is very, very different. And then she's the one who also said all this stuff you talk about masculinity and vulnerability and the importance of it. She's like coming from someone who looks like you now, who sort of in some ways represents physically a type of man that, again, hard for me to say, people do aspire to in terms of physical form. Like, I understand now that people look at me

and some man are like, I would like to look like that only because they say it to me all the goddamn time. She said, looking the way you do now, it is valuable to have you saying certain things. If you're a nerd on stage and you look nerdy and you're talking about, like, it's important to be vulnerable,

that's not as perhaps impactful as me being mussely on stage and saying talking about the importance of being valuable and the importance of talking about that certain kind of masculinity and what its strengths and its weaknesses you know so all that my my hour long special now is what it is because I wanted to be vulnerable on stage especially because I look different now night thoughts is the name of the special it's Hulu it debuts tomorrow December 19 If indeed you're watching this, December 18th. Thank you so much. Also, Ella McKay is in theaters now.

Yeah, and I'm in the next season of Fallout. So Fallout Season 2, which is out right now or are coming out soon. I'm in a couple episodes. I love that show. Really appreciate it. I hope I get to do this with you again. There's a whole lot of ground that I did not cover. Let's do it. I very much enjoyed this conversation. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Hey, Mean. What's up, Jeremy? Well, people seem to really view this voice as a bit of a gift this week. Not really having to hear my voice as often,

but hearing this somewhat obscured one giving baseball updates was a lot of fun. I'm telling you, man, if your voice was less annoying, you'd be way more beloved. All right, well, I like my voice, but since the audience likes this voice, I figured I'd give him a little holiday present. But you know what else is a holiday present? What's that?

Crack it open. A little Miller Light. When you get to see that iconic golden color, you kidding me? And I mean, guys, it's the holiday season. And it's the 50th anniversary of Miller Light. I crack open to Miller Light. I look around to my friends like you, I mean.

I look at my family. And I think, yeah, just the right call. The original life beer since 1975 and still hitting different 50 years later. Miller Light, great taste, 96 calories. Go to millerlight.com slash beach to find delivery options near you. Or you could pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer. Tis Miller Time.

Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.