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- [00:00]
Kumail Nanjiani
It's morning in new york.
- [00:06]
David Duchovny
Hey, everybody, I'm Andy Patinkin. And I'm Kathryn Grody. And we have a new podcast. It's called Don't Listen to Us. Many of you have asked for our advice. Tell me what is wrong with you people.
- [00:19]
Kumail Nanjiani
Don't listen to us.
- [00:20]
David Duchovny
Our Take it or leave it advice show every Wednesday. Out now. A Lemonada Media Original.
- [00:32]
Kumail Nanjiani
Lemonade.
- [00:37]
David Duchovny
The first time I met Kumail was on the X Files reboot, and it was a Darren Morgan episode. And he's a tremendous writer, and it was a great script. The Curse of the Were or something Were Monster. I can't remember exactly, but I knew Kamel had done a podcast on the X Files, which is how he got, you know, came to the attention of the writers. And one of the things I'm proud of on the X Files is Chris Carter and company hired really good actors. So we had, you know, Shia LaBeouf on the show before he was Shia LaBeouf. We had Lucy Liu on the show before she was Lucy Liu. We had Ryan Reynolds on the show before he was Ryan Reynolds. And we had Kamel. I mean, Kamel was already Kamel. But I'm always so pleased when I see people that we worked with or people that I've worked with on whatever I've done when they come in at the beginnings of their careers, even though Camille had already been working for a while. But I'm always so kind of gratified when people come on and did great work as unknowns on whatever show I've been doing, and then I see them soar afterwards. So Kumail is one of those. I'm David Duchovny, and this is Fail Better. A show where failure, not success, shapes who we are. Kumail Nanjani is a comedian and an actor. You might know him from his roles in the comedy series Silicon Valley or the Big Sick. The Big Sick was a romantic comedy he made with his wife, Emily, based on their relationship. They've been married since 2007 and have worked together on and off over the years. We talk a lot about his relationship and his art and the nexus between those two things. He's also a big X Files fan, as I mentioned, and we'll discuss. As much as I don't want to, we will discuss that. Bottom line, Kamel is a. He's a great dude. He's really funny and someone I've gotten to know a little bit over the years. And I loved this conversation and made me realize that I'd like to Be more in touch with him as we go forward. So here we go.
- [02:54]
Kumail Nanjiani
How's it going, David?
- [02:56]
David Duchovny
It's going well. How are you?
- [02:58]
Kumail Nanjiani
I'm great. I'm great. Lovely to see you.
- [03:01]
David Duchovny
Lovely to see you. It's been. It's been a while.
- [03:04]
Kumail Nanjiani
Yeah, it's been a while.
- [03:05]
David Duchovny
Four or five years, huh?
- [03:07]
Kumail Nanjiani
Yeah, something like that. Before COVID I think.
- [03:11]
David Duchovny
And I do have. I do have other things I want to talk about with the X Files, especially, you know, your conception of American culture. I don't know if you watched it before you moved to the States. I don't know what the timing was or, you know, if that was your conception of America and all that stuff. But, you know, you've done. You've done a podcast. And one of the things I realized as I. As I've gotten into doing this podcast is I'm not really that interested in other people. I mean, I thought I was before I did the podcast. And it's really cured me of that delusion about myself that I. That I'm that curious about other people, because here I am just wanting to talk about myself, and I thought, oh, you are the fantastic guest, because you actually. You actually had a podcast about the X Files. And I was like, oh, this is the perfect excuse for a narcissist and egocentric person like me. And to just open it up in the beginning and say, please ask me any fucking thing you want to about the X Files. Because we never really. I mean, we did that thing on the set. You know, if there was anything that you ever wanted to tie up in a bow on your podcast that you didn't get to.
- [04:24]
Kumail Nanjiani
I mean, there's a ton of stuff. To answer your question, I did watch it in Pakistan. And, yes, my conception of America was that it's full of aliens and people who can control people with their minds and all that.
- [04:36]
David Duchovny
So honestly. Honestly, you're saying this is what you thought you were coming to?
- [04:42]
Kumail Nanjiani
Honestly, when it was first promoted there in Pakistan, they said based on True Stories. And so I thought, yeah, so I started watching X Files in Pakistan probably right when it, you know, a little bit out. It came out here in 93, so that would have been like 94 or something. I started watching it immediately, and I was like, oh, my God, the world is so interesting. I truly thought. I understood there were dramatizations, but I truly thought it was based on true Stories. Cause that's how. When you saw the. You know, the. It would say, the truth is out there. And then they added A graphic that said, based on true stories right after that. And so I thought it was real. But for me, the show was perfect because I had to big. I was big into aliens and stuff before that, and immediately, immediately fell in love with the show. And to me, you know, I've rewatched the show many times since then. And really, the thing that I think is kind of miraculous about the show, and it's not Miracul, because nothing is. It's always work and thought and all that. But the relationship between Mulder and Scully is really a relationship that I've never seen on tv. I know there were people who wanted it to be romantic, but the reason it was interesting was because of the tremendous amount of. You could just. There was a lot of depth of feeling between you two. Not necessarily. I'm not even talking about romantically. I saw a thing recently that went around that you said, I don't know what interview it was, but someone was like, so when you're, like, looking at her, are you thinking of romantic feelings? And you're sort of like, no, when I'm shooting with her, I'm looking at her to be like, I wonder what she thinks of this. And that's the sexiest thing there is. Do you remember saying that?
- [06:33]
David Duchovny
No, but I remember thinking that that was an interesting thing that we were doing. Was that when we were beholding some craziness, you know, something on the. That the first response was to kind of look at one another and not, you know, like, what are you making of this? It was. There was a trust there or an equality there. That was, you know, I guess we just discovered it over the years. I don't know that that was directed or something that we discovered. But, yeah, I know what you're talking about.
- [07:04]
Kumail Nanjiani
So in the beginning, you didn't sort of go in realizing, like, okay, my relationship with this other character is going to be sort of the. The emotional through line of the show, the beating heart of the show. It wasn't like that. It was something that you sort of discovered as you were working, I think so.
- [07:21]
David Duchovny
And it's instinctual. It was instinctual. Like all the best decisions are instinctual, right. As an actor and probably as a person. But what I got to. I think the earliest kind of matchup in my head that I was going for was. And this is gonna sound odd, but let me continue through it. Because I'm gonna say. Cause I grew up with a mother who I needed to amuse in a way, she was a sadder kind of a person. And my job was to make her laugh and to amuse her. And the Scully character was rational and, you know, all business. And I realized that I was in that position of amusing her, you know, that I wanted to amuse this woman. And that was kind of. And that wasn't even conscious. That's something that I've thought of much later, you know, like, oh, my God, there was. I was doing that thing, you know, I was trying to make my mom laugh. You know, in many ways, that was
- [08:21]
Kumail Nanjiani
exactly what my follow up question was gonna be. Cause you're in your 20s. Do you have that at that point, do you have that understanding? Like, oh, one of the most important relationships of my life was trying to make my mother laugh. And I should bring that to this. But it really feels like it was a lot more instinctual. It was one of the modes you had as a person and you were able to sort deploy it in the service of this relationship in this show.
- [08:44]
David Duchovny
Yeah. Is that something that you relate to as a child, as the son of a mother and as a funny person?
- [08:52]
Kumail Nanjiani
It's interesting. That's an interesting question. Because my family, I come from a very funny family that really values being funny. So my dad makes a lot of jokes, my mom makes a lot of jokes. There's just a lot of laughter in my family, not just my parents, like my extended family. Everybody's really funny and wants to be really funny. And I kind of went the other way when I was a kid. That sort of, in some ways, shut me down because I couldn't really compete with all these voices. So I never thought of myself as a funny person until I got to college, until I sort of got away from my family. And then I sort of realized that all the stuff that I'd grown up with was a part of me. It just hadn't really come out because, you know, not that everyone's competing for the stage, but in a way, I just felt like I couldn't hang with these people who were always making jokes. And this wasn't. It was not their intention to shut me up or anything. But I will say that everyone who knew me until the age of 18 is shocked that I was a standup comedian and that I'm an actor and that I had a podcast. I was very shy.
- [09:59]
David Duchovny
I'm exactly the same. I was very shy, I was quiet. And I can completely relate to what you just said now. When you started doing standup, did you get calls from relatives who were like, hey, that was, you know, that was mine. You know, that was my turn.
- [10:16]
Kumail Nanjiani
Yeah. I mean, I remember we were shooting this movie, the Big Sick. This was, you know, years after I'd already been doing standup. But my mom and dad visited on set once, and we shot a scene with my screen mom and dad. And we were doing a take, and. And halfway through, my mom shrieked and laughed so loud that she ruined the take. And I went over and I was like, hey, mom, what's going on? She's like, I said that to you, and that's in the movie now. And I had forgotten, you know. Cause I'd written that scene a couple of years earlier, and now it just become a piece of dialogue in the movie. And I'd forgotten that I got that from my real life. So, yeah, it took them, honestly, a long time to sort of understand the choices I'd made, the stuff I wanted to do. Because it doesn't make any sense, Right. Choosing to be in this business is objectively a bad decision to make. Of course, if you look at the number of people who have any level of success or even people who are able to make a living, it's an infinitesimal number. Right. So to my parents, who are ultimately very practical people, it didn't make any sense to me that I had chosen to do this. But they were always supportive of it because they knew, you know, I was a good kid growing up. I got good grades. I never got in trouble. So they understood that I was making this decision. Not that this was not a rash decision I was making, that I had sort of considered this very carefully, or more likely, that I just had no choice in the matter. And I think that's true. I just didn't feel like I had any choice but to pursue this. And now my family obviously loves it and gets a kick out of it. Contact me about every little thing that they see me in. But I think for a long time, it was weird for them. And for that reason, they didn't really contact me every time. Like, it felt to me for a while in the beginning that my family wasn't really paying attention to my career.
- [12:12]
David Duchovny
And what did that feel like to you in the moment? Did that feel like freedom, or did that feel like neglect?
- [12:19]
Kumail Nanjiani
It felt somewhere between those. It certainly did not feel like freedom. It felt like it hurt my feelings. It made me sad. I wanted them to watch what I was doing, and I wanted them to enjoy it and be proud of me for it. And I think it took them a while. Even though, you know, my dad is a very emotionally expressive person, I Think, you know, for a lot of people, their dads aren't. I've seen my dad cry many, many, many, many times. He's a soft, emotional person. I still think it took them a while to figure out how to say to me that they enjoyed my work or that they were proud of me. I think it just took them a while. There was a learning curve with that, and I completely understand that. It's a. You know, it's someone that you've known your entire life, and now the relationship changes a little bit. I think that's ultimately the weirdest thing about having parents, is that they go from sort of being your parents and these superheroes who know everything to peers in a certain kind of way. Right? They sort of become your friends in a way. The relationship has to completely change, and everybody goes through that if they're lucky.
- [13:26]
David Duchovny
But there's always that kernel. There's always that kernel that remains that you're. You're always that child inside. And I think for me, my father was less like a present part of my life when I was an adult, but my identity up until 23 or 24 was just as an academic kind of achiever. So when I said, after having, you know, succeeded at this in the system, you know, this academic system, and I never said, I'm going to be an actor, I just started acting, started trying to pursue it because I didn't have the balls to say, I'm an actor. I just. I didn't even know what that meant, really. So I felt like my mother. I think she was concerned. And then I took on this concern. There was something superficial about what I was doing, you know, and I wonder if you had that same thing, not just superficial, but what was my need to do that? What was driving me? And did I interrogate that need enough to know that it was something that it was worth basing a life and a career on, or just something that was a lack or something that I wasn't giving myself, if you know what I'm saying.
- [14:50]
Kumail Nanjiani
No, I know what you're saying. I honestly did not have any introspection about pursuing this. I genuinely didn't. I didn't feel a sense of guilt over pursuing it because I said all the other stuff that I would be doing. There were plenty of other people doing it. You know, for me, it was. I was like you in that until, you know, all through college, my identity was good student, I study, I get good grades. This is what I do. And so when that was going away, I never wanted to go to grad school, I really didn't know what I would study. And so that structure was being taken away from me. That structure of, I do good, I get good grades, and that's what life is. And so I think sort of a panic set in, being like, well, I gotta be good at something.
- [15:39]
David Duchovny
Why do you have to be good at something?
- [15:42]
Kumail Nanjiani
Well, I was in therapy today, just talking about that. I mean, you know, there's like a thing where just being isn't enough, Right? You ideally want to be like, just me being me is enough, but you don't. You want to. At least I don't want to say you, but me, it was never enough. I think in a certain kind of way, it was an intellectual fear of mortality. That thing of, when I'm done with all this, I wanna leave something behind that'll last beyond me. And now that I'm older, I understand that very few of us get that, and even the ones who get it don't really. Everything is forgotten a few years after you're gone. So I think for me, it was this idea of, I want my life to matter once I leave. I want there to be something of me that's left behind. I think that was the original impetus for me.
- [16:38]
David Duchovny
And how did you see that thing, though? You saw that thing as being, I'm gonna keep on making people laugh from beyond the grave. At first, that's what you're thinking, which is such an interesting kind of motivation, you know, it's like, I'm gonna be a ghost that makes people laugh. Okay. That's kind of a cool ambition when you think about it. But at some point also turned into, I want to make emotional performances that make people feel. You know. So it went. You know, it's like this illusory kind of goal line keeps on moving, which is great, you know, as your soul matures or whatever the. What you. Your ambition changes. And I just. I find it interesting that as a young man, a very young man, you were already thinking about death, though.
- [17:26]
Kumail Nanjiani
I was thinking about death, but I wasn't feeling about death. I honestly wasn't one of those people who was always worried about. You know. I was talking to a friend last night who said, since the age of 10, he's been worried every night he thinks about himself dying. And I think a lot of people have that experience. I didn't have that. I actually emotionally did not reckon with the idea that I would die until last year when my cat got sick. I understood.
- [17:55]
David Duchovny
Wait, wait. Intellectually, you made a movie called the Big sick. You wrote it, you acted in it, which was. You didn't reckon with it during that, though?
- [18:04]
Kumail Nanjiani
No, not really. Not my own death, you know, I never felt the feeling of my own death until last year when this thing that I love so much got sick, and I was like, oh, someday I'm gonna die. And that feeling, the feeling of feeling like I'm gonna die, that's the first time it hit me. And it really changed a lot of the ways in which I approach my career and my life in general.
- [18:28]
David Duchovny
Can you elaborate on how it changed the way you approach your career and what you're gonna do? And I'll just. I'll just throw in something I was told once about dogs, and I'm sure it can apply to cats, but I was told once that dogs are here to teach us how to die, you know?
- [18:45]
Kumail Nanjiani
Oh, yeah. I mean, it does apply to cats. I really. I really feel that. You know, I really feel that the way in which it felt it changed my. The way I look at it was, well, I'll tell you everything. So I'm 46 now, and up until, you know, I assumed that when I hit 40, there was gonna be some crisis. Didn't really happen. Didn't really happen till I turned 45. And I turned 45 right around when my cat was sick. Because part of me in my head was like, most people live through their 80s. So, you know, 43, 44, 86, 88. That's doable. Once I hit 45, I was like, okay, most people don't live to 90. So more than likely, I'm more than halfway through this journey.
- [19:33]
David Duchovny
Right.
- [19:33]
Kumail Nanjiani
That coupled with my cat getting sick, that's what really hit me. The way it changed how I approach my career is. And again, this is like you talking about how you realized years later that you were trying to make your mother laugh in order to make her feel better. This is also something that I realized somewhat later. A lot of the decisions I made regarding my work were results based. So when I would look at something and decide whether or not I wanted to do it, my main calculus was based on, is this going to be something people watch? Is this going to be a hit? Stuff like that, you know? And the adjustment I made was I can never control that. I can never predict that. All I can do is try and give myself an experience that's worth having. That's all I can do. So if I get a script and I read it and I'm like, I love this script. I love this other actor. There's really no way. There's a good chance nobody ever watches this thing, but it doesn't matter to me. I want to be there in that room doing these scenes with this person. So that's kind of how I changed it, you know? And this year, the work that I've gotten to do has just been based on stuff I wanted to do, rather than having it be based on some sort of prediction of success, which is impossible to begin with.
- [20:57]
David Duchovny
Yeah, I can relate to what you're saying there. I mean, I just. The past year, I wrote and directed a movie, and I did a movie with Meg Ryan, and I had wonderful experiences doing both, and neither of them did much business to speak of, you know, and I have to hang on to the experience of it, you know, and the. My innate sense of the quality of the work and the inspiration of the work that happened, which I know for sure is there. And that, as you said, you know, you were laying down these videos of you for posterity. You know, I'm going to live on beyond that. These things, they stay alive in the ether. They're patient. I realized this when I started writing books. It's like, because I'll find books that are 50 years old that I. Oh, my God.
- [21:45]
Kumail Nanjiani
Yeah.
- [21:46]
David Duchovny
Why haven't. This is an amazing. You know, it's been patiently waiting there in a library on them. So these movies, these shows, these performances, they can be more patient than us, you know, and we can take solace in that fact as well.
- [22:00]
Kumail Nanjiani
Oh, that's very beautifully put that they can be more patient than us. I mean, certainly, you know, I totally. I was just talking to my therapist about this today. I was like, I have something I'm in that's coming out. How do I disengage from how it's gonna do? Will people watch it? Will people like me in it? I mean, I think I understand. That's a very natural reaction. You want praise, appraise feels good and the opposite, feels bad. But how do I have it not have so much power over me? That's sort of the active, you know, project of my. Of my life right now.
- [22:35]
David Duchovny
Well, I talk a lot about failure on this podcast, and the prevailing kind of consciousness of failure in the culture now is, you know, it's a step on the way to success, you know, which. Which makes it part of success, really, and not. And not a failure, you know, but what I feel in my gut and what I'm getting to reading, talking to people is, is there not an intrinsic value to just failure? You know, forget about like, oh, I learned by doing this that I shouldn't do that. And then I, then I, then I became a raging success because of that. But no, the humility that comes with failure and the face to face that it makes us do to these, these illusions that we've created about ourselves as these successful whatever we are, when in fact we're all just failing every day together in this meaningless kind of chaos.
- [23:36]
Kumail Nanjiani
It's so true. I never have thought of that, that failures value in our culture, current culture, is how it contributes to success. And it's not, you know, it's like doesn't matter how many times you fall, it's how many times you get back up when really it's like maybe just lay there and be comfortable with laying there, you know, and being really with yourself rather than the illusions of yourself that you've convinced yourself are you. That's so, so true.
- [24:12]
David Duchovny
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- [25:39]
Chelsea Clinton
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- [26:32]
David Duchovny
You know, I wanted to ask you, you know, because you were raised in a religion, we have to find ways to give our lives meaning, and we have to find ways to find humility. Whatever religion does, it gives us humility because we have to be subservient to a God. Right. And I think it's the most. One of maybe the most important characteristics that we can get to as humans.
- [26:54]
Kumail Nanjiani
I mean, that's exactly what I was sort of getting at earlier. You know, the reason I do this is a search for meaning. What is my purpose.
- [27:00]
David Duchovny
Yes.
- [27:02]
Kumail Nanjiani
I think a big, big, big, big part of why I do this or why I started doing this, why I do this now has gotten more complicated. But why I started was a search for meaning. What am I? What is the purpose of my life? What do I call myself if I'm not this other thing that had given me purpose for everything that's gone, well, what the fuck happens now? You know? So I think that was a very, very big part of why I started pursuing comedy. And it was the same as you, David. I never didn't call myself a comedian. I was like, I'm doing comedy. I didn't have the hubris to call myself a comedian.
- [27:39]
David Duchovny
Right.
- [27:40]
Kumail Nanjiani
Yeah. So the reason I started doing this was that now it's changed a little bit in that I sort of. I realized the purpose of my life is just to be with my wife. I think that truly is the purpose of my life now, to, like, really reveal myself to her, be as vulnerable to her as I can, and allow her to get to know me as much as I can and get to know her as much as I can. I think that is the project of my life. It's not quite as, you know, celebratory as dying and leaving a series of works behind you that are gonna change people's lives. While you're a ghost, it's not really that. It's just. I think it's a little bit my attempt at trying to just be more present in my life and think of. You know, I think sometimes people think of, like, life as starting at some point later on where really life is happening right now while you're waiting for your life to start is your life. And so, for me, I really feel that all this other stuff I get to do is great. It's not the main event, you know, the main event is hopefully growing old with this person.
- [28:57]
David Duchovny
Well, that's beautiful. And it's Sincere. And I honor that. What you just said, I would ask, is there a way in which your work reveals yourself to your wife, becomes part of your relationship? Can it be?
- [29:16]
Kumail Nanjiani
I think it certainly can be. We really decided a few years ago that both our careers are both our careers. So when I go and do a job, that's us. And when she writes something, that's us, too. And a concrete way in which I guess that happens sort of is, I'll get a script, I'll read it, and I'll say, I don't know why they thought of me for this. I don't think I could do this. And she will read it and be like, no, I think you could do this. This little scene here that you don't think you can get to. I've seen it. You can get to it. I think she takes a tremendous amount of joy and pride in my work. There's truly no one who believes in me more than her. I genuinely mean that. That's not just, like, a thing to say. She thinks I can do things that nobody else in the world thinks I can do, including myself. So I think it's. The other weird thing, David, about this is in some ways, acting is therapy. You are exploring parts of yourself, and then those parts in some ways become accessible to you. And I found until a few years ago, so much of myself wasn't accessible to me. And in doing acting and playing other characters, putting myself in other situations, I've learned I've gotten to know myself so much more and been able to really access more of myself. And I think that makes our relationship deeper and better. I realize I have things inside me that I think the hardest thing for me in this relationship has been the parts of myself that I don't like are parts that I don't need to hide from Emily. That's been the hardest thing. In fact, trying to hide the parts of myself that I don't like, just give them more strength. And actually communicating them and owning them and communicating them to Emily actually is much healthier. And that those parts of me that I don't like, there's no reason for me to not like them. They're just natural. They're parts of me, and they all come from all different kinds of different kinds of things.
- [31:29]
David Duchovny
They probably had uses at different points of your life, you know, and they. They remain within you just because that's the way it goes. You know, I went through a thing where, you know, it's. I was dealing with some therapists. It was like, well, you know, that's a. Some kind of a defense mechanism, you know, that you don't need anymore. But you can. You can. You can thank that. It's like an ogre, you know, it's like. It's like your personal dragon, you know, you don't need it to fight anymore. You know?
- [31:55]
Kumail Nanjiani
That's right.
- [31:57]
David Duchovny
So how do you thank it and say, well, here's a leash too, you know, by the way.
- [32:02]
Kumail Nanjiani
Yeah, exactly like, hey, you've done your job. We don't need you anymore. You can go take a nap now. I think for me, a lot of it. A lot of that stuff comes from the math of religion. Cause religion is so concerned with good and bad, right? You're a good person if you do this. You're a bad person if you do this. You're a bad person if you think this one concrete example I can give you is feeling like a bad person. Because at the age of 11, I started looking at girls differently and, you know, feeling like something was wrong with me because I'm having these thoughts. For these women, just having those thoughts is wrong. And I'm just a little kid. I'm competing with the very force that has ensured the survival of our species. You know, it seems really unfair to demonize the very thing that's led to us being here. And so. So I always felt since a little kid because of that, that there was something wrong with me and that I was a bad person trying to hide my badness from the rest of the world because I saw Cindy Crawford in a Diet Coke commercial or whatever it was, and it made me feel certain things that I'm sure it made everyone in the world feel.
- [33:17]
David Duchovny
Yeah. Did you really want a Diet Coke? I think is what it.
- [33:20]
Kumail Nanjiani
I really. It made me very thirsty, David. I was parched. So I think that's where that started, that feeling of, oh, there's something bad inside of me, and my job is to hide that from the rest of the world. So to me, the big project of, oh, these parts of me that I don't like, there's no reason for me to not like them and I should share them with the person I love most in the world. And I do think that's made me a better husband. It's made me less anxious in my life. I still have a lot of work to do.
- [33:53]
David Duchovny
Yes, I love that as a program, but how do you deal with the shame of. I know this is not a winning part that I'm sharing with you right now.
- [34:03]
Kumail Nanjiani
Yeah, well, with Emily, I'm very Fortunate because she used to be a therapist. She's not a practicing therapist anymore. So she's just genuinely really interested in people's bad parts, whatever that means. So she just likes that stuff. It makes people more interesting to her. And so if I share something that I'm tremendously ashamed of, I could see she gets a little bit like, giddy about it, not in a. And completely non judgmental about it. She's just like, it's so interesting the way your brain works because, you know, we have these worlds inside our own head that don't really have anything to do with reality. We think of the way people think of us and we're completely wrong. Like, you know, I'm sure you're wrong about the way people, you know, perceive you. At least I certainly am. You know, people see me a certain way and it's different from the way I see myself. I today was talking to my therapist about work and she was like, you should treat yourself like you're your own co worker. And I was like, oh my God, that would be so good because I treat my co workers really well. But then to myself, I can be tough, you know.
- [35:15]
David Duchovny
Yeah, but what does that sound like when you're tough on yourself? What does that look like? If I was watching you work, I mean, I have watched you work, but I can't remember. It was a while ago, you know, And I'm sure when you were doing the X Files, you must have put a lot of pressure on yourself.
- [35:30]
Kumail Nanjiani
I did. And honestly that's. I don't. I wish I had done. And I'm not looking for anything. I genuinely wish I'd approached it differently and done a better job there because I was very, very scared, put a lot of pressure on myself. I kind of choked myself out, which was what I used to do, do and, you know, still can sometimes do over, prepare, overthink, over, determine what the scene should be instead of, you know, now I think of preparation as a platform. Like you do all that and I do prep a lot, but that's the platform. Then when you're there, let it go. That's all it is. See what happens off that platform, you know. But I felt like when I did the X Files, I was kind of stuck in that platform. Cause I didn't want to let you guys down. I didn't want to let Darren down, I didn't want to let Glenn down. I didn't want to let myself down.
- [36:21]
David Duchovny
Funny, because I remember, you know, having met you and I'm watching it, I'm thinking, you're really good. And I'm thinking, God, he loves the show. He. He probably really likes what I do on the show. I hope I don't. I hope I don't suck today. I hope. I hope. I hope I can, like, be the Mulder that he wants me to be.
- [36:42]
Kumail Nanjiani
Remarkable. My God. See the way. It's so amazing the way your. Your brain sort of does that stuff to you. I remember standing there. Our first scene, I think that we all did together, the three of us is in the middle of the night, and we've just seen you've gotten there. Cause the monster just got away. And I'm holding, like a big net. And I remember having that. Cause I'd met you. You were very kind. You know, I'd met Gillian, very kind. And I just was standing there and I was like, oh, I'm talking to Mulder and Scully now. I'm not talking to the actors. And I definitely had a weird moment there.
- [37:22]
David Duchovny
Yeah, it's in. In some ways, I think I've always liked to go into work as the underdog. I always liked that.
- [37:29]
Kumail Nanjiani
Me too. Oh, my God.
- [37:31]
David Duchovny
Partly because I started late. Partly because, as I told you, you know, I didn't think I had any kind of family support about it, you know, sure that I. And I needed to have, like, a chip on my shoulder. And also because, you know, like, you. Like you said, I was. I was shy and I wasn't. Nobody would say back in the day, like, if they knew me at 13, 14, 15, like, that kid should be on the stage, look at all the energy or whatever, it's like, nobody would have said that. So I always felt like I gotta prove him wrong. They're not expecting anything. So when I come to a situation like with you, where this guy's got a podcast on the show, I mean, he loves us. I hated that. I hated it.
- [38:18]
Kumail Nanjiani
I mean, that's so wild that you're saying all that. I can't believe you are. I have the exact same thing. I walk into every job with a chip on my shoulder. Like, let's fucking see what. You know. I'll show em what I can do. I have a question. So you said, you know, when I watch you on the X Files and I've seen your work before that, you know, the movies you did before that. I always see someone who really knows himself, you know, Like, I feel you sort of showed up knowing the things about you that are appealing as an actor. You just have always felt confident to me in that way. Have you felt that way about yourself. I was talking to my friend Nick Offerman a couple days ago and he said that he didn't realize until, you know, many years into his career that who he is is valuable. That he described himself as like, I'm like a slow talking guy from, you know, middle America who doesn't know, who doesn't know, like fancy books. And he realized that that was a strength and not something to run away from. And he realized that his inherent essence is what's interesting about him. So watching your work from the very beginning, I see someone who understands himself in that way. Did you, did you have that experience of yourself or, or was it not like.
- [39:42]
David Duchovny
I, I could answer that in two ways. It's. And, and I thank you for the question. It hasn't been asked me. And so I'm going to try and answer it, you know, as honestly as I can. One is I felt I had something, something that was valuable, as Nick said, or marketable or watchable, let's call it watchable. I just knew I was trying to express something and I wasn't trying to do what other people necessarily were doing. You know, I wasn't trying to imitate anybody. I was trying to do my own thing.
- [40:20]
Kumail Nanjiani
That's so good and that's such a, I will say, valuable understanding to have about yourself because so many people start off trying to imitate someone or do what they think people want from the thing when really the hardest thing that took me the longest time to learn is what you are is the most valuable thing.
- [40:40]
David Duchovny
But then I had to get, you know, so the consequence of that was I was like, you are never gonna see me acting. You know, you are never gonna see me. You're never gonna catch me acting. You know, I'm always going to be real. I'm never going to push. And then it took a certain amount of success and then a certain amount of confidence to actually go back to before the beginning and go, this can be just fucking fun, you know, this can be just a performance. I didn't let myself have fun. I treated it like a job, you know, and it is a job, but it's also very fun.
- [41:15]
Kumail Nanjiani
It's very fun. So you would say that even when you were doing X Files, like the heyday of X Files, you wouldn't have said, this is fun. The work itself is fun.
- [41:26]
David Duchovny
Well, that, that was, it's different in the sense that, that that schedule was brutal, you know, so physically it was hard to have fun because you were just so, just so tired. I Mean, we were talking about 10 months.
- [41:40]
Kumail Nanjiani
Yeah.
- [41:41]
David Duchovny
You know, of 14 hour days, you know, so it was just like, ah, you know, but you know, when the bell rings to lock up the set and in between, you know, until they yell cut. Yeah, that's fun.
- [42:04]
Chelsea Clinton
Only 18 states require sex ed to be medically accurate. And relationship classes. Let's fix that. I'm Shan, an ASEX certified sex educator with a master's in psych. And on my podcast, Lovers by Shan, we make learning about love as mind blowing as making it. Celebrities and fascinating people share an intimate story. Then we uncover the lesson for all of us. Watch Lovers by Shan from Lemonada Media on YouTube or listen wherever you like your podcast.
- [42:51]
David Duchovny
I would just touch upon briefly, you know, what you said earlier about your life being almost a mission to unfold to your wife. In a way, it's a very humble ambition. And I don't say humble in a bad way where I think of as failure, as giving us humility, not humiliation. And that's another thing. The ideas of what this society or what society has always put on being a man and what being a man is. And I think that it might be an interesting way to go into your experience with the Eternals and your kind of conception of being a hero, a superhero, you know, literally. And I wonder what that process was like for you.
- [43:42]
Kumail Nanjiani
Yeah, I mean, I was very, very excited to do it. And I found the entire thing, honestly, a turning point in my career in terms of we were talking about fun, right. I've always felt going into every job, this tremendous sense of anxiety and am I gonna be good enough? Can I do this? What are the lines? How am I gonna say this word? That kind of stuff, you know? And I realized going into Eternals, doing a movie with Salma Hayek and Angelina Jolie, and it's a big Marvel movie and Chloe Zhao is directing it, I was like, if I go in with that, this movie's gonna flatten me. It's gonna squish me under its weight. So I decided I am going to have fun every single day on set. This is going to be a joyful experience for me. I've been watching these movies since I can remember. I love sci fi, I love superheroes. And so I went in with that attitude and genuinely one of the best work experiences I've ever had. I really, that's. And then since then, every job I've had, whether it's been serious, intense, 14 hour days, whatever it is, and those are very, very hard. I found overall, every experience to Be joyful. Because I've been focusing on the fun part, the make believe part, the getting to explore yourself, getting to explore it with someone else who's also tremendously good at this. To me, that's the most exciting thing. So. And that's the movie where that turned. Where I went from like, oh, I better be good, to, oh, this is gonna be really, really fun.
- [45:18]
David Duchovny
Well, it's one thing to make that decision or to try to make that decision. Going in, it couldn't have been that smooth. You must have had moments where you're like,
- [45:30]
Kumail Nanjiani
sure, there are moments, but really, for me, it was kind of like. It's like, you know, this is weird. I don't know if this is a great analogy. I was a smoker for years and I quit many times. But the last time I quit, I knew I was never gonna smoke a cigarette again. Like, I just knew immediately. That's kind of how it was when I chose. Chose to have joy in my work. When I made that decision, I felt this weight lift off me. And obviously there are moments where you choke a scene out or you put too much into it, or you're like, oh, I better not fuck this up. This person I'm acting with is so good. Da, da, da. All that stuff for sure. But soon as I made that decision, I felt like this darkness leave my shoulders. And it wasn't as simple as that, but it kind of was a little bit as simple as that. It's also easy in a movie, like, to keep remembering the joy. I'm wearing a superhero outfit. Everyone around me is wearing superhero outfits. We're pretending that monsters are attacking us. I'm pretending I can shoot things from my hands. I'm doing a big Bollywood musical. I mean, if you can't have fun doing that, then you're not gonna have fun doing anything. You know, I truly had a completely joyful experience. And then with regards to the manhood thing, you know, that's interesting. I found that there, the biggest issue with me and how I thought a man should be. And it's very surprising because my father was not like this for me. Men are never sad and men are never scared, and men even happiness, you know, if you go to, like a sports game when they're happy, it turns into aggression. Right? Anger is the only manly emotion that's like, what's okay? Expressing. So you're sort of squishing everything else down and it's coming out as anger, which is okay because. Because anger is strength. I think it's the opposite you know, really, I think anger can be weakness, and I think saying that you're sad or scared is powerful. I think that's real strength. So I think when I was talking about what is considered, like, manly, I wasn't talking about any kind of physical trait or anything. Or mostly I was talking about this, that being in touch with your own emotions and expressing them is not considered manly. And in playing that character, in playing that superhero, I did want that part of. I wanted him to be someone who understood his own emotions because he's been around. He's eternal. He's been around for thousands of years. He understands that. He's processed in that way.
- [48:11]
David Duchovny
He's had 3000 years of therapy.
- [48:13]
Kumail Nanjiani
Yeah, he's had 3000 years of therapy. That's right. So I wanted that. And in playing a character like that, really, for the first time, someone who's in touch with themselves and their emotions, you know, Chloe wrote a thing in that right before, and people are still sort of baffled by it. Right before the big battle, my character says, I can't. I don't want to fight that guy. I love him too much. And I leave. And people are like, wait, are you gonna come back like Han Solo? No, that's not what Chloe wanted. Chloe wanted to show that there are no real winners in war. And that she always said to me, she's like, you, character is the only one who's right in this movie. But then you put it on a big, you know, in a big popcorn movie, and people are like, wait, why did you just leave? That makes no sense to me. It makes a tremendous amount of sense. And so for me, that's the kind of masculinity I wanted to portray. Is that someone who looks in many ways like a traditional action hero, action figure kind of man. You know, he's buff, but then he is okay saying these complicated things to him that don't come from his intellect, but that come from his feeling and from his gut and from his instinct. That's what was exciting to me about that character.
- [49:33]
David Duchovny
Oh, that's fantastic. I hadn't thought of it that way, and I see that completely. So you'd gladly just step into that world again?
- [49:42]
Kumail Nanjiani
Oh, for sure. You know, I think to me, when I look at work now, I just want to do something I've never done before. Like, that is truly the only criteria I have. And so if I get an opportunity to play another superhero, but I can do something different, do something I've never done before or do something together that I've Done separately, to me, that's completely worthwhile. So.
- [50:11]
David Duchovny
So if it's something, it's. If it's something that scares you, if it's something. I mean, what you're saying, and I'll, you know, I try to wrap it up. Is what I often think of with this podcast is that success is actually the cage. You know, when you do something that is a howling success, and then you're just trapped in that thing forever, you know, and then that's.
- [50:36]
Kumail Nanjiani
Right.
- [50:36]
David Duchovny
Nothing better than failure to move you
- [50:38]
Kumail Nanjiani
forward, you know, it's so true. I feel like positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement are the same exact trap. Good feedback, bad feedback, exactly the same thing. I did a show recently, and I'd been doing work with therapy to not have the results of my work affect me too much, and I got nominated for an Emmy for it, and the amount that made me feel good was very scary. I was like, oh, all that work that I'm doing hasn't really made a dent because this feels too good. And it was embarrassing. It was embarrassing how good it felt.
- [51:14]
David Duchovny
I don't think you need to be embarrassed. I mean. I know what you mean. Did it matter? Does it matter that you win, or does it matter that you're nominated?
- [51:26]
Kumail Nanjiani
It doesn't matter that you win until the moment before they say the name of the other guy.
- [51:31]
David Duchovny
Shanley had this line. I forget he was winning an award, and he said, you know, I'm going to butcher it. But it was like, all I can say to the people that have lost this award is, I'm only going to feel better for 10 more minutes than you.
- [51:46]
Kumail Nanjiani
How great is that?
- [51:49]
David Duchovny
It's been great talking to you. I'm sorry that we haven't spoken in so long, and I. I really applaud the way you're going about your career and your life. And, you know, I think it's. It's. It's a beautiful vector, you know, and I look forward to seeing, you know, what comes out of you along this trajectory, you know, as. As you're figuring it out. And I, you know, you're alive and you're questioning, and you're, you know, you're doing all the things an artist does, you know, and it's just like, hey, my hat's off to you.
- [52:19]
Kumail Nanjiani
Oh, thank you. I really appreciate that. You know, I've been a fan of yours for a very, very long time, and I just have always found you to be a very thoughtful person. You know, you really think about this stuff like, why do I do this? And I think that makes you a truly great artist. So it's, you know, I genuinely please pleasure and an honor that I that I get to know you in my life. Truly.
- [52:44]
David Duchovny
I appreciate you you giving us the time.
- [52:46]
Kumail Nanjiani
Of course. Thank you. Thanks for talking to me.
- [52:59]
David Duchovny
Okay. My thoughts after speaking with Kamel Nanjani. What a nice guy. I was thinking, like he said that, you know, the kind of direction of his life at this point, his ambition is to make his relationship with his wife better and better and more intimate. And I couldn't help thinking like every man just hates you right now, like you're making us all look so bad. But it was a beautiful thing to hear and to say and to admit, you know, that it's so rare in this culture that people say my relationship is the most important thing in the world to me when why not? Why not? Why the not? You know, certainly, certainly has affected me and doesn't have to just be the relationship with your, your partner, relationship with your kids. You know, relationships. The idea of ambition in a relationship, success or failure, you know, to want that relationship to grow, you know, to actually feel like that's a masculine ambition. What a wonderful thing. What a different thing. There's more Fail Better with Lemonada Premium subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content like more of my behind the scenes thoughts on this episode. Subscribe now and Apple Podcasts. Fail Better is a production of Lemonada Media in coordination with King Baby. It is produced by Keegan Zema, Aria Brachi, Donnie Matias and Paula Kaplan. Our engineer is Brian Castillo. Our SVP of Weekly is Steve Nelson. Our VP of new content is Rachel Neal. Special thanks to Carl Ackerman, Tom Kupinsky and Brad Davidson. The show is executive produced by Stephanie Whittles, Wax, Jessica Cordova, Kramer and me, David Duchovny. The music is also by me and my band, the lovely Colin Lee, Pat McCusker, Mary Mitch Stewart, Davis Rowland and Sebastian Modak. You can find us online at Lemonada Media and you can find me at David Duchovny. Follow Fail Better wherever you get your podcasts or listen. Ad free on Amazon Music with your prime membership. Foreign
- [55:43]
Chelsea Clinton
Listen to your favorite Lemonada shows without the ads. Subscribe to Lemonada Premium on Apple Podcasts. You'll get ad free episodes and exclusive bonus content from shows like Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis Dreyfus, Fail Better with David Duchovny, the Sarah Silverman Podcast, and so many more. It's a great way to support the work we do and treat yourself to a smoother uninterrupted listening experience. Just head to any Lemonada show feed on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe Make Life Suck Less with Fewer Ads with Lemonada Premium. Are you looking for ways to make your everyday life happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative? I'm Gretchen Rubin, the number one best selling author of the Happiness Project, bringing you fresh insights and practical solutions in the Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast. My co host and happiness guinea pig is my sister, Elizabeth Krach. That's me, Elizabeth Craft, a TV writer and producer in Hollywood. Join us as we explore ideas and hacks about cultivating happiness and good habits. Check out Happier with Gretchen Rubin from Lemonada Media.