The Rich Roll Podcast - Utkarsh Ambudkar Is Breaking Hollywood Stereotypes

Episode Date: June 18, 2018

One day you get a call from your friend Lin-Manuel Miranda. “I've got this thing I'm working on,” he says. “Are you interested?” Without thought or question, Utkarsh Ambudkar jumps at the opportunity. That ‘thing' happened to be a little play you might have heard of called Hamilton. And the part wasn't just any part. It was the leading turn as Aaron Burr — a role Utkarsh originated on-stage at Lincoln Center. Unfortunately, the stage lights on Utkarsh would soon dim. Dedication was foiled by ego. Partying took precedence over the work. In a word, he just couldn't seem to get out of his own way. And so before Hamilton even really became HAMILTON, Lin was compelled to let Utkarsh go. This role of a lifetime, it seemed, would not be Utkarsh's to claim after all. It's a turn of events that ultimately brought Utkarsh to his knees. Perhaps for the very first time, he was forced to reckon with himself honestly — one important link in a chain of events that would eventually lead Utkarsh to a singular, profound realization that would indelibly change his life forever: he had to change. Not just one thing, but everything. An actor, musician, rapper and NYU Tisch School of The Arts graduate, Utkarsh is best known for his standout performances in movies like Pitch Perfect, Barbershop, Million Dollar Arm and Basmati Blues as well as television shows like The Mindy Project and White Famous. One of many South Asian actors making a recent but undeniable stamp on Hollywood, Utkarsh's latest movie is Blindspotting, a powerful new film starring Hamilton's Daveed Diggs that rocked audiences at Sundance this past winter and will be screening in select U.S. cities starting July 20. When he isn't in front of the camera, Utkarsh can be found on stage with his friends as part of Freestyle Love Supreme, the hip hop improv crew that includes none other than Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda himself, or making music — check out his EP Bang Bang and his ‘hauntingly beautiful' cover rendition of The Proclaimers' 500 Miles. Perhaps his biggest opportunity to date, Utkarsh recently decamped for a six-month stint in New Zealand where he is working on the Disney big-budget, live-action production of Mulan. Beyond his formidable performative gifts, Utkarsh has an infectious enthusiasm for life. A friend for several years, I have to come to really love this young man. It's been a privilege to observe him mature into his talent, take ownership of his life, and share his huge heart and what he has learned for the benefit of others. Today he shares his story. This is a conversation about what it means to cultivate a creative life. It's about confronting Hollywood stereotypes. And it's a frank exchange about battling and overcoming an addiction that nearly destroyed a young life and a promising career before it barely even began. Raw and unedited, Utkarsh's tale is powerful, certain to both move and inspire. My hope is that you see in him what I see — the power of true sobriety to shape a person into that which they were always meant to be. Enjoy! Rich

I feel a deep sense of responsibility. I am Indian American and I am an actor. To deny that would be foolish. I've experienced several ups and downs as a result of my ethnic background and how people perceive that. And I feel blessed at the same time. This is not a black and white issue. I am very grateful to work. It's not about being a complainant. It's about being a spokesman or a representative of a

community that's underrepresented. That's what I'm here for. That's Utkar Shambutkar, and this is The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, people. What's going on? How are you? I mean, really, how are you doing? I really hope that this finds you well, that you woke up today and began your day mindfully, optimistically, with conscious intention,

a sense of promise, a sense of possibility, as opposed to anxiety or perhaps fear. And look, it's not easy. I get it. The world is pretty crazy right now. There's a lot of chaos and confusion out there, and it can be daunting. It can be overwhelming. So, hey, if that's how you feel today, if you feel stressed, if you feel overwhelmed, maybe a little depressed, that's okay too because self-acceptance is important. And I feel you. I feel you. There's no need to feel ashamed of that in this culture.

There's no need to feel bad if you don't have your hustle on 24-7. But here's the thing. That is how you're feeling. It's important to not keep it bottled up, to find somebody to talk to, perhaps even seek some professional help if it becomes acute. If you need to, that's what I do. And that's a big reason behind why I do this podcast. In fact, everything that I do. And hopefully you can find some solace, some comfort in this program, in this podcast, in the wisdom imparted by my many guests on a weekly basis. And speaking of guests, today's partner in podcast crime is my good friend,

Utkar Shambudkar. He is an actor, a rapper, a musician, a performer. You may know him from his appearances in Pitch Perfect, The Mindy Project, a TV show called White Famous, one of those barbershop movies. He seems to be everywhere. His profile is growing on a daily basis. And he's just a fantastic guy with a pretty amazing story. I've been wanting him to share on this show for a long time. And today is that day. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time.

It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment, an experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type,

you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey.

When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that

quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem, a problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com, who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs.

They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself. I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery.

To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay. Utkarsh Ambudkar. Utkarsh Ambudkar. I love this guy. Not only is he super duper talented, he's just got a great enthusiasm for life. And I have so much respect for what he does and how he does it. And the success and the creative flow

he is currently enjoying as this member of a talented crew of South Asian actors who are really making an indelible stamp on Hollywood at the moment, including an amazing performance that Ukarsh puts in in a new movie called Asian actors who are really making an indelible stamp on Hollywood at the moment, including an amazing performance that Ukarsh puts in in a new movie called Blindspotting that caused a huge stir at Sundance this past winter and will be coming out in select US cities next week. It stars Hamilton's David Diggs. And what's really cool is that Ukarsh just left this past week for a six-month stint in New Zealand

because he was cast in the big Disney live-action production of Mulan, which I don't believe was quite public when we conducted this conversation several weeks ago. I'm always fascinated by people in the prime of their creative expression, and so this is a conversation about just that. It's a conversation about what it means to live and cultivate a creative life. And it's a story about overcoming Hollywood stereotypes. And it's also a story about battling and overcoming an addiction, an addiction that very nearly destroyed Utkarsh's young career before it even really got out of the gate, including this absolutely gripping and heartbreaking tale that Utkarsh tells about how he essentially cratered the opportunity of a lifetime, a little tiny role as Aaron Burr in a small little play you might have heard of called Hamilton, created by his good friend Lin-Manuel

Miranda. And it's about how he put the pieces back together in the aftermath of that. It's an unbelievable story. I don't want to say too much about it, but you're going to want to hear it. So let's let Utkarsh tell it. Tell it. So you were on Good Morning America today? Yes. Yeah, I was. What was going on?

So I was in this documentary called The Problem with Apu. Right. Which basically breaks down the problem of the character Apu on The Simpsons. And how it's offensive and stereotypical and how for decades this guy, who's a friend of mine now, Hank Azaria, a white man, has been voicing an Indian character. He's been doing that for years. How many episodes has Apu been in? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Let's say at least 100, right?

Right. In some capacity. and uh the character for me growing up in this country in 1988 when the simpsons dropped apu is the only character of indian descent that the american populace had was exposed to right right so if you are i mean rightfully so people in india are ignorant to people in iowa so it's not like some what's not it's two-way street but like if you are an uh an indian american growing up in this country and all your classmates the only reference point they have for somebody that looks like you is Apu from The Simpsons, then all of a sudden you become a slushy boy. You become a 7-Eleven clerk. You become an offensive and inaccurate accent.

And that's who you are and that's your identity. Now, I'd never watched the simpsons so when people started calling me slushy boy i was like i don't get the joke you seem like an idiot like what what are you talking about but you know then you're introduced to the show and you're like oh this guy's going to be the bane of my existence until people grow up enough to understand humanity as a whole right as opposed to these stereotypical little boxes that we um operate in when we're kids and even at that time i'm sure their parents and adults didn't know as much as they do now so anyway but this whole thing like blew up all of a sudden like yes there was an

article being written or what what happened like why did the apu thing suddenly become a controversy a good friend of mine this comedian his name is harry kundabolu he made a documentary called the problem with apu which aired on true tv in november and we did a talk back in new york and whoopi goldberg was there which was like i got to sit next to whoopi and she hugged me it was so cool and kissed me on the cheek oh man we were like in front of all these people and i was like hi whoopi and she was like hug and kiss me now let's give him a show and i was like okay cool cool cool cool cool i think i remember when you shared that on instagram what is going on why is he with whoopi goldberg right so stoked man she gave me real life advice i mean i'll get to that but the documentary just breaks down the systematic racism specifically

within the south asian country that's that's been done in American cinema, like Brown Face and Peter Sellers, that movie, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Just how we've been underrepresented and misrepresented for several years. And Apu, the character of Apu, being the entry point into that conversation. Right. Now, a lot of people take things at face value. So they're just like, you're just mad at Apu. And it's like, no, we're trying to make a larger point here. That was Hari's goal. So the last episode of The Simpsons

addressed this Hari Kondabolu issue. And Lisa and Marge are sitting. And Lisa's like, you know, she addresses the camera and she goes, you know, sometimes things that used to be inoffensive are now offensive and there's just nothing we can do about it. And then it pans over to a picture of Apu with a quote that says, don't have a cow man, which is what it is. And then the Simpsons basically goes, we'll get to it when we want to. So they had an opportunity to address the situation in a careful and thoughtful manner. And these a bunch of Harvard writers or whoever's writing over at the Simpsons, I think I played basketball with one of them and he definitely didn't go to Harvard. But they were pretty careless and crass. They were sort of flippant about the whole thing.

Flippant. Yeah. And so they copped out, right? So it created this big hullabaloo. And the only reason the Simpsons is getting this cultural relevancy again, because as we know, any consumer of pop culture knows they haven't been a part of it for several years. But this documentary is now shedding light on them. So they're getting publicity because of us, basically. And they had an opportunity to kind of say something interesting. Like South Park would have taken that opportunity and sort of created something very insightful out of it, I feel like. Yeah, ideally, I would think so as well. I mean, they've consistently hit controversial topics out of the park, like, and they've done it really well and honestly, and I think that's what's

important. You know, they're also not sitting in an amusement park industry. Like, the Simpsons is a billion-dollar corporation. Like, forget a creative expressionpsons is a billion dollar corporation. Like forget a creative expression. It is a corporation like Walmart or Target or whatever, Viacom. It's like any of those. But so this episode came out and there was outcry and I actually played a character on the Simpsons. I played Apu's nephew on the show. And that episode, which aired a couple of years ago in 2016, was meant to draw some attention towards the stereotypical nature of Apu's character. But they copped out in that episode as well. And my nephew goes, you're a stereotype. You're a Temple of Doom guy.

And then Apu's like, well, you're a hipster. And essentially he wins the stereotype argument by calling my character a hipster. He's like, you're just a young hipster. And everyone's like, yeah. Like the racist stereotypical trope is still allowed because hipsters suck. Right. And because of that,

they think that I've got some sort of expert opinion on the subject. Because you played Appu's nephew. Yeah, yeah. Well, and you're Indian, you're an Indian actor, right? You're part of this community and you were friends with the filmmaker're an Indian actor, right? You're part of this community. And you were friends with the filmmaker who made a documentary, correct?

So when you go on Good Morning America, I mean, what are they asking you? And what did you say? I didn't even know this happened. It was a 20-minute interview that ended up being one line that I used. It's always like that. And the line that I said was like, you know, it was a cop-out. They were, the actual quote from the show is, things that used to be inoffensive are now offensive. When in point of fact, in 1988 or 89,

whenever The Simpsons was created, when the Apu character was born, it was offensive then. Like, that's the part you don't realize, is that when you decided to create this character, you were already creating a problem. Well, it's almost, I mean, it's really more offensive, right? It's almost like an Aunt Jemima kind of thing because there was no other counterpoint to it. There wasn't like a Kumail Nanjiani or there weren't like a whole bunch of other people doing interesting things on screen

at that time of Indian descent. Now, you know, there's more and more people. Exactly. It's great, super cool to see that. But when it's the only example in media, then it becomes this trope that I would imagine, you know, is painful for kids like yourself who have to grow up on the receiving end of, you know, jokes about it, but also speaks to a larger issue

about our myopic, you know, kind of blind spot about race in America. A hundred percent. And that's the thing when people are like, well, what are you going to do with the Apu character now? It's like, I don't give a shit. Like Apu was a cartoon in 1988. He had power then. The Simpsons has got a core fan base.

They are no longer culturally relevant. You know who is culturally relevant? Aziz Ansari, who just won a Golden Globe. Kumail Nanjiani, who just got nominated for an Oscar. Mindy, who just did a movie with Oprah. Like, Riz Ahmed, who won an Emmy. Like, the list goes on and on. Harika Ndobolu, who's got a Netflix special.

Like, you know, I'm working every now and then as well. You're working all the time. Yeah. I'm working every now and then as well. You're working all the time. Yeah. I mean, even in comparison to like a year ago, like your career is on this crazy trajectory all of a sudden. It's sometimes, you know, my team or my friend Nick Collins, who's also my agent, he just said, you know, sometimes things click and you can actually hear it click. And he was like, somewhere around like last october like i just heard a click

right and from then it's been like a pretty it's been a blessing you know what it is like you work hard you're under the radar you're just sort of chipping away dropping the it's the 10 year overnight you know overnight success story yeah but it's like every day it's like rich roll anybody who follows you on instagram or knows what you do, every day it's those hand paddles. Right. And then one day someone's like, whoa, hand paddles. That's a great idea. Like, that's a new thing. We know what's so funny about the hand paddle.

Now, like, people mock me or they do it themselves and then they tag me in it and then I give them a grade on how well they execute upon that. Dude, that is my, that is such a soothing sound to me. The crack of two hand paddles. I didn't know what they were. Yeah, everyone's like, what are those things? What are you doing? Why do you need those things? I thought you were, they were like foot things

and you run in the water. Right. I thought it was like some Navy SEAL training that you'd learned in like Galapagos or whatever. I wish that would be a much better story. No, hand paddles are good. Speaking of like, you know, lack of familiarity. I mean, I've known you for a number of years, but I think, you know, for a while, like we

have mutual friends and I was kind of around you and I knew like, oh, this guy's like, he's like an actor or something. Like, I don't really know what you did. I knew like, oh, he was in barbershop or something like that. I don't really know what you did. And vice versa. I knew like, oh, he was in Barbershop or something like that. Yeah. But then I was listening to a Radio Lab podcast, which is like a geeky science podcast. And it was an episode about like this beetle.

I can't even remember exactly, but it was like, we went down the rabbit hole about a beetle. And then they kind of, the whole episode culminates with this like little rap that Lin-Manuel Miranda and yourself and who's the other guy? It's just the two of us. It's just the two of you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We did it. And there's like, and like the hosts are like, yeah, it's gonna be Lin-Manuel Miranda and Utkarsh Ambudkar, Ambudkar. That's how you say it, right? Yeah, close enough. And I was like, wait, Utkarsh, like,. Ambudkar. That's how you say it, right? Yeah, close enough. And I was like, wait, Utkarsh. Like, is that the same dude?

Like, I go, there can't be another dude named Utkarsh. And I was like, oh my God. And I heard you do this rap with Lin-Manuel Miranda. I was like, wow, that dude's talented. Like, that was super cool. That's a deep cut. That was a Valentine's Day episode of Radio Lab. It was a while ago.

Yeah, and Lin and I just basically sent, bootleg garage band vocals back and forth to each other for, like, 72 hours and came up with that, which is great, you know. Did they just approach you like, can you do a rap song about a Beatle? Yeah, basically. It's like, you know. 100%. It's like the weirdest thing. Tommy Kail, who's kind of like the glue between all these guys that I'll introduce you to, I'm sure, during the course of this conversation, came to us. And it sort of started where, you know, Google Zeitgeist?

Yeah. They've got this big sort of whatever, summer camp feel. It's like a TED conference for like super amazing people. Yeah, like Bill Clinton speaks, spoke there when we were there. So basically our group, Freestyle Love Supreme, performed at Google Zeitgeist. What year was that? That was 2000 and I wasn't. It was a while ago though.

Yeah, it was 2012 or 2013. Uh-huh. And the Radiolab guy whose name is escaping me right now. Like Jad Abumrod or something like that? Sure. He, I guess, reached out and was like, we have this fun idea and we think Lynn and, you know, whoever else would be great for it. And Tommy put it in my lap and I was able to execute. So, we had a great time. And Freestyle Love Supreme is this collective of like super talented dudes. I mean, it's incredible what the men in this group have done of essentially like improvisational rappers.

So it is long form improv. We have games that are songs, subject based songs. And then we just freestyle rap for the entire show. It's about an hour long. And I've been in that group for 15 years. The member of that group, oh, I have the camera so I can show you. We all have this tattoo. This is the Freestyle Love Supreme insignia. It's like a mic. Yeah. And then the INC is my moniker, Utkarsh, the Incredible Incendiary Incapacitated Incorrigrigible, incredible predicate. So essentially it's like improv rap, right?

Like you're just completely coming up on the fly with. It's freestyle rap. So the members of the group, just to brag, literally no other reason, just to get my validation from your hundreds of millions of listeners. I wish. Go ahead. Shout out to Iceland. Validation from your hundreds of millions of listeners. I wish.

Go ahead. Shout out to Iceland. It's Christopher Jackson, who played George Washington in the Broadway musical Hamilton. I heard that. David Diggs, who won a Tony Award for Thomas Jefferson and Lafayette in the Broadway musical Hamilton. James Monroe Aguilar, Tony Award winner for playing the genie in Aladdin and currently playing Jefferson and Lafayette in Hamilton. the genie in aladdin and currently playing jefferson and lafayette in hamilton anthony veneziali who is runs the speechless improv um uh program and also the freestyle love supreme school he's uh one of our de facto leaders um bill sherman who is an oscar away from getting that egot he is the music director for sesame street chris shockwave sullivan from the electric

company beatboxer vocal performer arthur le, incredible hermit, and also magical musical mind. Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is just nobody, right? No, nobody's ever heard of that. Yeah, right. Lin, and then me. I think that's the whole crew. And we have a couple alternates, but I think that's the core crew right there. And so, you guys, do you guys all get together as a group from time to time? Yeah. Or how does it work? What happens is once a year, all the stars align. I'm in LA.

Anthony's in San Francisco. Lynn is all over the world all the time, although he currently has shingles, which is amazing because two weeks ago, I got adult chicken pox, and now we're both- I know. I couldn't believe you got chicken pox. We have shingles? That's bizarre. You and I are in constant synergy.

It's strange. But we get together maybe once a year now. And it's a sold out show within five minutes. It's always been a sold out show. Some 15 years ago when I was a 21 year old kid being introduced to the group and showing up at a 150 seat theater and being like, whoa, this is what a packed house feels like in New York. Because I'm playing to like my girlfriend and my friend's girlfriend and nobody else right and it was such a trip and the thing about freestyle love supreme is it's freestyle rap and just to like speak about it quickly i come from like a battle rap background so when i met the guys i

was you've seen the movie eight miles of course course I was doing eight mile raps, which is essentially, can we curse on this podcast? Of course, which is essentially dick swinging, right? It's an ego. It's an expression of all of the fantasies of one's ego and aggressive, masculine, hyper raw, and, and very much about very narcissistic, right? Very much about me. Well, it's alpha, right? You're trying to take the other guy out.

So it's like, yeah, I be spitting and ripping and it's the Indian revenue's engine. I'm better than anyone getting attention. Like dispensing these rhythms, suspending your disbelief. You smell like a queef. I mean, I would never say that. But like, you know, I'll bury you. I'll carry you. This is a, you know, it's mean, mean spirited.

So I auditioned for the group and like, I don't, the reasoning was that Lynn needed a replacement because he was going to do In the Heights. This was years ago. Way before Hamilton. Oh, way before Hamilton was ever an apple in anyone's eye, I suppose. And so I joined the group and Lynn and I rapped together and I rapped with the guys and it was sort of instant, like, okay, cool. Like these people do what I do.

I didn't know people like me existed and vice versa. And were you like a freshman at NYU then or how? I was graduating early from NYU. I was 20 years old. So I was finishing school. I graduated a semester early. You did. A year early.

Like a good Indian boy. Yeah, right? A year early technically, but I had to do a little experimental theater program just to see if I could get a little bit more juice out of the educational experience. Turns out, no. No. Well, let's take it back. I mean, I have a pretty good sense of, you know, the sort of time and place in which you grew up because I'm from Maryland as well.

Whereabouts? Bethesda. You went to BCC? I would have gone to Whitman. I went to a private high school. Sidwell Friends? No, I went to Landon. Oh.

Yeah, I wish I'd gone to Sidwell. I went to Wooten. It's a cool place, but you went to Wooten. I had friends that went to Wooten. I swam with kids that went to Wooten. I've went to Wooten. I had friends that went to Wooten. I swam with kids that went to Wooten. I've been to Wooten, I know that high school. And I know the kind of surrounding area there. So I have a mental picture of where you grew up.

White Flint Mall, baby. That was like my jam. Well, I would train every morning swimming at, do you know Georgetown Prep on Rockville Pike. I know Georgetown Prep. So my club rented that pool there. So I would go there every morning and I had like 5 a.m. swim practice there. And White Flint Mall is like just down the street.

Is it still there? Oh, yeah, dude. When that Cheesecake Factory opened up, it was like, it was pandemonium. And then it would be like, you go to Cheesecake Factory and like all the rollover, whoever couldn't get into Cheesecake Factory would be at P.F. Chang's all sad about eating their dumplings and satay. They'd be like, ugh, P.F. Chang's again. We missed out on Cheesecake Factory. That's crazy, man. Well, just to date myself, you know, I remember when White Flint Mall opened, like when it was built.

Oh, wow. Because you're, what year were you born? I remember when White Flint Mall opened, like when it was built. Oh, wow. Because you're, what year were you born? I'm 83. Yeah. So, I was swimming at, I was training at Georgetown Prep when you were born. No way. Because I, well, I graduated high school in 85. Oh, really? So, you were two when I went to college.

Wow. Yeah. So, that's the differential here. So, that's why I was like, wow, it's still there. Like, because I go way back. I thought you were so much younger than that. Yeah. I'm an old dude, dude. All right. Like, cause I, I go way back. I thought you were so much younger than that. Yeah. I'm an old dude, dude. All right. So you're growing up out Rockville way pretty much.

Yep. Right there. And so do you, are you like, like, so when do you get into like the battle rap? Are you like break dancing? Like, I just picture you being like, I picture you in high school and correct me if this is wrong, cause this is total projection. You're, you seem like the kind of kid who you're not going to be like wearing a letter jacket and being like the super varsity you know alpha athlete dude but you're funny and you're the kind of kid who like

knows how to make friends so you were somebody who could like gravitate between all the clicks and like be friends with everybody yeah it's not's not a projection. It's pretty close to reality. Yeah. I was just gregarious. I was the type of, I was the dude who would like run down the halls singing songs and just like high-fiving everyone. And I took pride in that everyone knew who I was, right? It was one of those things where it's like validation by committee. Like, please, if I know everyone, then there's meaning in my life. And there was real joy in it. Like, I don't, you know, I was, I really wanted to play basketball. And then freshman year, I didn't make the team. I went

to see the high school musical that year. And I was like, oh, I could definitely do this. Like, this is something I could do really well. Or at least I thought I could. And then the next year, I started doing theater and I fell in love with the community and the people and the friendship. I had moved in the middle of eighth grade to Montgomery County from Howard County. So everyone at that age, you're like 12 years old and you're like going into high school and you're all clicked up. So I was pretty lonely for the first year. But when I that theater community i was really i really got that that i had something special to offer people you know and i did all the dance competitions and like yeah i definitely was a popper and locker and like we won every year i mean my buddy can be

gethisha we with a blend of comedy and skill we weren't the best by any means but your entry point wasn't like comedy per se. It was more like theater, song and song, dance, like that kind of stuff. It was comedy for sure. It wasn't standup, but it was comedic acting. So what I would do, and I can't believe my teachers let me do it. Like, I can't believe the directors let me do it. Like we'd have this play, we'd have like a Shakespeare play.

And then I would just improvise on stage. Every night I night i would just i mean i would stay within the boundaries of that shakespeare play but other plays i did i would just improvise i would come up with whole bits on stage in front of the audience in front of 900 to a thousand people you just go off script on shakespeare off script dude i'm just that's like the one thing no improv i'm bugging out like well in between the lines like i do the shakespeare things iambic pentameter bro- That's like the one thing, no improv. I'm bugging out. Well, in between the lines, I do the Shakespeare things. Iambic pentameter, bro. I would do the iambic pentameter. I would do the verse. And then in between, I would just do whatever the hell I wanted. And the audience responded. And that drug of laughter, the joy. I had this image in my head of a woman sitting in like the third or fourth row, miserable look on her face.

And halfway through the first scene, she starts to smile and she starts to look happy. Like I'm a bad actor at this age. I still am a bad actor in the sense that like as I'm acting, I'm totally looking at the audience. If I'm in a play, I'm like, hey, how are you guys doing? You guys like me. you guys like me do you like me it's like it's one of those things where you know when i see actors who immerse themselves in a role like a daniel j lewis who's like i am abraham lincoln i don't think i could ever do that because i'm like hey guys are we good are we good is this connecting is this working for you like hey guys am i abraham l? As a total like a side tangent, I saw on your IMDb,

you did a short film called Real Housewives of Shakespeare. Oh yeah. It just like made me laugh. That was with my- I didn't see it, but that's a hilarious title. Yeah, it was my friend, Jamie King, a very, very good friend of mine and writing partner wrote this whole thing for his thesis

at Loyal Marymount Grad School and made this whole show in verse. And it's the Real Housewives, but with all the Shakespeare ladies. And I played Puck in that. And Puck was like a, you know, like a rapper or some sort of like public figure. Yeah, it was one of those things where we like, we're in a hotel for like 15 hours. And I was like, Jamie, I love you. I love you, bro.

And he knows this because I said it to him. I was like'm never doing this for you again i was like we're not doing this again well back to this validation thing i mean sort of a trope like oh performing arts theater you know actor singer dancer dude like you know feeds off validation like of course but you know i see you know you share you always share, like, when you go home and you visit your parents or when they visit you. Like, your parents seem super supportive. Yeah. Like, it's not like, oh, I didn't get it at home, so I had to get it somewhere else. I think that that is indicative of where we are now in our relationship, my parents and I.

Right. So, as a- You put them through it. Yeah. You know, this place. Yeah. I was not the most present or positive son. And they'll disagree because they'll be like, that means we weren't good parents. But they were and they were supportive and they tried and they were loving. But we're also talking about two people who at the age of 28 moved to a new country with

very little money. They moved to Baltimore, Maryland, which is not the nicest city at the time in 1980 in the United States of America. And they worked on post-doctorate salaries, which was maybe 10 to 15,000 a year. For the first month, the processing system thought that they both were one person because they shared the last name. So they were working off of one check. And they move into a brand new country. They have a child who's boisterous, loud, energetic, out of control, very happy. And they have to raise this new human as an American in a country that they are just beginning to understand.

So, so many of the experiences that I had as a child, they had no reference point for. So, when I'm 12 or 13 and I'm like, yo, I got to have a girlfriend, everybody has a girlfriend. My mom and my dad are like, well, we're the only people we've ever known. You can't have a girlfriend. You got to have, what can we control? Studies. You have to have good grades. And anything that gets in the way of your progress academically, as far as we know, because of our experience, will impede your ability to live a fruitful life. Like all this social stuff you want to do, we don't know what the fuck that is.

I mean, you're just like a martian basically they know how to raise you to be an engineer yeah right a phd biochemist so did they get their phds in india and then come here they got their phds in india and that's where they met in grad school they got married they were separated for two years not i mean because my dad had my mom had to finish school and my dad had to work and then they moved to the u.s and then i popped out and it's like i'm your mom work at nih or something like that they both work at the national institutes of health my dad was at johns hopkins my mom is in the national institute of dental research and my dad is in the national cancer institute so he's working with antibiotic-resistant strains of cancer, chemotherapy-resistant strains, and trying to figure out how cancerous cells become resistant, right?

And my mother, what happens is, this is like taking a deep dive. When cats get radiation, cats, when people get radiation treatment, their salivary glands die, and they're unable to saliva, which as we're talking now, like everyone can hear how wet my mouth is. If it was dry, like, and I had no ability to swallow, it'd be a problem. You get mouth infections. So she's trying to look at the calcium channel of the parotid gland in the salivary gland to figure out how to turn it on and off, essentially. Where is the protein, the minuscule microscopic protein how to turn it on and off essentially where where is the protein the minuscule microscopic protein that you can turn on and off so to put that into the context of my life take your kid to work day was like uh sit down at a table get four pins get a rat put the pins in

the rat's hands dissect the rat with the rest of her staff with the rest of graduate students and like phds and just sit at a table at nine years old and cut out the parotid gland and then get a bucket of liquid nitrogen and just throw rubber gloves and you're like where's the microphone like do you have any tap dancing shoes yeah right and i'm just joking and i'm like fun fun fun happy happy happy people people people i love. And it just took a while for them to see where my skillset was. And, you know, part of that was stubbornness. Like I fought and I clawed. Like a war of attrition. Yeah. I was just like, no, I'm going to be it. I'm, I'm just, you know, I'm doing theater. This is what I'm doing. But did you have a clear picture? Like,

this is what my life is going to be. Like when you started doing theater in high school, were you like, that's it? That's, this is my, this is going to be my life. Right. Wow. As soon as I got on stage, I was like, I'm in water. Like whatever it is for you. Like I am, this is oxygen.

Like I am breathing right now. I've never been so comfortable in my life. And did you get, was there a good theater department at your high school to support you? Like, did you have a drama teacher that could see like, hey, this guy really wants this, or this guy has some talent that I can foster, or were you just trying to figure it out yourself? No, I had, Carol Solomon was an English teacher, and Harriet Middleberger was my drama teacher in high school. And this man, I think his name was Herbert, but I definitely know his last name was Weisgerber. Henry, Herb, I don't know, Weisgerber. And I had friends and I had people in my peers to sort of work with and compare myself to.

And then there was this thing in D.C. called the Young Americans of Washington, which was like the Juilliard of Maryland. And I went and did a show with them and was around these people that were really, really talented. A lot of many of those people made it to Broadway and like are working today. And I was just like, okay, like, you know how it is. Like even with swimming, you're like, okay, I can, I can hang. Like I can swim with these, with these guys. Like I'm, I'm okay here.

Like Charles Barkley talks about, I'm a huge basketball fan. And Charles Barkley talks about like, when you're in high school, you like play and you play and you're like, okay, like I'm a pretty good high school player. Like I'm like at the top, like I'm in the top 5%. And then you get to college and you're like back at the bottom and you work and you sort of see how people play and you're like, okay, like I'm pretty good for the college level. And then you get to the pros and it's a much, the rules change. The rules and the pros are how do you look?

How tall are you? What ethnicity are you? What is our worldview of what someone like you is capable of doing? How do you communicate with the fans and the press? Yeah. And so the rules and the pros are a little bit different as far as acting is concerned. It's not merit-based.

It's not as, it's very subjective. It's not as objectively like, I jump higher, I score more points. It can be like, oh yeah, you're much funnier than him, but he's a white guy and we need a white guy to be the lead of the show. We can't put an Indian dude on a billboard. Are you crazy? But the point you're making is essentially that you felt comfortable here. You knew you could

hang. And as you started to like kind of move up from high school to college, et cetera, like you were at home, you never felt like you were out of your depth. And that comes from my parents. And I will say this as not a negative, but that is an entitlement that they gave me. And it's a confidence and a belief and probably it's their love and support that allows me to walk into most rooms expecting to get a job.

It's an insane, I know it's an insane, irrational confidence skill or gift or mental quirk or, I don't know, it doesn't exist in any other place in my life. Well, walk me through that. Like, how did they instill that in you and what does that look like and feel like? It just feels like I'm going to be okay. It's a real feeling of like, no matter what happens. You can do this. Yeah, mom and dad will be there. It's a real feeling of like, no matter what happens. You can do this. Yeah.

Mom and dad will be there. Like, I think it's from a very young age of like, if I mess up, mom and dad will be there. Now it's my responsibility now as an adult to not have that be a constant safety net, right? Or to let that turn you into being an asshole. Exactly. Which happens to a lot of people. Now my mom and my dad and I have a wonderful relationship and I think that they can rely on me and expect me to be a certain person every time they see me as opposed to some erratic, loco experiencing now in a kind of an interesting way that we're going to get into in a minute that probably grounds you and allows you to be a little more connected with humility than somebody who just hit the ground running. Well, because of

guys like you, for sure. It's like, I didn't know who you were. You're just like the soft-spoken dude with pretty good hair. It's great. your hair is just incrementally i'm trying to i just modeled my haircut after you dude i know this you don't think i should grow it back long again i mean you can but this is so suave my friend you should be in a tweed jacket at all times with this haircut i'll think i know this is an audio podcast but your boy rich roll is looking good ladies and gentlemen. All right, man. Back to you, dude.

All right. Fine, fine, fine. So, what was your childhood like? I'm happy to come on your podcast when you decide that you're going to get back and do it again. Oh, man. Okay. So, what were you saying? But, like, here's the thing.

So, you go to Tisch. You go to NYU. Yes. Yeah. I mean, that's pretty fucking dope, like to get into Tisch. Yeah. Did you get right directly into the acting program? I did.

And the road to that was- Did you apply to a whole bunch of drama-oriented colleges? What happened was I was sitting in the back of the minivan and told my parents after a show, I'd like to be an actor. This is what I'd like to pursue for my life. And my mother said, to speak to what we started this podcast with, the only Indian on television is Apu on The Simpsons, and he's a fucking cartoon. What makes you think you as a human Indian can get anything done? That's some truth talk from Momkarsh.

Yeah. Because it's like, look, she, you know, engineer, lawyer, doctor, you know, we're immigrants. We want to make sure that our child is educated and upwardly mobile. Of course. He wants to be an actor. There's absolutely no Indians on screen at the time. No. I mean, it's a pretty logical conclusion. And my, I don't know, again, I don't know what it is, but there was no doubt in my mind that I'd be able to succeed. And I don't think that that's some, I don't know what that is and I don't champion it. I mean, that sounds like something that goes beyond just the way your parents parented you,

like some deep conviction, like some past life shit. It's like a supreme stupidity. It's like just the, it's as dense as you can possibly be. It's single-minded. But not a hope like a knowing. Yeah, I've never had a hope. It's always been just there. And that's what's going to happen.

And what was the idea? Like, what was, if you had to visualize what that looked like in terms of where you saw yourself? At that time, Will Smith, like, that was my hero. I was like, yeah, I'll do this Fresh Prince thing. Like, I'll go, I'll be a rapper. I'll be a TV guy. Like, I'll do this Fresh Prince thing. Like, I'll go. I'll be a rapper. I'll be a TV guy. Like, I'll go do it.

And now, like, you know, there's a, it's a good life. And I mean, at that time, my parents, my mother had no clue what acting was like. And my parents were like, all right, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. You want to do this acting thing? My father, now I know, was like, if he's passionate about something, you let him do it. That's what it is. At the time, he was like, you know, you're like, he couldn't say, he couldn't be like, yeah, you let him do it. That's what it is. At the time, he was like, you know, you're like, he couldn't say he couldn't be like, yeah, chase your dream. That's what I did.

My father came from a small city, waking up at 6 a.m. and basically wrote his way out of a tiny city into the preeminent spot in his field. Right. In the United States of America. Yeah. To be at NIH doing cancer research. I mean, that's that's the top of the heap. If you look up my last name on Google, it's my dad, my mom, and then me.

That's amazing. Yeah, that is cool. We also might be the only people with our last names in the planet. But I don't know. I don't know. But I mean, I- Did they ever say, listen, okay, you wanna be an actor?

Well, maybe you should go back to India and do the Bollywood thing. No, because they knew my Hindi is horrible. Like, I can't really dance. I can't hang with those dudes. You have no accent at all. Hell no. I would be tossed aside.

I'd be cast aside like many Indian Americans who've tried to do the same thing. Like, they're like, we're good. All right, so you're at NYU. That's like the perfect place for you. Yeah, I mean, what happened was is they made me apply just real quick. They made me apply to 15 schools or 16 schools, half academic and half acting. And I did all my auditions myself. I didn't have any help.

And my mother was like, I don't know what to do. So she went to this director, Harriet Middleberger, who's actually the art teacher at school and was like, do you think my son can be a professional actor? teacher at school and was like, do you think my son can be a professional actor? And this poor woman, Harriet Middleberger, who is an art teacher at a high school in Gaithersburg, Maryland, or Rockville, Maryland, has to decide my fate. And she... What she says will determine whether you're going to get to do this. And Harriet Middleberger's like, yeah, he's got focus issues, but he's talented. If he puts his mind to anything, he'll be good at it. it like the diplomatic answer and that was enough for my mom to be like okay and then getting into a school at that time when it might still be as prestigious as nyu was a big deal in building their confidence yeah i would imagine that would

allow them to like feel like sort of exhale a little bit like okay nyu great school for sure whatever happens with this acting thing. You went to Stanford? I did, yeah. You did? Yeah. Cool. But then I went, after I finished Stanford, I went and lived in New York City and I dated a girl who was an NYU student

in the acting program there. And I met a bunch of those people. Debra Messing. Not Debra Messing, nobody you would know. But I got like a sense of that program and kind of what goes on there it's so impressive yeah it was it was fun man i don't know how you are in an academic environment but as a creative person and when you're trying to express something that is so intrinsically a part of who you are, especially when what

you do is so tied into the rhythm of humor and comedy. And it's not about diving into the mind of a character. It's about finding the music in the moment and finding and mining the laughter. And that's an instinctual thing. You can learn it to some degree, but the language of laughter is so, you can see I'm like contorting my body. It's so in the back of my neck and in the base of my spine and in my stomach. And it's in my, like my, my ear lobes. It's like, I can, it's an energy. And so when you go to school and you have,

that's the language that I spoke at the time. And people are like, you should be playing princes and you should be this. And don't be a funny man. Be a serious man. Do you and people are like you should be playing princes and you should be this and don't be a funny man be a serious man do you want people to take you seriously don't you this is acting and i'm like no i want that experience that i had when that woman came in with a frowny face and then left beaming i do it for them i don't want to do it for critical peers i don't want to do it for anyone who has an understanding of how the magic works. I'm not doing magic for other magicians. I'm doing it for the people that want to be transported somewhere. So that was like a very hard thing for me to do. Now, the vocal training at NYU, the physical training, the spine work, the Alexander technique, the core work, the breath work, invaluable for like doing a six show week in a stage play.

And how much of it do you think is trainable? Like there's this kind of ongoing conversation about like, oh, well, did you study Meisner? Or did you, what was the, you know, what school of thought did you, you know, under which did you train? And I'm always curious, like, how much of this is just, like, you just came out of the womb, like, channeling this, like,

to use your phrase, like magic, like there's a magic to it, there's an energy to it that you're just attuned to in a certain way. And yeah, you can learn certain techniques to hone your craft and what you do and improve and sort of figure out different ways to approach these characters. But how much of that is like nature versus nurture? I think it's, I mean, I'm of the school that it's, you're born with, you're born with it. And some people are born with more and some people are born with less. We can call it charm, some people are born with more and some people are born with less. We can call it charm. We can call it charisma. We can call it gravitas, you know, weight, depending on there's so many different kinds of performance and they all require a different set of skills. And how you like for me,

like I know that my skill and my gift is in making people feel good and laugh. That's what I do. I entertain. I'm a performer in that regard. I don't know that I'd consider myself an actor, but if someone wants to call me that, cool. I'll take the title. But how I use my body physically, probably very similar, focusing which area of my spine do I use for this character.

There are really fun ways to play with your body that I didn't know before I showed up. Like I was a jumping bean on stage. I couldn't sit still. And then I had a teacher be like, Hey man, plant your feet. Take the space.

You have so much energy. Use it. Focus it. That was helpful. Right. Cause I was embarrassed. I was like, here I am thinking I'm hot shit.

And like my teacher goes up on stage and copies the way I look. And I look ridiculous. Like I'm like flopping around. Well, it's like Yoda and Luke Skywalker. Like you have the force, the force is strong with you. But like if the force is just, you know, oozing out of your pores and like, you know, it's not focused. It's not channeled in a very intentional way. Yeah.

And it's also that thing of like self-centeredness and narcissism can really deter you as an artist right because once you get so like when i was battling right another like major moment is like i'm like swinging my dick left and right india dick on your forehead and like tommy kale comes up to me and is like hey man i get that you come from an ego environment. I get that everything you do is to boost your own ego. We are operating as Freestyle Love Supreme in a world in which you rapping about yourself is infinitely less important than you and interesting than say you rapping about oatmeal. If you can rap about oatmeal or the incredible Hulk or the Los Angeles Clippers with as much dexterity and passion as you rap about yourself, then I'll be interested. And when

you can do that, when you can take the focus off of you, then you might have something. And that's powerful life advice. Dude, changed my whole game. It opened me up to a world of expression and improvisation that i up until that point had not experienced and it took so much pressure off of me that i didn't know was there because ultimately like i don't feel that great about myself who can feel that good about themselves all the time i'm like a skinny indian dude ostracized unattractive like only child growing up growing up in a country that my parents didn't understand like super sensitive never felt like i fit in and like i'm the i'm up on stage being like i'm the man i'm gonna beat you well fronting you know

fronting exactly fronting faking the funk exactly Exactly. And I don't really blame you for that. Like I think it takes a certain kind of courage and like just like balls to go, I'm gonna be an actor. I'm Indian. There's nobody has paved this road in front of me. Yeah. So how else are you going to break down those doors and get noticed without a little bluster?

Yeah, there's a lot of just false confidence moments for sure. Yeah. I'm just like- I'm sure you got taken down a peg too here and there. Always. Yeah. I mean, always.

Was there, who was the first like kind of breakout Indian performance, you know, ahead of you where you were like wow something's happening so i mean you have guys like om puri the old school guys like om puri who did city of joy and then you which was like in the 90s with patrick swayze um not a great movie but um and Nasruddin Shah and then you know there Asif Manvi was there for a long time right but he was sort of under the radar and he was he wasn't on my radar the first guy that I saw and you know he loves when I shout him out and it's true is like Ajay Naidoo in Office Space when I saw him in this cult classic movie, I was like, oh, the OG's going in.

Like, that's my guy. Ajay Naidoo's my guy, and he's still my guy, and he knows he's my OG. And like, I don't know if he listens to this podcast. I mean, everybody on planet Earth listens to this podcast. I hope he does. But he's my OG. If he does, hit us up, because I'd like to know.

That's the first time I saw somebody with brown skin, and I was like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Okay, cool. It's possible. And then, of course. What year was that? I want to say 97, 98. And then, of course, Cal Penn broke through. And there was this boom in around the late 90s, early 2000s of Indian American produced independent cinema.

There was this movie called Chutney Popcorn, American Desis, ABCDs, which means American Born Confused Desis. There was like this little renaissance of independent Indian film. Right. None of the movies, sorry guys, were that great, but that's not the point. The point is that they were being done. You know what I'm saying? then cal plant penn blew up with harold and kumar and by the time i was out of college i think aziz ansari was doing stand-up and he was already doing human giant and there were people making moves das races the music group was around with hemes and um apple apple no what harry's brother harry kundal's brother is in that but hemes is a buddy of mine and people were making moves but ajay naidu was the point where

i was like this can happen what year what year was the danny boyle movie slumdog slumdog yeah 2001 was it or later i don't know it seems like it's a long time ago. Maybe 2005. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Within the last 10 years. But that had some of the kind of the old school Indian actor dude. Like the game show host dude. Yeah, Anil Kapoor. He's been around for a long time, right? Anil Kapoor is the man. If anyone wants to see a great Bollywood movie, go see Mr. India.

It's awesome. He turns invisible. Right. It's dope. So the light bulb's kind of going on and you're like okay like there's some there's some there's some people out there so what happens here's the interesting thing about hollywood though and and um stereotype the stereotypical nature of it and the idea of boxes and as you and i have i've followed you in your career and your journey

and path and boxes don't exist. Like you are all about just finding efficient spiritual ways to express yourself. And I think that is what we hope for and we strive for as people. Now, the profession that I've chosen is not so amenable to that experience. Well, the difference is that I can speak into this microphone directly to the audience.

There's no intermediary. Yes. Hollywood is all about, you know, doors that you're trying to break down and, you know, committees and all kinds of, you know, people that have to sign off on projects getting made and how they're made. So, you're asking me to be your co-host, John? Anytime, dude. I accept.

It's so nice to do this with somebody who's a good talker. Oh, good. It takes all the stress away. It's awesome, man. To speak, this is a very good example of how Hollywood works. So, Dev Patel, the main actor in Slumdog Millionaire, movie wins the Oscar, right? Best picture. So, it is the most lauded movie of its year.

picture so it is the most lauded movie of its year and you'd expect a star of an oscar-winning picture to have so many fucking scripts at his doorstep that he immediately launches into movie stardom it should be that easy right any other best picture winner you look at, guaranteed, if you have an actor of, like a white actor, or even now, thankfully, black actors, they will have a career. So fast forward. Well, they'll at least get tons of options and opportunities. Exactly. And if they make the wrong choices, or they don't execute well, that's only going to last so long. But the opportunities will immediately be available yeah the door will open so dev patel lead of this movie slumdog millionaire uh cut to a year later two years later i'm sitting in a room

with dev patel star of the oscar-winning movie slumdog millionaire and both of us are going head-to-head auditioning for Aaron Sorkin for the newsroom. What the fuck is Dev Patel doing in a room with me? Because at that point, I have no credits. Maybe I've done two failed pilots. I've gotten a very fancy Lucille Lortel nomination for an Off-Broadway acting award. And I've won a few rap battles, and I'm in an improv freestyle group. But how many, but in the script, I would imagine it called for Indian American actor. Yeah.

So there's how many dudes are there? There's only like 10 dudes, right? Yeah. But he's, why not the offer? Also that is a TV show and he's number eight or nine or 10 on that call sheet. This is the star of an Oscar winning fucking movie. And maybe it's the decisions he made. But from my perspective, I'm like, yo man, you couldn't have fucked this up that quick. Like what is going on? So that is the type of thing like Kunal Nair. He did book it, but he shouldn't have had to audition. Exactly.

Kunal Nair, who Big Bang Theory. This is another guy. We're talking about nine seasons what are they making 1.5 an episode like crazy they're breaking bank and he and i are sitting in a room together for a role in a ron howard movie the title i can't remember and we both meet ron howard and we have to meet and i'm like i've just come from south by southwest i've been rocking it with my group i am hungover as fuck and i'm just like and here's kunal nair a certified television behemoth star what am i doing in the room with him why is he

not just getting the offer that's why that's where when it's like we need an indian dude let's have options it's like no man right reach out to the really bank on really bank on that dude? It's like, yes, bro. He's on the number one show on television. Why am I coming up? Why am I coming up? Well, I think there's a weird thing that happens, which is if it was a white dude, you'd be like, oh, well, that movie succeeded because that white dude carried the movie

and has so much charisma. And when there is an ethnic actor, for lack of a better, know a non-white actor yeah then the the thinking is well oh it was the director or it was there's a dismissiveness right yeah that gets just built into the whole thing you know i'll speak to that really quickly which i did barbershop right right and that was Again, I'm the only one like me in that movie. Like I'm surrounded by amazing black actors and comedians and they're incredible, but I'm still the only Indian in the entire room. And that's an interesting experience, too. Like I'm always sort of the odd man out.

And that's fine because I'm here to work with artists ultimately more than i am what ethnic background they are right i'm here to work with talented and great people who inspire me um but i asked one of the executives of that movie i was like do you think aziz or an indian person could headline a studio film right now he's like absolutely not that'll never happen you can do an independent movie good luck but to speak to what you said about a white actor carrying a movie so if i'm sitting in a room with all indian people or indians filipinos you know asian non-white people and you go hey man who in the group is most like tom cruise well no because we've been watching movies with straight white male leads for so long

right that we know which one of us is tom cruise we know who the will smith is like and straight you know will smith is an outlier right he's like this a movie star transcended race yeah and denzel right and so like why does he have to transcend race that's the crazy thing but anyway like we'll know we'll be like yo cool cool cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. But if you sit with your friends in a white group, a group of white males, and you're like, which one of you guys is most like Jackie Chan? Can you answer that? Yeah, no, that's tougher. Right?

Because you haven't had the experience of empathizing and being in the shoes of Asian Americans for your entire life. I've been doing this my whole life, comparing myself to a white ideal or, in some cases, a black ideal, because those are predominantly the two choices you have when growing up in this country. You pick a side. You either wear a polo shirt or you wear um you know tim's and like that's kind of like those are your choices so that's just that's something that dante bosco who uh is an actor and a friend of mine also he played rufio in the movie hook he brought that up to me we worked on a song together recently and i was like that's so

that's on point if you sit down with a group together recently, and I was like, that's so, that's on point. If you sit down with a group of white people and it's like, which one of you guys is most like Utkarsh? They're going to be like, no, no. Why would anyone want to be like Utkarsh? I don't want to be an Indian dude. It is an interesting, like, reversal of perspective, though. Yeah. I want to think about that a little bit more.

But I think, you know, look, it is changing. It is improving. Perhaps not as quickly as it should. But I think it you know, look, it is changing. It is improving, perhaps not as quickly as it should. But I think it's an interesting time. You know, look, Camille had, you know, The Big Sick was super lauded. More people should have seen that movie. It's a great movie. And if you haven't, you should.

And you're getting, you seem to be getting quite a few opportunities. Like the doors are opening for you. So, you know, you're having success, you're on the cusp of bigger success. How do you think about how you carry that mantle of being, of being a, you know, an Indian American actor? Like, do you feel like a certain responsibility in how you communicate around that? And do you think of it in terms of, you know, how you advocate for change? Or like, what is your disposition around the whole thing? I feel a deep sense of responsibility. I am Indian American, and I am an actor. To deny that would be foolish. I've experienced several

ups and downs as a result of, you know, my ethnic background and how people perceive that. And I feel blessed at the same time. This is not a black and white issue. I'm very grateful to work. I'm not saying that, like, this is what a lot of people are like. You work all the time. What do you have to complain about? It's not about being a complainant.

It's about being a spokesman or a representative of a community that's underrepresented. That's what I'm here for. For instance, this Good Morning America thing, like Hurry is in Chicago. They wanted to talk to Hurry. Hurry said no. So they asked me. Now I could be like, I don't want to go on Good Morning America. Like I got, I don't want to eat a cheesesteak and go to bed. But somebody has to show up. Somebody has to represent the community. Do you think about that, like, 14-year-old Utkarsh at home who doesn't have any role models who might be tuning in to watch that? Yeah. You're speaking to the exact reason. Yeah. Because as a kid, like, Will Smith was my role model. Michael Jordan was my role model.

Michael Jackson was my role model. Bo Jackson was my role model. Bo Jackson was my role model. Like maybe, who else was there? Jean-Claude Van Damme. You know what I mean? None of those guys look like me, right? But the amount of people now who are like, hey, man, I saw you in Pitch Perfect. Or when I saw you on Mindy Project. Young people, you know, your podcast really means something to us. Please keep doing it. Like,

it's so good to know that somebody like us is out there going through the same stuff that we go through as creative people every day. That means a lot. And I'm sure you get the same type of response in your field. And as you know, like, that's, I mean, it's really, really helpful. It's super helpful as I go through my own life life knowing that I'm not alone and that the work that I do is not being seen as either good or bad. It's being seen as a representation of possibility. It would be great to kind of contextualize it a little bit because if you look at your IMDB, you're like, oh, this dude works all the time. Like, look at all his credits because it goes from one thing to the next. And I know you well enough to know that that's not necessarily, you know, it hasn't been this like linear upwardly mobile trajectory for you. So what do people who have some familiarity with you or your work,

what do they not get about what you've had to do to get to the place that you're at? What do they not get? You mean like how- Well, sort of like, oh, yeah, you're Indian, but it doesn't seem to have been a barrier for you. Look at you. You work all the time. Oh, but you just don't see the nose, my friend. Like you don't hear the nose.

It is a business of nose. Yeah. You don't, you, this is part of that nuclear pellet thing, right? Richard Dreyfuss came and spoke to my college class and he looked sad. I don't know what that man was going through. Someone asked a question and he was like, I had a nuclear pellet in me once and it died and I've never been able to get it back. And he said that shit. And I was like, this sad motherfucker. What year was that?

This was 2003, four. Three, four? I went to his house for a project and it must have been 2000, maybe 2006. It was around that same time. And I had a similar experience with him where I left kind of feeling. Bummed out. A little bit. Bummed and just totally, I was like, you're going to sit in a room full of open sponge minds and say some fucking horrible shit like that keep your god

like be of service teach anyway my i think he is a teacher now i hope so i think he's like a professor or something i tell you anyway go ahead my nuclear pellet isn't gonna die because i get to be here and share with you someone who inspires me and fills me up i get to go and hopefully be willing to be educated. But the no, right? The no is constant. I've done 13 pilots. 12 of them have failed. And every one of those pilots had a price tag attached to it, right? This is what it's going to be.

I've worked with some of the best people on projects you will never see. Every year, pilot, fail, pilot, fail. Right. people on projects you will never see every year pilot fail pilot right for people that are listening that that aren't quite familiar oh when you do a pilot you and as a lawyer i used to negotiate these deals i mean you're basically signing a contract for the next seven seven years of your life yeah and as an actor like literally your life would change in in such an unbelievably dramatic way literally overnight if the pilot gets picked up and goes to series. If it's a network show. Yeah, you go from having a lot of free time and making, let's say on a good year you make $50,000 to making $1.2 million a year for seven years immediately.

And still living in a one-bedroom apartment for $1,200 a month. Now, I don't know what it's like because that's never happened. I did finally break through that ceiling this year with Showtime's White Famous. We did one season. It got canceled. Oh, it got canceled. I didn't know that. That's a win for me, dude. I just did my first full season of television after 10 years.

13 pilots of being like, is this one going to go? Is this one going to go? Is this one going to go? Is this one going to go? Is this one going to go? Of all, uh, based on the fantasy football guys, um, book whose name I can't remember right now. Um, but everybody's yelling at your, their car stereos right now. I know. Calm down people. It was a show about Fox sports Network shot about football and on Fox. It was like Fox. It was like, here we go. Here you go.

Single camera, just spoon feed success into you. And we got football players. Rob Gronkowski was there. Russell Wilson was a guy. Like we could have just gotten anyone all the time. And for some reason- Didn't get picked up. Didn't get picked up.

It's so crazy that model though. They spend so much money and some reason, didn't get picked up. It's so crazy, that model though, they spend so much money and then they don't pick these things up. Nobody ever sees these pilots. They go to some graveyard somewhere. And because the network owns the story, it never goes any further. Like, I feel like with all of these outlets now, there should be more fluidity with all of these pilots that don't get picked up where there's some flexibility that they can be sold to other places and get developed and come out of shows. I mean, that's kind of what happened to me. That's sort of the process I'm in right now, which is where I'm at. I mean, to really speak to like why my career has like gotten better. Like, you know, I know you have a history with booze.

Like I was, I was not living a good lifestyle. And I'll tell you like the most poignant story is this. If it's a little bit long, this is what I'm here to talk about, dude. So to speak to freestyle love supreme what happened is um about seven years ago six years ago lynn does this alexander hamilton song at the white house well let's back it up even further a little bit sure if we could um where do you first meet lynn oh in that room and that was it you didn't know him before that no we're like two dogs sniffing each other's butts and being like i think we might be from the same

litter and where does the partying come in like when you're in new york and at nyu in high school i would say that i was full blown by 18 or 19 i would say I was like going hard in the paint. So you were ramping up in high school, then you get to New York City, which is just like Disneyland for alcoholics. Yeah, high school, I was a pretty good kid. And then once I got to New York, by sophomore or junior year of college,

I had completely checked out. Like I was like, you know, whatever it is, all the shrooms, all the acid right like i i tried i don't need to get into specifics but you know we did a lot of crazy like fish related behaviors you know what i'm saying or like fish like phi like fish the band like string cheese incident yeah i got you i'm freezing i don't even know what that is i know string cheese incident and i know fish Yeah, I gotcha. i feel guilty about it i'm like i probably shouldn't be doing this like this isn't what a good indian kid should do like you know i'm not able to show up to things with as much gusto but it's who i am like this is hip-hop this is new york this is like 22 man this is what we do smoke weed every day like this is the lifestyle you know and like when you don't uh when you're

not getting work you can always sell and you can make at least enough money to like stay afloat. You're not losing money. That's for sure. Go to jail a couple times for like some little things. Yeah, but like no biggie, dude. No biggie. Yeah. So, I was spray painting in the Lower East Side.

It's like. It's what you got to do. The dumbest. For some cred, right? Yeah. I was in this hip hop group called called the b-tards bad name um i love those guys um and we spray painted on the wall in big gold letters the b-tards will outrun you and then in two seconds it was like and we did not run we did not skip jog or walk

we stayed stationary and went directly to jail and And it was like little things like that. Like one time I had an open container on the subway. And that's nothing. That's a ticket. That's nothing. I thought you could still, can you not do it in the brown bag? Nope. That's what we did.

I see. We got pinched. But here's the thing. I had a prior from that spray painting incident. So you go directly to jail. Now, where I got lucky, and I have never told this story before. That's crazy because the one thing about New York City cops is they got their eyes on the most important shit.

They can't be bothered with some dude in the subway with an open container. Me and my buddy went to jail. How did what did you, like, that's amazing that they would even care. Yeah, I don't know what we did. But I will tell you this, like, for the white people listening, you guys really have an ability to yell at cops that the rest of us don't. And you should appreciate that and use it as much as possible. If I was a white person, I'd be yelling at a police officer at least once a day. I would just be like- I still don't think it's a good idea if you're white,

but certainly not as dire as it would be if you were to do that. At least three times a day, you should say something mean to a cop and just be like, ha ha, that's my privilege in life. I'm only half joking. But so that was one of those experiences where, look, we get pinched, we're only there for an overnight but here's the thing i've got weed on me which is a misdemeanor but

i've also got a bag of cocaine in my pocket and it was like in that little coin pocket that you have in your jeans and i was like my friend charlie is yelling at the cops and he's being you know obnoxious and i was, you have to shut the fuck up. Like, I'm actually in a problem situation here. And lucky for me, by the grace of whatever, obviously it's my luck because at this point I'm the center of the universe and I've done enough shrooms to know that I'm Jesus. But like the cop searched my jeans with rubber gloves. And when he went into that pocket, he didn't feel the bag.

So I'm sitting in jail with cocaine in my pocket and nobody knows. Wow. And they let us out six hours later. And I'm just like. So if you had been busted for that felony. Oh yeah. I mean, I'm not going home that night.

Yeah. That's for sure. There's no way. Right. And so. You got spared there. All right. So let's fast forward to Lynn.

Yeah. So to basically like, so I meet Lynn, blah, blah, blah. We do that. We're there. And then seven years ago, Lynn's like, I got something for you. I got something good. I'm working on something special. I got something for you. I got something good. I'm working on something special. I got something for you.

And was Lynn a student at NYU? No, Lynn went to Wesleyan. We met when I was a senior, coming out of senior year in college. So I met all those guys. I met Lynn, Chris. Through Freestyle Love Supreme. Exactly. And we did that.

We went to Vancouver for Just for Laughs Festival. We performed a lot lot we've been on stage together hundreds of times um and then lynn's like i got this thing i got this thing you know this hamilton thing you want to do it and i was just coming off a pitch perfect and i was hot shitting it and i also at this point was like living a lifestyle, which was a daily, I was in a daily lifestyle at this point. Daily using. Yeah, daily drinking. And we did Hamilton.

What became Hamilton, excuse me, at Lincoln Center. We started that. And I was like. So it was like you're developing the material with him. And like. Yeah. And like who else is there like basically first time it was me and chris john rua james monroe i go hard so basically just freestyle love supreme

dudes kind of yeah lynn's like i got this thing did you have a sense like whoa this is like this is a thing so at first when we did it at lincoln center when we did like a hamilton mixtape i think is what it was called and I for an audience or you're just a full audience uh-huh and I played Aaron Burr which is the lead role that won the Tony for best actor um uh you know it was good it was like yeah Lin's dope this is my friend he's dope I'm dope like we're all good this is gonna be good like I have no context I'm like I just did Pitch Perfect my movie like i'm blowing up like i'm good i'm on the mindy project about wait maybe i hadn't done mindy project yet i was full of vim and vigor and ego and full of that shit um and i was more concerned about where the party was at after than the work itself which is what i learned later on when i stopped drinking is that what

happened after was so much more important than the experience itself. I wanted to know where we were going, what we were doing, who we were doing it with. And whatever happened on stage is like the least of my fucking interests and priorities. So fast forward a few months. And a total lack of appreciation for this unbelievable opportunity that just fell into your lap. All day, every day. Appreciation?

You should be so lucky to have me. So a few months pass, and then we go up to Poughkeepsie to a New York stage and film to workshop again. And now we've got sort of what became a lot of the core group. You've got Chris Jackson, David joined. I was there. Joshua Henry, who just played Aaron Burr here in LA. If you guys got a chance to see him, he's incredible.

And several other folks who I can't remember right now. But you've got Tommy Kail. You've got Alex Lacamoire, the music director. You've got Lynn. And here's the thing. I'm not a trained musical theater guy. It's not like I can just show up and be dope. I have to work.

And like I have a few skills which help, which is to say that like if I hear something, I can mimic it. I've got sort of like an audiographic thing. At least that's what Alex says. But if you're drunk at 9 in the morning or 10 in the morning, that skill. That ain't going to work. No, man. Yeah. or 10 in the morning, that skill. That ain't gonna work. No, man. So I went through that week with great, with an inability to perform in the way

that they wanted me to and knew that I could. Did people like David, like show up understanding like, oh, this is gonna be like a big thing. Like I'm here 110%. Yeah, for sure. People took it seriously. And Chris Jackson sat me down and he was like, you know, this is gonna be like a big thing like i'm here 110 yeah for sure people took it seriously and chris jackson sat me down and he was like you know this is their life this is lynn and tommy and alex this is their future this is how they're gonna put their kids through college this means

the world to them and you know it's not some little shit it's tommy kale and lynn manuel miranda like we already done been through in the Heights. You saw what that was. You're fucking up. And I was like, Lin's songs are too hard and I can't sing them. He's like, you know every Yelp and Whoop to every Michael Jackson song ever written, don't you? Why can't you learn Lin's stuff? Who's telling you this? Christopher Jackson, who played George Washington, who's my big brother in Freestyle Love Supreme. So he's trying to have your back and go, look, man, you can do this.

You have the skills, but you got to sort your shit out. Yeah. You got to focus. And meanwhile, I'm at the bar every night, unable to do that. So we perform. I am underwhelming in my performance, right? And to fast forward quite a bit, obviously, i'm not sitting here talking to you about my starring role in hamilton they had to go in a different direction they were it wasn't for me

at that time i was unable to meet the moment because of what was going on in my life which is really embarrassing and hard to say to a bunch of people in their cars who just yelled at me for not knowing a fantasy football guy. But yeah, well, everyone likes to think that they would acquit themselves differently. But I think it's so powerful, man. And it takes courage to tell that story. and I appreciate you sharing it with everybody. So what happens then is like... Sorry, were you gonna say something? to not really understand the opportunity in front of you and to be unable to avail yourself of your God-given talent

to just show up and do what everyone else is doing. And then in retrospect, you know, fast forward several years later to look back through the rear view mirror and to see and truly appreciate what Hamilton became, it must've been very difficult for you to not do the, you know, coulda, shoulda, woulda, what would my life have been like had I just showed up sober.

Of course I did that. What happens is I get sober. And as I'm getting sober, and for anyone who's dealt with substance stuff or who's struggling with it, you know that when you, and you know, when you first turn off the booze and the drugs and stuff, you're a babe. You're a brand new person. Everything is raw. What am I? My routine was based on this behavior. I now have to change all my behaviors. Who am I? So I'm this brand new person in the world. And I'm like, look at me. I'm brand new and I'm special and I'm clean and I'm doing everything I got to do to be a good guy and a cool guy and a nice guy. And everywhere I look, everywhere I go in this new experience, the specter and shadow of my biggest mistake is over me and blocking out everything else.

Because people know. You do a quick Google search. It's like, oh, you played Aaron Bur burr everyone knows i'm friends with lynn we're homies we're very good friends so it's not like and they supported me right like they fully everyone is like nobody was like hey man you should probably keep drinking like everyone was supportive so it's one of those things where now i'm sober hamilton is blown the fuck up but did did lynn fire you or like how did that go down they just kind of said they just kind of moved in another direction and i called tommy and i was like hey man like what's up like we're going to the public and he was like no dude like i'm really glad i know now why you dropped the ball the way you did but what you did we had to move on it doesn't work for us and i was like can i audition again he said yeah but i mean i knew i wasn't gonna get ship a sale but i flew

myself out to new york i prepped the material showed up early and i sang and i did my best and it was fucking humbling as shit man it was of those like, and they walked out of the room and I was changing and I had nowhere to go. I was like in New York for a day. I was newly sober. I was just trying to get my shit together. And I know that that went a long way for them. Of like, whoa, this egotistical piece of shit. Right, that's an act of humility.

You know, it'll be like, hey, I fucked up. I'm going to come up and hat in hand and like try to earn it back. And I didn't even realize that's what I was doing, honestly. Like it had to be explained to me by Tommy. He had to be like, when you did it, this, this is how I felt. So Hamilton blows up and it hurts, right? I'm like, there, I get to see the show and like they're giving me love. I mean, it's unprecedented.

It's like nothing, nothing. And culturally, it was just the biggest outlier ever oh yeah it blew up in the way that it did and it's all my best friends in it so like they're sending me birthday messages in costume like lynn like lynn and i basically the way we communicate is through freestyle rap videos so text them back we text back and forth videos so i don't know how many we have at this point like if someone anyone ever archived it it's like five years put that together that would be amazing yeah we should we should but i don't it's like our thing right but like anyway like we like for instance this week was a chicken box and a shingles rap videos we're done i don't know if anyone would find them interesting except for us.

Dude, I would, I think you are underestimating how much people would be into that. Well, I'll talk to him about it. And I know he'll be like, really dude? Let's not. But he's like, I might say some fucked up shit. Well, there is something kind of nice and beautiful and pure about just having like a private. Yeah. Like friendship like that.

That's not for public consumption. It just keeps us in touch in a fun way. Go ahead. I interrupted you. That's okay. So it blows up and it hurts. It hurts a lot to not be there and like to see your really good friends doing something that you were a part of. And it's great success. And at the time, like, I'm not good friends doing something that you were a part of and it's great

success and at the time like i'm not really like doing that much you know i'm doing some pilots here and there and like no tv show is ever going to be hamilton you know what i mean and you're just seeing people blow up like david deserves it he's a homie we just did a movie called blind spotting right you're at sundance i want to talk about that in a minute. Let me, so I'll blaze through this story. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. And what happens is, is it culminates, I've never watched the Tonys,

but because I wanted to beat the shit out of myself, I watched the Tonys. Just to torture yourself. Yeah, of course. I watched the Tonys and I see Leslie Odom, who's so talented, by the way. Like when I watch him play Aaron Burr, I realize and understand why I'm not playing Aaron Burr. Like, let's not get it twisted.

That dude is for real ferocious. And if I had stayed with the project, the character would have been vastly different. But that's not what happened. They went in a different direction. And Leslie, I could never play Aaron Burr today. I don't have the chops. But I watch him get the Tony for Best Actor.

And I cry. Crye is me tears and how long have you been sober at that point two years two years maybe a little less boohoo boohoo boohoo me and i'm so sad and as you know from the work that we do to keep our minds right, I put pen to paper and I started writing. And I kept writing. What is the story? Where are the feelings? I wrote four or five songs. I wrote what ended up being an 18, 19-page treatment, basically a graphic novel.

And I wrote a hip-hop musical about a guy who missed out on being in the biggest hip-hop musical of all time about sobriety about missed opportunities about how we deal with being a new person in the world when the one thing that you wish you had is ubiquitous is everywhere it's like if you broke up with a girl and you missed her and on every street corner was her face. Right. And I took that story to Tommy Kail, who directed Hamilton. And I was like, hey, man, you know how much it hurts. You know what it is. Here's what I did. What do you think?

And he said, well, I fired you from the first job. Let's do this. He's like, I think this is self-deprecating. It's honest. It's true. It's funny. It's sweet. In many ways, it's like a love letter to Lynn. Because otherwise, he wouldn't let me do it. I got Lynn's blessing. just to speak to what you were saying earlier we developed it at amazon amazon underwent this huge change and now they're not going with like quirky great shows they want to do like lord of the rings style whatever they're called yeah they're gonna spend a billion dollars on that yeah so amazon was like yeah we're not really gonna do this now so they bought it they bought it and they gave it back oh they did give it back because Because I remember when you sold it. Yeah.

So now we have it. Wow. We have it again. That's cool. And we're going out with it. But the point is, it's like, that's the best case scenario. You dropped a freaking ball. You tell a story about dropping the ball.

And then the person who fucking dropped, like, who was like, you dropped the ball it's more than that but karsh because what it is is it's taking ownership of the character defects that led to that situation it's writing about it in an open and honest and vulnerable way to take even deeper ownership of it and then finding a way to convey that story in a way that can be instructive for other people to understand, you know, what you went through and what you've learned from that. Ideally. It's like a beautiful act of service done through the lens of your art form.

Thanks, I mean, I hope so, I mean. But to take like that thing that, I mean, I just can't imagine, like the scope of the pain that that i i mean i just can't imagine like the the scope of the pain that that must have been yeah to like to like literally every day have to see hamilton everywhere you turn yeah i mean i just i can't imagine that and the thing is dude you stayed sober through that like if there was ever an excuse to drink and say fuck it but it's the opposite the hamilton is the excuse to stay sober hamilton is the reason

like when you look at it and you go fuck it we all have fuck it's oh fuck it man i want some champagne god damn wine's good come on blue label gimme but then you go um do you remember hamilton like do you remember what you missed like do you remember what you missed? Like, do you remember, do you know, like, forget the friendships lost. I mean, those are the most important things, to be honest. Like, my mother and my father and I have a great relationship. My mom doesn't cry. She knows where I am. She knows that if I don't talk to her for a couple of days, I'm cool.

You know what I mean? Like, my friends ask me to take care of their dogs. They ask me to officiate their weddings. They ask me to be best man at their weddings. Like they know that when they make a plan with me, I'll show up. Like I'm here, I'm there. But in terms of my career, which like you said, is doing really well. I'm happy.

I'm blessed and I'm grateful to be working with awesome people and to show up on set and to be a version of myself that is my ideal or at least close to it in terms of how i treat other people and um you know that hamilton quote-unquote loss it's a loss why am i saying quote-unquote is a great reason to be like hey man like you don't want to go back on that body right but it presents a choice like that choice is gonna break some people and it's gonna make others right like you can look at that and go hey man this is the the biggest instructive lesson i'm ever gonna learn yeah or you can just like sort of use it to fuel victimhood and tell yourself that you're a piece of shit until it's so painful that you're faced with nothing, no other choice but to drink and use.

Word, but that's the wonderful thing about getting sober and hanging out with guys like you and being on a spiritual path and being on a growth is like you learn through repetitive behaviors that are good to have some self-love and integrity and some self-esteem, which I never truly had. I never built it up.

So I had like a reserve. So the Hamilton experience maybe lowered my reserves. It certainly, but I was constantly refilling by spending time with people like you. Like we all have missed opportunities in our life. And mine is a great story. It's certainly one of those, holy fuck, bro, you fucked up. Damn, bro, that must, you must feel like shit.

Like everyone I tell it to is like jaw drop. Well, it's so direct, but I mean, you, you, everybody, I think you're right. Everybody does have these. Maybe it's two steps removed from that huge opportunity because like oh i overslept because i was hung over and i couldn't show up for that meeting that would have led to me meeting this other guy who would have talked to that guy who would have talked to that guy that then would have been this thing like you just don't know yeah i mean mine is that it's right there in your face it's like one plus one

equals hamilton but like but the thing is is like at throughout the experience i had the support of people who understood the feelings who weren't just like soldier up boy like toughen up like you should be happy this they were like wow that's brutal man like let's talk about it what's going on what's what are those feelings about you know what you can do you can put pen to paper i don't i don't have the muscle of self-pity it's so that self-pity muscle is atrophied so much in sobriety and that's one of the greatest gifts that i've been given is that when the voice goes oh man i'm a butthead and nobody likes me there's like a stronger voice that's more alive and more grown up and more taken care of that i

never had before that just goes hey man like i know you're not feeling you're good you're but like i got you you're taken care of you're not like let's look at the resume you're cool did you show up today for all the things you need to show up for is your bed made is the sink clean did you brush your teeth cool you seem like a good guy to me right like what what was the bottom what brought you in the bottom was uh i fell on my face vanity the bottom was vanity i fell on my face i woke up the next day i looked in the mirror i had a black eye i was bloody and i was like oh no i was like all i have to do is keep my dog alive and not fuck up my face, and I'm batting 50%, which is a failing grade.

And I got a call from a friend who had been checking in on me, and that was it. That's the last day I drank. Yeah, I was done. How long has it been now? Three plus. Yeah, that's good, dude.

Yeah. You just celebrated a anniversary recently right well yeah i think uh it's weird because it's it's messed up i mean i i had that one day outing about six years ago so i'm past six years yeah but i went to rehab in 98 so it would be without that be you know whatever 20 years 19 years but. But reset the clock after the four-hour respite or whatever. Did they have a good VHS collection at your rehab? I don't remember. Did you go to rehab?

I spent some time in summer camp. You did, okay, yeah. No, no, I don't remember VHS. There would be a movie night occasionally and there was a television in like a communal room, but it was more like, you know, just going from group session this to group session that. It was exhausting.

Yeah. It's exhausting. But part of it's awesome. Like there's part of me now who'd be like, that would be cool to like go to rehab now for like 30 days. It's just like work on my shit. Well, now, like you're like, just take a week off here. Take a month off here. You could.

I remember when I was in rehab, somebody came for a stint who had had like, you know, a fair amount of sobriety. I can't remember. I mean, it seemed like a million years to me. Yeah, they had like 38 days. I don't know. But I was like like you're choosing to come here when you don't have like you're not i couldn't understand it but now i kind of get that there's one other guy from that time named jackson and it's like you see that person in a room across

the room and it's like damn we both i can't believe we're still here i can't believe we made it it's incredible it's a you, it's a crippling disease. Yeah. It's like, it's insane. How did that kind of go over with the parents when you had to talk about, tell them what was going on? Oh, man, it's brutal. It's awful. My poor mother.

She's so sad. Yeah. She was so scared. And my dad really, really like soldiered like i mean he really like he read every book on addiction he read every book on like the pleasure centers in the brain and like what it is and like he's got to put his science mind to work on it he's got to understand it because it is scientific there's a dopamine receptor that's broken. So, like, when a normal person drinks five drinks and they're at a 10, we drink five drinks and we're at an 8.

And we think we got to drink. We have the same tolerance. But when I drink five, I'm at an 8. And I will never get higher than an 8. So, I will drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and wonder why I can't get drunk. Right. Whereas my homies are like, all right, five drinks. I'm good. I need a burrito. I'm going home. The next day they wake up and they don't feel the need. The first thought in their mind is not like, oh, when can I have more of that? You know, that's how my body and brain i've

come to learn works if you put a substance into my body it could even be fortnight bro have you heard of this video game fortnight i have heard of it have you heard of this shit i'm awful but i've been playing it for like a week yeah and i'm terrible at it and it's one it's the same thing these games last depending on how bad you are, between 5 and 20 minutes. Every time a game ends, it's like 12. It's 12 a.m. Look to disco, my dog. One more game.

12.30. One more game. 1 a.m. Yeah, that's it, man. 1.30. One more game. That's the disease right there in your face. Yeah.

3 a.m. One more game. Whoa. 3.30. Well, I don't have to go to the gym tomorrow, and I only have to see Richard, too. So, like, that's what it is, man. If you put something in me that's going to give me a boost, I'm going to abuse it. Right.

So, what are some of your routines to keep it at bay? The beast. I talk to guys like you who understand it. Exercise. I play basketball three to four times a week i'm at the gym several times a week i make my bed uh making the bed in the morning is a big one and like meditate and i pray and we have uh clubhouses. Secret society. Yeah, we have secret societies that meet every now and then and get tacos. That's cool, man. And that's kind of like how it is. And there's always somebody who is willing and desperate for help and doesn't know how to um approach sobriety so so if somebody like that is listening

to this right now and i assure you there there are like what do you say to that person um i mean i just said like what i usually i'm i'm the funny one so if i'm like what's going on how you doing yeah oh that sounds. Oh, that sounds pretty. That sounds, I mean, it just depends. But if somebody's feeling stuck, like they're in that. And I know, dude, because I get crazy emails all the time from people. They're in that cycle of addiction. They just can't stop drinking.

They can't stop using. They don't know what to do. Like if that dude called you up or that woman called you up right now and said, I'm drunk right now. I'm listening to the podcast. Like, tell me what to do. If you don't. Like if that dude called you up or that woman called you up right now and said, I'm drunk right now. I'm listening to the podcast. Like, tell me what to do. Oh, man. Well, there's a place at the front of the phone book that you can look for. And they meet all the time.

And I would suggest that you go meet some people. We all know how you feel. We've all been there i it's hard to it was very it felt good when i found out i wasn't unique and that when i wasn't special sometimes that's very hard you look like a guy who fed on that for a long time being terminally unique yeah but the best thing that's happened to me is to just be like, wow, cool. I've got a family. I got like a real group of people and I'm so, I'm so special, but I'm not unique. Does that make sense? Like I am, there's things about me

that make me who I am. And part of the thing that makes me special is that I get to share something and be in a support system with a bunch of people. So like, if you're feeling it's so hard because everyone, you can't, some people want tough love. Some people want sweet love. All I'll say is there's a place you can go where you can get the help that you need and it only costs a dollar. Or it's free. Yeah or it's free yes definitely even cost a dollar i mean what i and i agree with that and i would supplement that by just saying if you don't want to drink or use again you don't have to that there is a solution available to you it's not necessarily for everybody who needs it it's for those who want it so the question is do you want it and are you willing to do what it takes to get it? And if you are willing and you are desperate and you feel

broken and alone, that's a great place to start. And I would encourage anybody who's listening to set aside whatever preconceived ideas or notions you have about the secret society. Find one in your area, show up, raise your hand, find somebody you can talk to, listen, look for the similarities rather than the differences and try to find somebody who you identify with enough that you can speak to them honestly and tell them what's really going on in your life. And if you can get to that place of honesty

and connection with another human being, I think that's a pretty good start to addressing what is only gonna get worse unless you deal with it. Yeah, you can try something new. And if you don't like it, you can go back to your shitty life. You can always go back. You can always go back. To whatever's not working.

To where you are right now and continue to be miserable, no problem. But there is a way out. And I think you said it best. Like, you just don't ever have to feel this way ever again. I took that to heart and it changed my life. And now you're in blind spotting. Yeah, now we're at Sundance.

Now I'm like rolling up to Sundance with the homies. You're in like Game Over Man. You got like, you're going away for, you can't, can you talk about what you're about to go do? No. You can't. But I'm going away for six months to do- It's big.

One of those big movies. Yeah, which I'm excited about. Soon as that freaking contract gets written down though, I'm gonna tell the whole goddamn world. When is that? Because I can wait on putting this up. Oh man. We'll talk about that later.

Your guess is good as mine. And Blindspot, so for people that don't know, Blindspotting premiered at Sundance. Do you guys have a release date? Did that get a distribution deal? I mean, that made a big splash. Oh, yeah. That's Blindspotting, for those who don't know, stars David Diggs and Rafael Casal, written by Rafael as well, directed by our good buddy Carlos, and Janina Gavankar, who's my super homie, Jasmine Safis-Jones and myself and tons of other great actors.

July 27th, Lionsgate releases that. Oh, wow. Cool. Game Over Man with the Workaholics Boys is on Netflix right now. That is a wild action comedy. Super gross. Like, definitely fun. It's workaholics. Oh, man, it is so inappropriate.

And I do awful things in it. And it's really fun. And then there's a movie I did with Brie Larson, which was just released, called Basmati Blues. It's a movie musical. It's a romantic comedy that's available on amazon and on demand and all those things and if you're in india listening to the rich roll podcast which i'm going to guess is like at least 1.2 billion people like in india listen to this podcast of

course at least that many you can go see it in theaters right now it's playing it's playing throughout india oh that's really cool and you have like an album coming out too, right? I've got an album that I'm working on called Vanity. It's got features from David Diggs, Rafael Casal, Heems from the Sweatshop Boys, the one Shanti, Cali. I think Lynn is going to be on it. Dante Bosco. I got a lot of South Asian artists, MCs, and it feels good. It's just like. you are do you have a

label with that are you doing that just all independent independent that's pretty cool yeah labels here's the thing 10 years ago we wrote songs me and my buddies those songs are still on in tv and on tv and in movies and nobody gets that money but me and my two buddies and we don't have to we wrote a song on a plane 10 years ago called dang diggity diggity dang dang dang diggity dang diggity dang and those dangs and those diggies are still making us bank at the piggy really so they get licensed out to stuff yeah so that's why the independent route uh-huh i've always uh i've always done it that way i don't i don't like sharing but you're always like you're very industrious like you could just be sitting and waiting for the phone to ring

and you're in this weird business where you have very little control over your destiny you're just waiting for these gatekeepers to like say come on in yeah but what i see is somebody who who deals with that by creating what you can in the interim whether it's like making a music video with davey you know the 500 mile song david greenberg yeah our boy what's up davey shave your mustache davey looks weird i kind of like it on him it's endearing he looks super creepy all right he looks super creepy um but you're always kind of you got like these little hustles going all the time yeah here's the thing that i and it's great that you brought this up is like you know you are in the sweet spot you create your content you are the boss you validate yourself every day with the with the hand paddles on the

ground but i still have books with publishing companies and there's you know there's other kinds of things that are somewhat analogous oh fair enough but you travel you your joy is is what you do every day right and to a great extent so is mine like i do what i love for a living so i almost never work that's the truth. But a lot of it is based on other people. And like when we talked about the power of the poison of the no, the no, the no, the no. Problem is, is when you keep hearing no from these motherfuckers, sometimes you think that it has something to do with you.

No. Oh, I'm less. I'm less. I'm less. And that's how you get crazy people out there, crazy actors who are miserable because they seek validation from opinions of other people. If I don't get work, then I am nothing. If these people don't get me a job, then I am nothing. I get my validation from going into the studio and spending my money and working on a song for six hours. That feels great.

Or writing a poem or doing a podcast or coming to do this with you. Like this feels better. And what I get, the power and the magic that I get from sharing with you, someone who I inspire, who I am inspired by and look up to, is that I can go into an audition right now, be fully prepared. I care. I care about my craft. I'll be memorized. I'll be off book. I'll make strong choices. I'll go in. audition right now, be fully prepared. I care. I care about my craft. I'll be memorized.

I'll be off book. I'll make strong choices. I'll go in. I'll do it. I'll throw the sides away as soon as I leave in the trash can provided to me right outside the door. And I won't think about it again. Right.

That ability to detach from the results of your labors, right? Because you know, hey, man, whatever happens is supposed to happen. But you know what? Later on today or tomorrow, I'm going back in the studio. Like just moving. What's the next creative thing? What's the next creative thing? And that feels great. I mean, that's a wonderful way. And I always tell people when they're like, what do I do? What do I do? I go, rule number one, don't quit. When you think you're, when you quit, like, just go to bed, wake up the next day, and you'll be fine.

Rule number one, don't quit. Two, don't have a backup plan. Rule number three, finish what you start. When you start it, make sure that shit is done. It might be a piece of fucking shit, but you get it done and you learn how to finish what you start. That's a big deal. And then create your own content and find something that you love that has nothing to do with how you make money. Find something else that validates you, whether it's a relation, like if it's the relationship or you have kids or like you, I don't know, you pogo on the weekends. Like, I don't know, you skydive, you do something, find something.

For me, the thing I love most in the world is basketball. I can't, I'm not a professional basketball player. I'm in the chiropractor every week as if I am a professional basketball player. But that's the thing that I do for nothing. There's no reason to do it other than to get better at it while simultaneously declining athletically and learning how to play an old man game. And so, it's like, if I make a three-pointer that wins the game in a basketball game, it's

a means of... You have like a standing game and like dudes you play with and all the whole thing? Three or four a week. And like, if I make a game-winning shot, it feels better than booking an acting job. Right. That's crazy. Because I know it's weird it feels better than booking an acting job. Right. That's crazy. Because I know it's weird, but that's where I'm at. Right. Well, I think like as, you know, this millennial, you know, representation of

multicultural creative expression in Hollywood, like you're, like you're, you understand something that the generation that precedes you fails to fully embrace with a few exceptions, which is that on some level you kind of, you know, override this lack of ability to control your destiny that you do have to be sort of entrepreneurial about your career with the, to the extent that you can create these other projects, right. And to be industrious in that pursuit, like whether it's an album or writing songs or doing the freestyle stuff that you do

or getting up on stage. I see you doing that stuff all the time. Yeah. And it's like, as an actor, when do you actually get to do your craft in a professional capacity? It's almost never, right? You're a fireman with no stakes.

So as a creative person, how do you stoke that fire and remain creatively engaged? And, you know, to the creative people that are listening to this, I mean, your laundry list of like things to do and not do, I think is super instructive. But to be engaged creatively with something that inspires you all the time that doesn't require the yes or no of somebody else. I think it's crucial. You know, I'll go through months, right? Like I went through it in the month of February where I was like, I'm going to say yes to anything. Like literally whatever someone asks me to do, I'm just going to say yes to it.

I should have known that, man. I would have asked you to do some stuff. Creatively. So like now I'm in a theater company because someone was like, want to be in my theater company? I was like, yes. And like, I just was like, let's just muck it up a little bit. Right. Kick up some dust and see what's up. Let's add. Let's just add. Like we're getting a little too sedentary. We're a little stagnant. Like, let's do some new shit. And like, I'll do that. You know, the other big thing is like we talked about entitlement and the dark side of that is that you think people owe you anything and you think that people should work for you for free. No, I pay everyone that I work with. I pay them as much as I possibly can without breaking, like without going broke.

People's time is worth money. And a lot of creative people think that they need to have homie discounts and free friend stuff is like no no that's why you go oh yeah he said he was gonna do it for free and he never edited it it took six months to get to edit it's like yeah that guy's got to eat conversely the person who agrees to do stuff for free without valuing their own time and creative input yeah and i mean that's a different thing like sometimes it's good to do stuff for free yeah it's a case by a little too entitled around that but i i try my best to in some way value the work that people do with me and and for

me if that's the case and then also like it's so basic but we don't understand it's like don't be a dick like how as a leader or as a creative person can you communicate in a loving way even when things aren't going well like i'm trying to get this producer to get the vocal into the beat that it needs to go on and it's so simple to me and there's a human being out there who would go why the fuck can't you just get this right thank god i'm not that that that dude but it's just how i think i'm rambling now but it's like how you communicate and things like that yeah no i think that's important um how do you see hollywood changing um in the wake of you know everything that's happening with me too and how is that spilling into the conversation around race in Hollywood? I mean, I think they're totally separate.

I think as far, the Me Too thing is its own thing and I'm not educated enough on it to speak on it. I think that it's obviously important to have parity. I think it's really important to have equal pay. I think it's really important to have equal pay. And there are much more, there are many more people who have, who are smarter than me, who can talk about that in a more nuanced way than I ever could. That's cool. But in terms of race in Hollywood, it's still a black and white town.

And I think it's okay that it's a black and white town because it used to just be a white town. And but there's still the trans community, the, you know, the gay community, the Asian community, South Asian community, Latinos. Like, I don't know when we'll be a part of the conversation, but, and maybe we're getting there. I mean, you brought up Kumail and, you know, I brought up Aziz and Riz and Mindy, you know, we're talking about four people out of how many people are at the Oscars. So it's, um, it's slow going. And I don't know when we're going to be seen as part of the conversation. We all obviously in this country, like we're not an equal part.

We can't be. And I don't want to compare because that's silly. It's not who has it worse or who has it better. Or that's the problem is like each of our little groups and factions, we go, well, we have it hard this way, and this is what's tough for us. And it's like, then you just compare, and then you're just a dick.

Like, that's not the point. The point is to just be like- If you just silo yourself into your particular camp and kind of, you know, descend into the part of identity politics that doesn't work well that i mean yeah that's the thing that's where we are right now is there's so many subcategories and each subcategory has its own set of rules and um it's things that are off limits and things that are insulting and it's very tough makes it tough to communicate very hard it's really difficult so how can so all i can do is reach out to young south asians if they want some advice or need mentoring i'm here i'm available anyone can tell you like if

you reach out to me and i think you're about your shit i will respond like i'm open i'm i've worked with and mentored several people i put out my own work and i try and just be a good example for who i can be and that's all i can control and yeah i wish that we were like there was more but then like i'm also totally cool where i'm at it's it's just a balance yeah but you get to be part of that solution in that conversation yeah it'd be so cool if somebody like it'll be cool when i'm a jay knight or to someone like when i jay's my og and i'll be somebody else's og and then i'll tell and he gets to be grandpa og and it'll be fun i think you already are man yeah i'm somebody's grandpa i think that's a good place to uh to end it man

if people if if if somebody is if is that person what's the best place for them to to get in touch with you is it like twitter or instagram twitter or instagram Instagram at U-T-K-the-I-N-C, U-T-K-T-H-E-I-N-C on Twitter and Instagram. Right. I feel like you could just go by one name, just be Utkarsh. I've thought about it, like Usher. Yeah.

You could totally pull that off. I wonder. Especially since your last name's too hard to say all that shit anyway. I might just change it. At this point. It's like, might as well. You feel good?

I feel good. I'm like, now it's like, I don't know, man. I don't know if I can do it. Anything else you want to talk about? No, I think we hit all the bases. Yeah. I think we did good. Thanks, man.

I love you, brother. Love you too. Thank you for coming here and sharing. It's powerful stuff. And I'm excited for you, dude. Like I see your future just unfolding in front of you and it's inspiring and it's a tribute. It really is like, it's just like concrete,

physical, real world validation, manifestation of like what happens when you live a sober life, when you like live the principles, when you give back, when you're in service, all of that stuff, it's like this magnet, you know, where your life just gets bigger, you know, and I'm seeing that happen with you right now.

And I couldn't be more psyched for you. Thanks man. So cool, man. So come back and talk to me again sometime. Oh, for sure. Definitely. Peace out brother. Bye. And I would walk 500 miles peace out brother bye what a beautiful man what a beautiful story and what a beautiful rendition

of 500 miles lovely right hope you guys enjoyed that make a point of sharing your thoughts with Utkarsh. He is at U-T-K-V-I-N-C, U-T-K-T-H-E-I-N-C on both Twitter and Instagram. Utkarsh is a bit more than 500 miles from home right now working on the biggest movie of his life in New Zealand, which I imagine might be a little intimidating. So I'm sure he'd love to hear a few words of love and support from all of you guys. So please reach out to him. Also,

make sure to check out the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com. We put a lot of work into them. They're almost a syllabus to extend your learning, your experience of the guest, your edification and entertainment beyond the conversation, beyond the earbuds, and they're awesome. So you can always find the show notes on the episode page for each respective episode at richroll.com. Once again, if you're looking for a little more nutritional direction, make a point of checking out our meal planner at meals.richroll.com. Thousands of plant-based recipes customized to your needs. We have incredible customer service. We have unlimited grocery lists. We have grocery delivery in most U.S. cities with international delivery in certain cities coming soon, all for just a dollar

ninety a week when you sign up for a year. Meals dot rich roll dot com or click on the meal planner on the top menu at rich roll dot com. If you would like to support my work and this podcast, share it with a friend and on social media, hit that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts or on whatever platform you enjoy this. Also subscribe to my YouTube channel. This episode is indeed up on YouTube as well. All of this helps with the show's visibility and just extending reach and all that good stuff so I can bring the best guests to you every single week. We also have a Patreon for those who want to support us financially. You can find that at richroll.com forward slash donate. I want to thank the people who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production,

show notes, interstitial music, Blake Curtis and Margo Lubin for video editing and graphics, D-Music by Analema. Thanks for the love, you guys. See you back here in a couple of few. Until then, may you be true in the creative expression of your life. Thank you.