Blocks w/ Neal Brennan - Kumail Nanjiani

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

Neal Brennan interviews Kumail Nanjiani ('The Big Sick,' 'Eternals,' 'Silicon Valley,' 'Beta Male' + much more) about the things that make him feel lonely, isolated, and like something's wrong - and how he is persevering despite these blocks. ---------------------------------------------------------- 00:00 Intro 5:49 Running for President 20:27 Body Image 24:51 Wants to Be #1 26:10 Self-worth tied to career  28:21 Divorcing experience from results 38:49 Relationships 1:05:58 Guilt Regret Shame 1:09:43 Career Dysmorphia 1:34:50 What He’s Done 1:37:05 Movie Question ---------------------------------------------------------- https://nealbrennan.com for tickets to Neal's tour Brand New Neal Watch Neal Brennan: Blocks on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81036234 Theme music by Electric Guest (unreleased). Edited by Will Hagle ---------------------------------------------------------- Sponsors: GameTime App Code: BLOCKS for $20 off your first purchase https://hellofresh.com/50Neal for 50% plus free shipping Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Seth and Riley's Garage Hard Lemonade, a delicious classic with a vibrant taste of fresh lemons. The perfect balance of sweet and sour with a crisp, zesty edge. Welcome to The Garage, the place of refreshing hard lemonade. Available at the LCBO. Must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Hi, it's me, Neil Brennan. This is The Blo podcast with neil brennan i'm neil brennan look i'm not gonna explain this shit anymore you know what the premise is we're healing the earth people are being vulnerable it's exciting today's guest is uh known what do you go 13 years that feels right about 13 years i bet it's exactly 13

years yeah maybe maybe 14 if we're if you want to be generous he's a comedian who's been uh on sabbatical and yeah what you like to respond no i'll say on stage as a comedian yes been on sabbatical on sabbatical but before before he was on sabbatical he had a comedy central special called beta male i believe correct am i correct yes and he had a comedy central show called uh meltdown with kumail and jonah little known trivia about meltdown first time I did three mics was on meltdown but I did like a six minute version of it it was an incubator worked beautifully so thank you for creating an environment where where one could thrive yeah I remember you then when you were going to do the special you emailed Emily and you're like I know I did it first time

on your show but it is is it okay if I like own thing? And you didn't have to ask that, obviously. And we were like, yeah, of course. We were thrilled to be the first place you tried it out. Beautiful. And didn't have to ask us. And that's a lesson, guys. I like to teach business lessons. That's called false humility business, where you go, do you mind if I?

Yeah. Hey, could you but even thinking to do the fake false humility business move is you know it's good at least just thinking of it it's also you also have to worry about uh lawsuits now yeah we weren't gonna no i know i but i i also i'm also grateful when people give me an opportunity to like do something so yeah so it's like there are many things at foot i'll give myself some credit and say i did i was grateful and i and i did want to ask you and not be like yeah i'm fucking doing it so you understand so thank you what if we had said you know i mean you'd be surprised we do own it i mean dude of course i mean this town is littered with these stories

yes growing up in pakistan the most of the world the stereotype about america is guns growing up in pakistan the stereotype about america because we had a lot of guns was lawsuits that's what we would always make fun of america for in pakistan yeah like oh go to america slip outside a store become a millionaire that's like what people would joke about that's what we would always make fun of america for in pakistan yeah like oh go to america slip outside a store become a millionaire that's like what people would joke about that's funny that's the actual american dream i mean it really is slip and fall yeah yeah we were right yeah that's fucking great and look at you left all the way to the bank so anyway it's uh my point it oh okay then he went on and he's done, he made a movie called The Big Sick that he wrote semi-autobiographical,

autobiographical. Yeah, me and Emily Gordon, my wife, we wrote it together, autobiographical-ish. And then you got swept up into the MCU, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yeah. Hi. And he's also a fitness influencer i am not please please do not say that guys i don't know if we have a protein last thing i want what protein last thing are you here to promote do you have a slurpee protein that would be really fucking racist by the way if it was a Slurpee. Okay, I see what you're saying.

Do you see what I'm saying? Because of the... A poo? A poo, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, sure. I have been approached about that stuff and I have no interest. Zero interest. But you do in terms of drinking them.

I have zero interest to convince other people to do it. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for... Because it would be irresistible and you know that. You know if you promoted it, I'd have to do it yeah thank you thank you for because it would be irresistible and you know that you know if you promoted it i'd have to drink it thank you for your discretion because i don't think i could resist a slurpee i love how racist it is though you know i love racism always have so nice to see you i don't think i've seen you in five or six years yeah it's been a long time it's been a long time but as we all know when you haven't seen somebody like when you struggle a

little bit with somebody as comedians and i don't have any like chapters of us struggling horrifically but like when you just are in these small little environments you just go oh yeah we'll have the same relationship forever i know it doesn't feel like i haven't seen you in years yes oh hey neil yeah no it's like oh hi yeah it just feels like right back to what it was there's no moment of awkwardness they're like ah so you still with uh i remember the first time i met you go was at the laugh factory i just moved to la you were hosting the show you introduced me I went up I had a good set

and this is how I remember it I don't know if it's true you gave me a fist bump and said Hollywood yep does that sound like you? yeah that was me

and I knew you'd moved because I think I'd known I think I'd met you in New York I knew you were friends with Pete and Mulaney or something. So I knew like, are you doing good? I'd seen your Letterman, I remember. My name is Kumail, but Microsoft spellcheck thinks it should be camel.

That was good. Oh, wow. Okay. Okay. You have a roller coaster bit? Certainly did have a roller coaster bit. Coney Island? Coney Island, yeah.

It's a good bit. Pretty good bit. Ride this roller coaster bit certainly did have a roller coaster coney island coney island yeah it's a good bit pretty good bit ride this roller coaster so what do you what do you think how's it been how's your life been oh it's very very i have almost no complaints like i would say you know i feel very very fortunate to have the life i have yeah i think you know if there are like parallel universes this is the only one where this is the one I want to be in. I don't think there's one better for sure. This is what I always say. If you think you can beat this life, spin the wheel. Yeah.

What are the odds? I am not spinning the wheel. You actually did the one American dream better than Slip and Falls, which is movie star. Like legitimately. Other than like, yeah, I go to America. I fake hurt my neck. I get a million point eight. To do nothing.

To do nothing. Disability, Vicodin. And this is. This is the only one better. It's a bit more money for a bit less work. I love that he's named. People know I love money money so thank you for bringing up money well i've heard the mcu you don't get paid that much up front whatever they

fixed that oh they did okay listen i'm not gonna talk about money but i just feel generally very very very fortunate that you know i mean i would do the stuff for free when I did stand-up. Most of the times I did it for free. So to be able to do this stuff for not free, and I understand there's a window, you know, especially people who come from comedy, I find there's a window. It can turn real quick, you know, that thing shuts down. Meaning the window from stand-up to movies?

There's a window sometimes with comedy people where they're like the hot thing for a little bit and they get their shot. I don't want to name anybody, but for a couple of years, they do a few movies and then it goes away and nobody wants them anymore. So I'm very aware of that, of the window shutting. I would argue that the type of movie, the big sick being your opportunity and your shot.

And you guys got nominated for an Academy award, right? Yes. Must've been incredibly fun. Yeah. I mean, truly, truly unbelievable.

Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was great. Could again, honestly, when we were going through that, you know,

that was the first movie we did. It was very low budget. It got good reviews. It was making money, got nominated for an Oscar. And the entire time people will be like, just so you know, it's first movie we did it was very low budget it got good reviews it was making money got nominated for an oscar and the entire time people would be like just so you know it's never gonna be like this i thought of that this morning because i was like i was thinking about was three years ago uh no this was covid it's four or five right six six years ago six yeah okay right there i remember me and dave were doing-Baked. We're 23.

People kept going, we write the movie in March. We're shooting in July. And people go, by the way, this doesn't happen every time. And in our heads, me and Dave are going, not for you, it doesn't. Yeah, well, then you did Chappelle Show and you're like, they were wrong. No, no, no, no, no. That's six years later. Yeah. That's the difference.

Seven years later. Right. So that seven years it doesn't feel like a long time but when you're in it it does it feels like a very long time it feels like a long time since the big set and because you're you're living every day whereas to me you're just flying past my windshield i'm just like oh camille and emily did a movie cool great good for them totally um so you you do understand now that it doesn't happen every time that it was a fucking not freak thing that you're like it you're you

were you we're all lucky we're all but it certainly was uh the result was a freak thing and it doesn't happen and i don't know if it would happen now i think that movie a movie of that size becoming like doing well at the box office. I think that was the last year that happened because it happened to us. It happened to Lady Bird. Get Out was a phenomenon. So it's in its own category.

But Lady Bird and us, you know, that was the last time that movies of that size made actual like good money at the box office. It's gone away now. Now you would say Big sick and ladybird which are you know i love ladybird people would say those are like streaming movies they wouldn't call them theatrical movies so and you know and it it hasn't i felt like you know for years up until the big sick you know i was sort of like the one of the cool comedy people you know where

i did a lot of stuff. I was in Silicon Valley. That was great. And that was pretty big. Totally forgot about it. Yeah, it was great. You know what's hilarious? You were on it for every episode for five years? Six years, yeah.

Totally forgot. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, that's what happens. But I'm very proud of that show being on it. I was on a show called Portlandia, you know, that ran for a few years. And so I felt like I was on this thing of like, oh, because I'm this cool comedy

person my world is ultimately fairly small but within within that world i sort of felt like everything i was doing was well received and then suddenly after the big sick you go into a bigger pond it's a lot more people and the stakes are higher and different and i would say when you say people what do you mean audience like it's a bigger so the thing i like in it too is uh elections right so you ran you you won city council yeah yeah and you won uh state senate yeah then i'd say big sick was like how you got your elected member of the House of Representatives. Yeah. And then you're kind of running for Senate slash president. Yeah.

Running for Senate while also trying to dip my toe into the presidency. And you realize like, oh, this is a different world. There's a lot more voices. There's just a lot more. world. There's a lot more voices. There's just a lot more. So since then, I would say, since the big sick, my relationship with my career and success or whatever it is, again, very, very, very grateful, very lucky, very, very happy to be what I'm doing. But it's different. It's a lot more complicated since then. Okay. With that in mind, because i think it's a really interesting point

that people don't talk about very much what kind of person do you think it favors like so do you get to this big you're running for president you're the you're on the poster you're which is like a different thing yeah like once i i noticed it would date once you're on a poster it's different it does something to people yeah when they see you so once you're on the poster you understand how fucking appealing the rock is yeah you know what i mean where you're like boy oh boy that guy's got a lot of fucking talent and virtues yeah or kevin hart or yeah vince vaughn or like like Vince in the 90s, 2000s, or like you just see that you're running, you're trying to appeal to literally billions of people. Yeah, I remember when the big sick opened,

we opened against a Transformers movie, and you're like, oh, this is like a different level from doing a comedy in the back of a comic book store. That you're up against fake robots you literally have to be as appealing as a fake car robot yeah that you've known your entire life yeah yeah to say nothing of the relationship right that like everyone on the planet knows yeah and this time he has a sword i remember the poster for it was it was me and you know Zoe and uh Ray Romano and Holly Hunter and all these people on our poster a new pump and and uh and that was just very simple yeah

Optimus Prime standing on the moon with a big fucking sword and I was like that is tough that is and by the way they're charging the same for each it's the same money for each popcorn's the same time investment is about the same i bet both were you know slightly under two hours around two hours it's the same but i was very very you know excited because that opening weekend they switched transformers the the dome here you know it used to be arc light dome was like the big movie theater in la they put the big sick in there and took transformers out that was very exciting. For me, I would say me going from doing comedy shows to being able to do movies, which I feel very lucky about, the biggest adjustment, the adjustment that took me way too long to make,

and it's weird I'm here talking about it, you got to close up your life a little bit. You got to start getting private. You got to have a line between the personal and the public um the persona whatever it is you just gotta like tighten shit up a little bit and as a comedian i was always really out there you know on twitter social media talking about myself like being really really public because that's what you have to do to sell seats on the road it took me too long to realize oh now it's different and you have to do to sell seats on the road. It took me too long to realize, oh, now it's different and I have to really protect myself and my private life. And it took me too long to figure that out.

Is it because there's more eyeballs looking at you? There's more corporate interests that can get fucked up if you say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing? That's right. It's the corporate interest or both. wrong thing that's right it's the corporate interest or both and it's also people's perception of you people's perception of someone you know what people think of name a famous person let's say john cena let's say john cena who's a lovely guy i don't know him that well but he he's lovely. But people have a certain perception of John Cena. There's no way that the reality of John Cena matches up with

who you think he is or who you want him to be. And I find now when people see a side of you that they don't expect, they're disappointed, they're upset, you don't fit their little perception of it. I think the parasocial relationship thing that people have with famous people, and John Cena has a much, has a much, you know, much bigger audience than I do. He's much more famous,

much more successful. He's massive, and he's been for a long time. It is like a very, I think he would probably welcome that. He seems very, the thing I was saying about The Rock, he just seems like he doesn't have any,

he's kind of shaved off his like jagged edges and he's like very presentable i think you have to yeah i think that's the healthy thing to do publicly there's no reason for you to be especially on the level of a rock or john cena there's no reason for you to really show people really who you are because they don't they don't deserve it i mean why should why should people get to know exactly who you are as a human being that's not what you're doing you know and what the rock has figured out really well is how to sell a version of himself that is marketable and in person then he protects his own personal life yeah i think you have to do that and when he does show you his personal life it's littered with product placement for so he makes a soda and and the vodka tequila tequila sorry and the i'm sure

he's got a slurpee sure he's got an energy like he's got everything and i think that that's the thing that i lack genuinely lack is the desire to have an empire. But you know Kevin Hart is very good at it. And these are people who are very talented, very good at what they do, including becoming these sort of, you know, something bigger themselves. They can make like a brand of themselves and it's great. And they want that and they're very good at it and i at i have truly my goals for what i want to do in my life have not really changed in since the big sick which are just want to kind of keep doing what i'm doing i want to do movies i would say specifically what i want to do

in movies is each time really try and do something i've never done before. I've sort of been the last few years been in this world where I've gotten to do things I'd never done before. You know, I got to be in a Star Wars. I'm not leaving your mind. I got to be in a Marvel. I just did Ghostbusters. And these are things I'd never done before because I was always a nerdy guy. And then I got to play like a different kind of character. And now I want to do something else. You know, I want to try other stuff. So that's really my goal is just to keep doing this and be able to like do things that are like scary, you know.

Like you do that, you know. You're not just doing stand-up. You find like different ways to present it, different ways to be vulnerable on stage. That's what I want to do. Find different ways to be vulnerable on camera. That's what I want to do. Find different ways to be vulnerable on camera in ways that are scary to me. Great.

I will say movies might not be the place. Well, I'm not saying vulnerable where I still want to play the character. But I mean the size of movie. Right, that's why I want to do smaller. Meaning the thing you said about Big Sick is like doesn't really exist anymore. I completely agree. but if you're

doing franchises you're not gonna be able to that's what i'm saying i want to use a lot of running and jumping that's what how harrison ford wants to explain acting he's like i just fucking run and jump that's all it is at this point there was a thing silver silverman was talking about what she did this high family she was talking to her acting coach and there's a scene she has to run away from lasers and she was like i was trying to find my motivation i couldn't figure out this scene and her teacher was like sometimes you just got to pretend like you're running away from lasers yeah that is a lot of these you know that that is a lot of the the work and so i do you know i have decided that i want to go back and do more smaller movies for sure uh that's you're exactly right

yeah it's hard to do in a big movie and i and you know i want to keep doing that if they'll have me who knows you know that's so out of my hands but i want to do i want to do smaller stuff and and keep trying to challenge myself you know well let's talk about vulnerability yeah what i'm interested with you is what i know of your life right is you were literally called the special was called beta male yeah you presented as a pakistani computer nerd you played a pakistan computer nerd for famously i'll never forget it silicon valley there it is and and then at a certain point you completely changed your body and now you present as a physically fit all the most of the selections you made in terms of material were alpha for sure and i guess i'm wondering what was it like before

and what made you change direction i was happy before you know i was happy doing what were you what was your like growing up you moved from pakistan to you live in chicago right or is that iowa first and then iowa okay um i mean i always was a nerd i still am a nerd i was always physically very slight you know tiny uh very small shoulders never liked how i looked was always physically weak and a thing that you were aware of oh yeah it was devastating to me it's one of the blocks on there i think it was devastating to me and i fucking hated it and i hated how i looked and it took me a long time you know um when i was a kid i wouldn't go to like the store because i thought they wouldn't sell me stuff

because i was so ugly i just had like a real thing of it it like was where'd you get the idea that you were ugly i don't want to get into all that you know you have people who like say something without knowing what they're saying right what they're causing and i think one of the things that hurt was that up to the age of like five or six i was objectively very cute and then shit turned i never thought you weren't kind of cute okay well thank you i appreciate that i thought the i thought the eyebrow the the like the uneven eyebrow thing this yeah was like it's a natural rock but so always i never never liked it never liked how I looked. And then in my 20s, did a lot of work to be like, you know, it doesn't matter.

Actually, you know, being good at something that you love gives you a lot of confidence. And so when I started doing stand-up, you know, right in college, I was like 21 or 22, didn't have confidence until I started doing well on stage. And then suddenly everything changed. Like my whole life, the way I thought of myself, the way I carried myself, the way I talked to people, the way I talked to girls, they just changed, you know. Yeah.

All came from standup. Being really good at something that I loved and wanted to be good at was awesome. Yeah. So that sort of changed everything for me. And then, you know, I started acting as nerds and all of this stuff. And this industry, it really puts you in a box. It really is like, this is what this person does. This is what they play.

And after doing that for years, I was like, there's so much work that I don't have access to. I feel like all they want me to do is play this kind of beta male. And that was 10 years ago. I did that special. And that's how I presented myself. Right. So that's what I'm saying.

Like, as much as it's their fault, it's partially like you were. That's how you kind of thought of yourself. That's how I thought of myself. And that's how I thought I could get work. And that is how I got work. And stand-up will be a negative. It's a bit like you get laughed saying it so then you're like i guess this is who i am you know what i mean like

sort of and that is how i felt but you know i had that thing of that i think someone like conan has you know where all his jokes were about how he's beta but he's not conan's alpha yeah sort of like that so i really had that like you know drive and motivation and ambition and all this stuff my jokes on stage were about how i'm terrified of stuff but in real in real life i really was you know i wanted to be really good at it i wanted to be successful i wanted to like crush on stage if i went on a show i wanted to be funnier than everybody else i wanted to bury my friends you know that's very fun to acknowledge yeah and that and i love i always knew that about you you did i always knew that about you so i always knew that about you so i'd go to like this sort of communal yeah meltdown thing and i was like no this is for

this is for keeps yeah this is like there's definitely a competition here oh yeah it's not it's not it's not a commune no it wasn't for me it was for some people it was for a lot of people and i know that some people didn't like that about me that at the meltdown which was such a great room and this communal space that I was sort of like, I want to do, I want to invite all these people to my show. All these really funny people, the funniest people in the country. Every famous, you know, comedian did that show. And on that night, I want to bury them. I want to be funnier than them.

That's the spirit of alternative comedy, let us know. Yeah. No, I mean mean i'm not i totally i don't i never think of burying people but i do think of like i want to come in first i want to come in first for sure i don't i i was always like no matter how good my set was if somebody did better than me on that show i wasn't that happy because it's like oh it was possible to do better yes look i want to talk about the psychological underpinnings of that though okay my desire to win your desire to win uh and i don't think that there's anything

wrong with it by the way like i don't i it's a part of myself that i'm i i like meaning like i'm not ashamed of the of being competitive yeah i think it's fucked up when you're not if you're not rooting for your friends if you're not my my thing is i the only way i win is if i really prepare yeah so it's like it's it's to me it's like motivation for like, you have to prepare for sure. You have, you can't wing it. I can't wing it.

I can't wing it either. I can't, I can wing it here and there, but it, it's not, um, it's not like, uh,

I can't count on that. I mean the ultimate block, I don't know if it's a block or it does lead me to being a little bit unsatisfied. I don't want to say unhappy because I am generally pretty happy. My self-worth ultimately is too tied to my career and what I'm doing. My worth as a human being is too based on how I perceive myself as being at my job. I don't have that like, it don't matter. I'm like, that's what was hard

when I would do standup all the time. If you have a bad set, you feel bad about yourself. For a day, yeah. Yeah, that day fucking sucks, doesn't it? Yeah. It's the same with like acting, you know? If I have a day on set where I don't think I was at my best, that like really, really really really makes me feel like

shit i feel like i'm like i'm not like a worthy person too much of my worth is not inherent too much of my worth comes from uh how i think i'm doing totally agreed that i'm in the same boat we both realize like too much tied up in this and are we fucking ourselves long-term? I think we are. I don't know if you're born with it or you learn it. I know I've been like this since I can remember. Like with studies, I was a big nerd. I wasn't good at sports or cool. Good title for a special big nerd. You hulked out.

Then I hulked out. But I really, really cared. Big nerd. Yeah, that's the next one um really studies you know i wanted to be first in class yeah because in pakistan you gotta rank it so like first to each class was like 42 kids first to 42 the bottom 10 get get slaughtered correct in front of the school yeah but i think it's it's called the culling and it you know it's it's what's propelled us to global success yeah and for years i didn't i came in second and that like really really bothered me and bugged me and knowing that second you came in second in school

for many years and then the guy left to go to another school then i came in first but it was a little bit empty you know it's like michael Michael Jordan. But I knew that that guy was very smart and I knew I was smart, but I was like, I have to work harder than he does, but that's okay. I'm never afraid of hard work. I do think we're setting ourselves up for ultimate failure because another, you know, I think I put this block there is divorcing my experience of doing something

from the results. So, you know, we did the big sick, we had a great time doing it. It was hard, but it was a great time. And then it was successful. Great. I've done stuff where I've worked just as hard as I did on the big sick and it has not been successful. And then it's tainted my experience. It's made me feel stupid for having a good time doing this thing and working so hard at this thing that didn't make money. And thinking it was going to be good. Thinking it was going to be good. it was going to be good this is going to crush that's the fucking feeling i hate you know which later but you have to do that there's no it's very very hard to make a movie because it is a lot of work 14 hour days day after day after day there are harder jobs i'm

not saying there aren't i mean, and it's emotionally taxing. You have to think that what you're making is great because I've also made stuff that I knew wasn't great and that's a worse experience. What I want to do is do what I do

because, you know, big sick we got to control, but a lot of this stuff, you don't really get to control how it's going to come out. Enjoy that experience for what it is. Learn from it.

Proud of, be proud of myself for doing well or working or whatever it is, and then throw it away and forget it. And if it does well, great. If it doesn't, it shouldn't really affect me and it shouldn't affect my memory of the experience. Like recently, you know, this is going to sound like a brag, but something I talked to my therapist about. I've been talking to my therapist about- a therapist that is break go ahead yeah no the brags coming up i i with my right after this look guys game time has been a good sponsor for this podcast and it's welcome because i don't want to have some dirtbaggy company sponsoring us. It's a good app. I'm starting to do well in theaters and my tickets are starting to be resold. I do actually don't

want people to get ripped off and you're not going to get ripped off on game time. It's already stressful enough when you feel pressure to like take somebody. It's let's be honest, it's guys taking girls places or it's guys just trying to entertain themselves or your family's from out of town. And you're like, ah, where can we go? It's like the store that's open on Christmas Eve is what game time is. They got tickets up until the 11th hour, right? It's great. All right, let's go on gametime.co right now.

Ooh, this is coming soon. And I mentioned this before. This is the professional bull riding. That's going to be at the Honda Center. Now, Neil, you're a vegan. You wouldn't ever go to watch animals go through hardship, would you? Guys, I'm a vegan because I find the meat industry disgusting. I'm not opposed to killing animals.

There was a professional bull riding at Madison Square Garden. I went there just for the irony once, and it was a pretty goddamn cool event to see. That's it. I don't always like stepping out of my comfort zone, but I did for that. And I was glad I did because it was kind of wild and unique. Soccer is starting to get big in the States. You can go to a LA Galaxy game.

Beyonce, you can go see her. Drake. Neil, would you go see Drake? I would. I would. I like enough Drake songs. Do I like liking Drake? No one likes liking Drake.

You just like him though, because he's good. Post Malone's coming. Post Malone did a concert during COVID that was just all Nirvana songs. If you're on the fence about Post Malone did a concert during COVID that was just all Nirvana songs. If you're on the fence about Post Malone, look up his Nirvana concert. You will like Post Malone. Jhene Aiko is coming. Of course, you can eat that booty like groceries.

Grupo Frontera. I'm assuming it's not in English. I could go on. Metallica's coming, trying to get Lars on this show. So go on here, get your tickets, even if it's sold out. I'm assuming all those events are sold out. You don't got a plan. Your whole life, you're told you need to plan ahead.

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HelloFresh, America's number one meal kit. Trying to get out of the thing of having too much of how I think about myself being based on the result. Working with a therapist on it a lot, and then I just got nominated for an Emmy. Great. Thank you. But it felt so good. For what?

I did this show called Welcome to Chippendales that came out last year. Alright, great. I was thrilled. We did not expect it. You know, all four of the main actors got nominated. The costume person did. Gotta shout these people out. They're all wonderful.

But it felt good to an alarming degree where I was like, oh, I am still in this and this is a trap. Like I was sort of like replaying in my head how it felt in the first. I would like follow myself scrolling back and looking at the text of when I found out, you know, all this stuff, reliving conversations I had and looking up the list over and over. And I was like, this is too.

This feels too important. It's good to be like, great. But move on. But to the amount that it made me feel good about myself also scared me and it's embarrassing it's so embarrassing yeah to like give a shit about this to the degree that i do i was like oh this is a trap the flip side of this is still gonna crush me i still have a lot of work to do it's and it's embarrassing yeah yeah i when when blocks came out on netflix i said to joe rogan i was like i think i like the juice too much yeah i like it was embarrassing it is how much i like

the fucking the feedback adulation of course just in i did a show on in la on sat Saturday night that went, it was like one of the best shows of my life and I was like enjoying the and I don't know what the balance is. It's a hard balance. Being invested, making an effort, making an effort, the show in LA was about effort, like I made more

effort than normal and it was, it like paid off in the performance so like i was trying to in some ways trying to reinforce like hey ding dong you gotta make an effort right see what happens when you make an effort effort effort you're learning the right things from it right but at the same time like i'm learning some wrong things too or or i'm allowing too much ego in in what shouldn't what ideally is little ego yeah i'm with you in terms of like scrolling thank you for admitting to all that because i know it's fucking hard that's my favorite part of uh hasa minaj's special is the is the

when he went viral yeah and he is talking about how much he loved it yeah and it was really interesting to see someone acknowledge it if i only got 86 likes on a photo i would kill myself yeah it feels it feels great and you know i have the other issue on the so when you you mentioned you'd seen my Letterman set. That I wanted to do. Letterman is one of the reasons I wanted to be a comedian. I did that set. It went well.

I was happy with it. I'd worked on that set for a year with Eddie Brill, who was the booker at the time. And as soon as it was done, I was like, that was good. How do I do this again? That's too much the other way. Emily would always be like you don't rest on your laurels enough you should like enjoy when things are good but then i enjoy too much this thing that just happened this getting nominated because i felt like you know this felt better than getting nominated for the big sick which was an oscar that's funny dude which is it's an oscar it's my story it's me and my wife this felt better than getting nominated for the big sick, which was an Oscar. That's funny, dude.

Which is, it's an Oscar. It's my story. It's me and my wife. This felt better because it comes after a few years of things that I felt like, you know, didn't come out as good as I wanted them to. So it felt, but it feels, I don't know. It's, it's all a trap, you know. The, the other thing that I've had to learn is, and it does, is getting satisfaction from being with Emily,

from being a good husband, from being, you know, taking care of the house and all this stuff, having like a good life, have worked on that, reprioritized it. How did you reprioritize it? Because I'm always, I say say on here i say in life all the time it's like very hard to change very hard to change priorities yes without almost dying yeah honestly how do you reprioritize your life in a way that it was real because i everyone can fake like no i'm gonna Well, that's the thing.

You know, I don't know exactly the mechanisms for it. I know if I think of the changes between our relationship over the last, say, five years or so, it would be that from my side, I really have decided that I want to show all of myself to Emily. So I would be afraid of telling her thoughts that were embarrassing to admit. Did you tell her about the Emmy meaning more than the Oscar? I have not yet. I don't. I don't.

Can you take that out? Yeah. I'll tell her that. But like thoughts about like self-doubt thoughts or scary thoughts or whatever it is, I would just keep it all inside and really have made an effort to like tell her. Because, you know, I'll be in a bad mood and she'll, and in the past, I would just take it out on her or something. Yeah, you have to. Yeah. But now really, really being like, hey, just so you know, I'm worried about this or I'm scared of this.

It makes me feel better because I used to think, I think this is on the list too. I used to think saying all this stuff out loud made it real. It's the opposite. It takes their power away. So doing that and genuinely wanting to know Emily more, you know, I'm very lucky in that I'm with someone who is a wonderful and very fascinating

complicated super funny person i want to know more about her i don't know emily very well at all but i get the sense that she knows her way around uh humanity she was a therapist she does she says hi by the way yes she really likes you uh the the knows her way around like feelings thoughts emotions grossness embarrassment one of the most emotionally intelligent people i've ever met in my life and that's why great producer because she can really good at manipulating people she understands this stuff but she's very good at like giving someone making someone think they won and also getting what the larger goal is um and so i think that's been one of the biggest things is really showing all my sides of myself that i may not

necessarily be proud of stuff i'm ashamed of sharing she know that you weren't sharing them could she sense that you weren't sharing them i mean for years dude would she say something yeah she would ask but really it was really working through it and deciding like okay i'm gonna share i mean it was this three vulnerable things about myself with you every day and you have to make it like and it's it has to be like stuff that's uncomfortable to share. It can't be like fake vulnerable, you know. Sometimes you do, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You dredge up some old fucking thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But really making an effort every day to do that. Three vulnerable things every day. And then just being stuck. What time do you do that? Whenever you can bring yourself to do it, you know. Meaning, is it ever like you

wake up in the morning you're like all right look i like uh i spit on a squirrel one time like what when do i do it a lot of times you're cramming towards the end of the day you know yeah a lot of times you have to do it she has to do it too we were both doing it are you guys thinking about downgrading to two oh we're not doing that anymore. Oh, you're not. Okay. That was for, we did it for a few months, I would say. We did it for a few months. But I feel like now, and it was always my, I would say I was the one who was deficient.

I feel like we're just a lot more connected and we really see each other and know each other a lot better you were deficient in what way in not sharing myself completely in like giving her a curated version of myself because yeah you know having shame too much shame i think a lot of it comes from religion to you know so much what was the religion islam basically that i mean there's so many things you can do wrong that make you a bad person yeah that then you so so i sort of internalize that and for me generally up until not that many years ago i thought of myself as a bad person who was who was keep who was you know pretending to be a good person getting away with it it hasn't been until the last few years that i'm like oh no i am a good person

generally and genuinely a good person who sometimes does things that good people don't do does islam enforce that i mean i'm i grew up catholic so it they basically say like oh you sinned before you got here right the uh original sin thing uh i mean we don't have specifically original sin but it's it's pretty close i mean you know what islam has is the mind body duality so the mind is pure the body is bad everything the body wants is bad got it and for me another big big sort of i don't want to say evolution or attempted growth has been to reconcile those two things and realize that um you know the stuff that i want that's fun it's it's okay to want that stuff it's good you know and that is part of you and that the brain and body are really all one

thing you know is ego because i think that's what we're talking about in terms of like ambition and and competition is that body or spirit that's very good question i would say islam would call it body i kind of agree with it yeah because what you get from it is the bodily desires. I think, you know, fame, not wanting to, you know, not having to wait in line at a restaurant, all that stuff, you know, all the good stuff that comes with it. It's all shallow. All the stuff that you get from it is shallow money, you know, all that stuff is shallow. So definitely ambition, I think, but, but back then I could say, oh, I'm doing good in school, and that is a virtue. And so even though it was ambition back then, it was applied to something that I could say was pure.

Yeah. And now it's applied to something that I have decided is important. Not important because somebody told me it was important. The Quran doesn't talk about Marvel movies? If the Quran had mentioned Marvel movies, you'd be a Muslim. Trust me. I will say this for Islam.

Praying five times a day, I'm like, that's about right. I think that's about right. Five? Five. Yeah, I would go up to seven maybe. Like really, if you really want to do it it's i have a joke that never works when i'm like they have church every other block because that's about how long it lasts

yeah you know what i mean like it takes about you walk two blocks you forget everything they're like all right church i gotta fucking be a good right so like the idea that you have to pray you gotta like check in like hey yeah yeah supervisor ah you're in charge yeah i get it yeah going back in yeah five times a day you need it's true you do you do need that reminder five times a day and and honestly for me it's great to be with someone like emily who doesn't let me get away with anything but it is there is something interesting about the discipline of having like that we are for sure to agree with this time again the body wants to the body pulls to the right it's like a car that pull it's gonna pull and you have to like recalibrate it right right but the what what we have is somehow

we found a way to do what the body wants which is like this kind of success in a way that we can also say is doing good for the world well i, I made this whole audience laugh. I made their day better. You know, it's not even about me. It's not about me. Look at their faces. Look how happy they are. It's really about you. Yeah. It's not about them. Yeah. In some ways, maybe you, you don't even, the only reason you need them there is so you can feel like this. I'll know I've lost my mind when I say to an audience, we did this. If I ever say that to an audience, like, can you believe we did this? I've lost my mind. I'm fully bullshitting 100% of the time.

I did this. Thank you for being here to watch me do this. Yeah, that's what it is. I mean, that is what it is. Yes. Yeah, that is what it is. So these things, you know, it's all continuously working on it. And then, you know, now with the strike sag and WGAR on strike, I was about to go work on something.

And now I can't. And now it's sort of hitting me again, that thing of, because what I have is I've been lucky the last few years being able to have a good rhythm to work and not work. So when you're working, you know, it's kind of all encompassing when you're shooting, it'll be like three, four months. That's kind of all you're doing. Take a month and a half, two months off, completely off, do nothing. It's great because you know but also knowing that

you're working preparing for the next thing this is great and then you go on you do that for four months it's a great rhythm like you get a month and a half with emily uh at home everyone gets that or you travel anyone who does movies gets a month and a half with emily between movies unbelievable yeah we got to really work the year right there's not much overlap well i don't know i haven't asked uh that's not one of the vulnerable things she shared so i'm assuming she's okay with it sometimes she looks forward to it too much when i'm away at someone else's turn and so now that that's gone away it's starting to again be like what is my purpose what am i doing why am i here i'm completely useless i have no worth can-up. Try and find it that way.

It is a need for sure. It is a need. I get a lot of great stuff out of it, like genuinely good stuff. I learn and I learn about myself and I get better at this thing that I want to get good at. I guess what I hear you, and I get better at this thing that I want to get good at. I guess what I hear you,

I hear myself about what I would consider a shared problem, right? Which is a real need for attention. And everyone that sits here has a real need for attention. Everyone who moved out here has a real need for attention. So the question is, how you know heroin's bad everyone everyone agrees heroin do remember remember yeah and then you'd hear like well you know william burroughs was addicted to heroin his whole life heroin's not that bad if you can keep getting heroin. Right. It's only when it dries up. Yes. I mean, that is the problem.

I will say the attention that I want, I don't want to be like in a social setting. I'd rather not have anybody looking at me. I don't go to like restaurants where I need like a little private area because it does freak me out, that kind of attention. But what I do want is on stage, audience laughing, something I made comes out, people think it's great. Or even when I'm shooting, people are like,

you're so, oh man, great take. Like I want that for sure. Yeah. But then you're right. The trick is what happens when you don't have it? Then who are you? What's the point?

The hard thing with acting is, this is what i was saying earlier about the window you are always reliant on other people to like put you in a position where you can do it um with stand-up at least you know i know people have been doing stand-up for 15 years and haven't gotten a laugh in their lives like you can't just do that yeah the thing with addiction is again i'm calling an addiction that's too strong a word compulsion is the right word whatever we're decent at it we're talented people we can get attention the problem is when you're hurting people that's the addiction right that's the problem with addiction and the spiral of addiction is you do it you hurt people then you feel shame you do it more so and so that's what i mean with the

balance with them so finding um yeah was there a bottom with with that where it was like where she where you realized or she said something where it was like dog this shit is not even or fair or good for a relationship i mean it certainly wasn't even or fair or good for a relationship for many years you know i mean the hard thing is you know i mean we met at a comedy show so from the she knew what she was getting herself emily if you're watching you knew what you were getting yourself into and she says you know we would we just had our 16 year wedding anniversary last weekend and we were at this nice dinner, her and I. And we were kind of having this open conversation

about ourselves and she was like, it's kind of like you, where she was like, from the beginning, I could tell you were very ambitious and that this work was very important to you. And I didn't think of myself as ambitious back then because when we met, I was sort of stuck in a rut. I was in Chicago, I'd been there too long. All my friends who were funny like Pete and Hannibal and everyone had moved away and I was still there, you know. So it was bad for a very, very long time. I mean, you know, when we moved

to New York, I was dragging her to every open mic we did and it was bad and it felt like the entire marriage was catering to me. She would take care of everything else. And I mean, first- Why were you dragging her to open mics? Well, because she didn't want to be at home alone. And then she sort of became friends with all these people, you know, all these comics. That's who we were friends with.

But it was stuff that I wanted to go to. We moved to New York because I wanted to move to New York. We moved to LA because I got a job in LA. Was this a given? Or was this something you were slightly aware of? Like, this isn't great. This isn't exactly fair. It's a little selfish on my part.

Or were you just in it and not even aware of it? It took me a while to even become aware of it. I mean, when we were in New York, I was doing open mics at night, not making money. And she had a day job supporting us. As it should be. As it should be. What's the unfair part? making money and she had a day job supporting us you know as it should be as it should be what's the unfair part and i was truly just staying up late at night and she had to get up in the morning

to go work and i will be up till 4 a.m you know it was like and you were loud back then too right late and loud that was your thing i was just alone in our apartment screaming screaming out my bits yeah you know how you bat with a donut it was like that if you do stand up while you scream then when you speak then it's so much more powerful and then you know she started talking about it as she as obviously she should have she was like it just sucks that all of this is for you and and i don't get to really you know she said she felt like she was sort of a afterthought to my career you know and and um and i sort of took her for granted i really did did you when she said it did you acknowledge it did you realize she is right and that's fucked up and i need to fix it i think

initially i was like oh she's right and now i'm angry at her for pointing it out human beings yeah awful awful and that's the other thing that i think in the last few years i've made a lot of progress in is being like having that anger at first and then being like okay why am i feeling that what is the cause for it you know oh it's because i'm embarrassed or i'm ashamed of the way of how i'm doing something that makes me angry at myself and and now i'm directing it outwards i'm so not who i claim to be i in that regard like you're not i'm not a good husband i'm not an ally in that regard like you're not i'm not a good husband i'm not an ally i'm not you're just like a selfish yeah yeah and how dare you point that out and you know it still is just it's unfortunate but the reality of my work like you know we were just in london for four months and emily comes

with me and she can do her work there because she's a writer um she's a very successful writer but she's still coming there because of me a writer. She's a very successful writer. But she's still coming there because of me. So that's something that we decided that we're just going to try and be together as much as we can. Because I don't know how people leave their families for months at a time and just don't see them. They don't really care about their families. They don't. I love Emily so much.

And I love being with her, and I really need her. And I kid, some people do care about their families and have to leave, but I think there are people that are just like, meh. Oh, they love being away from their families. Some people love being away from their families. I've worked with those people. But with Emily, so it's still a little unbalanced, you know, in that way. But within that context, she is coming to London because of me, but we're going to do stuff that she wants to do. We're going to do a lot of stuff together.

So we went on a lot of, you know, dates to restaurants. And when I'm not working, really prioritize my time with her, our time together. You know, I feel like we've gotten, I've a lot lot lot better at it um and just understanding that acting and comedy is what i do and not who i am still a work in progress but being thoughtful and intentional about it and thinking about it all the time. I think about it all the time. Relationship? Relationship.

I think about how to have worth divorced from what I do. Not there yet. Because like you said, the heroin goes away sometime at some point, you know. Not if you got a few different dealers. Well, I mean. From what I understand,

you've got a couple different streams. Yeah, but you know, one of the government cracks down the yeah they start shutting down clubs south america yeah whatever it is well that's okay well my question is what are the other values buddy being a good husband you know that's one of them um being a good friend so ambition about being a good husband is that like a possibility it's aspirational yeah it's not ambition i would say but it is working towards um each day being better at it and the doing of it and taking pride in it that's the thing you know it's not ambition and pride are so linked for me it's's, you know, when you do well, you're like, oh, I did well.

I was good. And then having to, and applying that thought process to being a good husband too. Like, oh, I did a good job. I set up a good day. That was a great trip we took. That was really fun.

Oh, that's interesting. Applying the same math to it and thinking about it like that. And I've gotten better at it. And you know, a lot of it's therapy and a lot of it is just reminding myself and talking to myself. The other thing is, you know,

the people talk about this all the time, the way you talk to yourself. If other people talk to me the way I talk to myself, they would not be my friend. They'd be your wife. Folks, we'll be right back after this. No, no, no, but I know you. Yeah, it's horrible.

Yeah, of course, it's awful. But I think being better about that does make me just a generally more pleasant person to be around who is trying to be less dependent on external success for interior worth oh no i mean i'm punching the face and we're done but uh hard it's it what's hard the the shutting the voice out hard punch me hard um the voice is just having to think about it you know it's really hard you just have somebody a friend of mine pointed this out to me she's a therapist the voice inside of you right it's there's a thing called internal family systems where they you basically name all the voices inside you like i'm gonna punch you yeah i mean it's a horrible name for a therapy

but what the idea is good there's four or five recurring sort of voices in your head you basically name them and then you start going like oh craig's here what do you want craig so what what do you think that voice wants that the next because dude i have it as bad as i can imagine anybody does i wake up and it's in within five seconds it's something shitty it feels like it just wants to hurt me yeah and it feels like it there's an addiction to making myself feel shitty and that's part of what i meant like making my life private you know once uh profile goes up a little bit. Because you got enough crags out there. Someone's going to sound exactly like the voice inside your head.

And you can hear 30 great things, but you hear the one guy who says exactly what I say to myself. And oh, fuck. He's right. I'm right. I've been right all along. It seems like it just wants to hurt me. I don't think Emily always says, you know, she's like, just because you have a thought doesn't mean you have to like listen to it.

Your brain is stupid. And reminding myself of that, that my brain is stupid. Why do you think it, okay, the next question. I don't know what I get from it. Why does it want to make you feel shitty? I don't know. I think, I mean, feeling like a bad person for many, for most of my life, feeling that I'm like a bad person clearly was part of it.

I don't know. But, you know, I have these, I think I'm sure you do too, these thoughts where you just like think of something that hurts you and you can't stop thinking of it. Yeah. Just like play it over and over. It's like mind cutting. It's like mind cutting. I actually think of it like that. I don't want to downplay.

Obviously, that's a real problem. But I do think of it as some kind of cutting that happens. Again, I've gotten better at it, specifically in the last couple of years. And a lot of that has come from giving myself time to relax and enjoy something that has nothing to do with work it was very hard for me the math was always oh if i do if i write a bit that's funny or a scene that's good then i can watch a movie that i like or i can play video games you know like having that

uh exchange was there all the time gotten a little bit better at just being like, you know, I'm not feeling it today. I'm going to do this. Because ultimately I have to trust that just because I took a day off doesn't mean I don't want to do this anymore. The problem isn't not wanting it enough ever. Yeah. Yeah.

But it's still hard, you know. It's still hard feeling guilty. Like we went to Chicago to celebrate a 16 year wedding anniversary because that's where we met. And that's where I just heard. And the whole time I was like, it's three days in Chicago. Will I be able to enjoy that? Now there's this strike and I know I'm not going to be working. Do I deserve to have this weekend? Do I deserve to have fun? And I was thinking about that and then got nominated and that allowed me to have fun all weekend. And that a little bit sucks. That's what needed to happen.

And it's also, you probably felt like you'd made some progress and then you were like, That's what it was. I can't believe I still think. That is what it was. I can't believe I'm still waiting for external validation to make me relax, to make me enjoy 16 years of marriage with the person I love most in the world.

Yeah. Two days. It's that is what, that is what terrified was. I was like, oh, I've made progress. I've done work. You know, I'll be honest. The last, I've had a couple high profile things come out that weren't well received you know i'm not blaming myself for them i'm proud of the work

i did in them when they're good it's because even when they're bad it's because of them yeah you know right they fucked up i didn't that was great you were great well i just mean i like those things too i'm proud of those things i don't think those things are good but they weren't well received and that's and that's tough but that's the problem with movies and tv shows they are jokes that you're trying the problem is they take a year and a half to try and you can't rewrite it and you can't rewrite it so that's why when people go what about i go it's all the same hole it is the reason i like stand-up is because it no one's bothered by the joke not working when it doesn't work the movie doesn't work i have to there's um 170 people suffering and meanwhile

and then they're stuck with it and there's money just and it's all bad you you might be suffering and it might mean you don't get to tell another joke ever again. Correct. Absolutely. In my case, 100% true. No more movies for Neil, to which I say, it's okay, guys. I'm good at another thing. Fine. Well, you could definitely now go back and direct another movie if you really wanted to. Maybe.

But the point is, it takes too long and i realized i was like the same hole because i would do sketches that didn't work then i would do sketches that were rick james it's like i don't it's all the same hole yeah it all i reach in the hole one time it's rick james the next time it's the jeremy pippen but i don't even know like i it's the all it it's none of, they're not all going to work. I said to somebody last night, Beethoven's one of the greatest ever. He had like seven hits. Yeah. Well, it's different.

I think a movie is different from stand-up or sketch or music. I think in a sketch show, you know, I mean, Chappelle's show was fucking amazing, but you can have five sketches. Three are good. Two are bad. That's fine. With stand-up, you do a set five sketches. Three are good. Two are bad. That's fine. Yep. With standup, you do a set.

Let's say you're just doing 20 minutes. Uh, you do five bets. Four are amazing. One sucks. That's fine. Doesn't matter. You can also go,

ah, it didn't work. Yeah. We like you again. Yeah, exactly. There's, you cannot do that in movies.

Movies. You have like two bad scenes in a movie and it's fucked the whole movie and people will only remember those two bad scenes it happens all the time i did a movie i'm not gonna say which one i i really liked it i was just in it uh so you know it's their fault but the movie the first it's that's the name of the movie therefore it's their fault the first 15 minutes weren't great but then the movie's good i think but by you by the 10th minute, people have decided how they feel about you. Whereas with stand-up, you can always win them back. All right, let's get to some other blocks because you have good ones here and we got sidetracked in a good way.

Some we've talked about already. Guilt, regret, shame. Constantly wondering how things would have been different if I'd done X instead of Y. Yeah, it's all related. I will regret a decision and just think about it and I get stuck in the past of like, just thinking about what I should have done, what I should have done.

This happens even with like ice cream. I'll get a flavor and i'll be eating it like fuck should have gotten that other ice cream but the guilt affects me with the math of you know i shouldn't play you know uh i've earned the like uh i haven't done anything sag is on strike i'm not gonna work for a while i shouldn't have fun celebrating my anniversary i would feel guilty doing that so that's pretty bad this feels like religion honestly oh yeah the math of it as somebody who does it himself it's like i know where this is from it's from religion the math is the same i feel like my the way i approach life the formula is exactly the same. I've swapped out the variables, the sin and virtue and all that.

Those specifics have been swapped out. But the equation is exactly the same still. I'm still struggling with it. I just put different things in the Xs. Yeah, I have that thing in, and I did the thing in blocks where I'm shocking myself to smile on stage. This thing gives me a small electric shock every three minutes on stage

to remind me to smile more. It's been happening the entire show. And it's like, why would you shock yourself to change your behavior? And it's like, because I grew up Catholic. There's literally a thing, spare the rod, spoil the child. That's right. If you don't hit the kid, the kid will be a piece of shit. Yeah.

So, yeah, I'm carrying a little bit of that spirit with me. Yeah. I'm hitting myself. Yes. I'll spare. I won't spare. Spare the shock. Yeah.

Spoil the comment. Yes. Yeah. So I spare the shock. Yeah. Spoiled. Spoiled the comment. Yes. Yeah. So I understand the idea. And there is some, religion has stuff going for it that I think are, there are good tenants for fair amounts of self-discipline. I think self-discipline and delayed gratification are virtues. Yeah.

In and of themselves. I really do. I i think like i've certainly got those and there are many things about you that are good because you delayed your gratification and you got better at a thing sure right and i'm i feel the same way so there i'm not against religion entirely oh no no no or not i wouldn't even say entirely it's not i think there are like a lot of things about religion that i think are worthwhile you think of all the people you want all these people out there negotiating their own morality you don't want that a lot of these people you want to be

like hey there's a bunch of shit you do a bunch of shit you don't do got it thank you for listening i think that i think i think that's great do your own research morality-wise. Please, please disconnect the cord. I feel, for me, the discipline part of it has always been okay. The struggle has been the unstructured part, giving myself room to just float around and be myself and do nothing. That's been hard. And also not being so hard on myself for the regret, guilt, shame stuff. Not being so hard on myself for doing something.

And this is a thing I say to myself sometimes. Neil, how much better could this be going? Well, Emily says I have career dysmorphia. I literally said Letterman was here and I said he had I have it too like I know a lot of people that have absolute career dysmorphia like at 10 years ago if someone was like this is where you're gonna be I would be like fuck you that's not true really yeah great but here I am it's not quite is it? So trying to be okay with it, thankful for, but it's hard. It's also the one thing I remember when I first moved to New York and was like,

quit my day job. I'm going to try and be a comedian. Pete Holmes was already there. And he gave me advice. He was like, the one thing you cannot do is you can never compare yourself to another person's career. That will eat you from the inside. That will make you so bitter. And he told me, he's like, this guy is very funny. He's so bitter about not having this stuff. And that's why he's never going to make it. And I really took that to heart. I internalized it. I was always happy for other people's success, never compared myself to other people, never, never, never. It's crept back in as I've gotten more successful, which is so fucking backwards. Now, I think about that more than I've thought about it in my entire career. That thing where I'm watching something like why is it that guy it should be me i'll be better at that that jealousy that i have not had until i really you know until i got more successful well that's a funny thing with uh very successful people i know there's a level of pettiness that is is uh hard to believe that is what well it's funny because you there was a level of pettiness that is, is, uh, hard to believe. That is what, well,

it's funny. There was a two sentences ago. You said in my entire, and I thought you were going to say life and you said career. Yeah. I'd also like to say it's going to be very easy to judge both of us for this entire episode because we're more or less showing you how, uh, craven we are if you want to if you want

to be negative about it but i would also argue that this is there's something of the american condition in what we're talking about in that you whoever you are you're probably not happy with your amount of whatever you have and you should have more money and you should have more housing you should have it so just hopefully you'll see us and go is that in me that's the that's my hope uh for the viewer and or listener i've gotten more lifey than career lately good and part of it is ayahuasca and dmt which whatever that's however you need to get there get there you're on your own time i totally agree i haven't done those uh those drugs but i'm saying whatever you gotta do to get there yep great and seeing the futility of dissatisfaction i'm a snob you're a snob i have an engine in me that's it's when people go well aren't you afraid that if you

get happy you won't be funny i'm like no i just my brain spits jokes out it just will. It will until I die. But the futility of seeing people get all the things and be no more happy and seeing myself get things and some things were very satisfying. And I will admit to career things made me feel 10% better forever. 10 better forever sure things that have happened in my career that once it happened i felt 10 better every day since that's very well put you just level up yeah yep it's embarrassing and it's you're only supposed to get it from family and love and all that stuff sorry i got it from achievements but it's still not a hundred percent it's still probably not even it's getting around 60 i would say with all the and you throw in the dmt and the ayahuasca so i guess i'm saying i wish it for everyone and i relate to the pettiness i or the smallness or whatever you want to call it, the cravenness, the hungry ghost, depending on your persuasion.

And I think it's a spell we're all under. Yeah. I think the American condition is right. I don't want to say it's just in America, but it's true. condition it's right i don't want to say it's just in america but it's true like the way that we talk about you know grind culture and all this like work yeah bigger tomorrow than you were today by the way i think most self-help is to make more money i think that's the way it's commodified on social media is like you optimize and wink wink even juice health energy whenever they say energy they're not saying so you can hike yeah it's so you it's not so you can meditate harder yeah it's so that you can grind right

totally um i have never been into self-help stuff the only person who i really love her name is bernie brown she's huge and and her, because it's all about just being comfortable with yourself and not having shame and somehow liking yourself and considering yourself worthy of love. I found that stuff to be tremendously useful. You know, and it's this thing like I would never describe myself as an unhappy person at any point in my life. an unhappy person at any point in my life. I'm lucky in that I don't have, you know, those struggles at all. Satisfied person, I don't think I've, I've maybe been satisfied for like very tiny bursts all throughout my entire life. And I don't feel like satisfaction, happiness are two different

things. I'm happy, but I've never been satisfied. Like that is a need, that is a hole. happy but i've never been satisfied like that is a need that is a hole yeah and and it you are actually acknowledging it i appreciate your honesty about it were you ever ashamed of it or is it a thing where i when emily told you were you ashamed were you like fuck i'm still ashamed of it yeah like do i wish it wasn't there no because so much of who i am is because of it without it i probably wouldn't know who i am what i want is for it to not just be running my fucking life all the time that would that's the project and it's gotten better it used to be you know when i would like do stand-up if i had a show at night on the road all day, all I could do is think about the show. And then the show would go well, but I've done nothing all day. And then at

some point deciding I'm getting to go all these cities all over the country. I have to enjoy the cities, go see a movie, go to restaurants, all this stuff that really helped. That's what it is now too with work. And it's gotten so much better like i was just you know we were in london shooting when we were off had a great time being able to like store some of the sense of achievement to spend it on um just having a good time like having like a little like battery of like okay i did this much work this is bad math, but it has helped me enjoy my life more and be better at stuff outside of my work. Yeah.

Seth Meyers said, when it was in the Saturday Night Live, we were talking one night, like on a Sunday. We talked about, he'd had a good show and he was like, you can't bank good times.

You can't really bank a good show right you can't it lasts 48 hours and then and then it and then it sort of dissolves especially stand up unless you put out a special that it can last a bit longer yeah like 10 days yeah uh it goes away so quickly yeah um now more than ever yeah so yeah i mean okay so then the prioritizing different stuff and i guess you can't make it mean something to you you can't you can't be like you you fucking you're a good husband and that's meaningful you hear that i don't know i think you can get i think you can use the feeling to try and rewire some of the math in your head i think you can i think you can use the feeling to try and rewire some of the math in your head. I think you can.

I think you can say, but you have to talk yourself into it. And you do have to talk to yourself about it. So you go, okay, something shit. I did the dishes. I made my house a little bit cleaner. That's good. Good for me for doing that. That's going to make me a little more comfortable.

That's going to make Emily a little bit more comfortable. And that's good. That was a worthy way to spend your time. Because when I was so into my career, I did nothing around the house because it meant nothing to me. Before I met Emily, I lived in squalor. I lived like, you know, assassin style mattress on the floor, like just my clothes weren't hung up. It was a fucking mess. I'm realizing that all this other stuff makes my life better and being intentionally, you know, thoughtful about that. I think you can, you know, I'm a, I'm a better husband. I did something nice for Emily that makes me happy. That makes my life better because she's happy. I think you can. I think you can reprioritize it like that,

but it takes effort and it's constant. You're never done. You're just. And you have to hope it manifests in you. Do you know what I mean? Like you have to hope that it, you do it and it actually means something to you and not a, not a neurotic way.

Not like you have to force yourself to be like, no, that was meaningful. It actually like in your, it like comes down i think i mean your stomach i gotta think the way that i talk shitty to myself goes into my stomach i the power of that is so evident to me that the flip side of that i have to believe is just as powerful because if talking to myself shitty makes me feel shitty talking to myself good should make me feel good i agree did have you had a thing with your parents ever yes

i swear the answer is yes where i remember that's something you were talking the the sort of um denial of self and the denial fun until you achieve and then you can have some fun. I remember hearing when, this is probably 25 years ago or something, my dad said, oh I'm going, or I heard my dad was going on a bike trip to France. And my first thought was, since when are we allowed to take bike trips? Have you had a thing where your parents do something and you're like, wait, that's not, we don't do that that's not allowed yeah like what are you doing well the good thing about my parents has been i have always understood that the way i approach it is ultimately

um not making me ultimately happy i've always understood that this ambition, desire, all this stuff for standup, I've always understood what it was, what's taking from me. My parents have always been very good about having a good time. So I don't know where I get this from. But since we were kids, you know,

my parents, we would travel all the time. Like we would fly to different countries in asia and stuff and we'd go out to dinner a lot my parents leave the country and travel they live in new jersey twice a year twice a year they were just in thailand they're about to you know they just they travel all the time they have a great time my dad is a workaholic but then when and i think that that was an issue for him at some points in his life. But he's very good at being like, let's just go do this fun thing. So it hasn't really – I've always understood that that's what they're like, that that's what they do, and that I can't quite bring myself to do that all the time.

I find it hard to – like for years's the hardest thing in the world was vacation. You know, I could only do it right after I finished a big job. Cause like Seth was saying, you know, good set last 48 hours. You do like, you work on something for four months,

you get like two weeks from that. Yep. And you're like, I gotta hit the, you know, I gotta hit the beach in those two weeks. Cause otherwise I'm going to feel like awful about myself. But they they haven't been like that they've always been able to do that so yeah i guess i guess we got it from religion or or just the

what you know don't look back they're gaining on you type shit yeah the pettiness now you know i i i what i have done i think i've yeah yeah what the hell uh do you feel good about your your uh the way you look now no it's always it's always a problem it's it's always gotten a little bit better at it just in the last few months. It really takes up a lot of my brain space. What I'm eating, what I'm not eating. Oh, I ate something bad. The guilt of eating something bad for you has been with me since I can remember.

Like 12, you know. I've had that forever. And so the last few months, for years I tracked every single thing I ate on an app. Before you were fit? No, starting then. So it's been now, I would say that started in like 2018, 2019.

So about four years. And it's only earlier this year that I stopped doing that. I did that for like three and a half years. Every single thing I ate, if I ate a grape, I put it in there. If I ate an almond, I put it in there. Like truly being completely subservient to this app. Years, every single thing. And then I stopped doing it earlier this year. And it's freed me up quite a bit it's great but still you know I have that thing

like if I go out for a meal I have a big meal I weigh myself every single day and I've done that for years I would never do that you do it? yeah yeah

yeah cause I well I do it cause I wanna know if I can eat garbage that day I have my own you got your own yeah like I have my own system Yeah, because I, well, I do it because I want to know if I can eat garbage that day. I have my own, I'll like. You got your own. Yeah, like I have my own system, but like I can eat garbage today. Yeah.

It's pretty cool. Yeah. Pretty exciting. This is the number, I'm below the number. I'm below the number that allows me to eat garbage. Yeah. Yeah. Oh no.

Oh shit. I ate the garbage and I can see it. Yeah. Let's wait. Yeah, that's kind of how I do it. Get under the number and then we can eat the garbage and i could see it yeah let's wait that's kind of how i do it get under the number and then we can eat the garbage yeah marin called me on and it was hilarious how do you know he saw me pulling my love handles on stage and i didn't even know i was doing it i do that yeah you don't have love handles but i do have dysmorphia sure yeah and isn't that isn't that what it's all about?

Yeah, I guess it is. I would have love handles if I didn't keep it below the garbage line. Well, I have a system over here. I know, just that number on the scale

has so much power over us. Like, every day, constantly. it's our rate, it's our worth. It's part of it, for sure. For sure i i had to like gain

weight for this for the chippendale show i gained 25 pounds and it was really interesting in some ways it broke me out of it because i had to go well above the garbage number like well above it and it did sort of help me shed some like things that were holding me. You went well above the garbage number, but you were still a good boy because you were supposed to, right? You were supposed to gain the weight. Oh, of course. Oh, of course. But it broke me. You never gain weight for fun.

You never eat for pleasure. I mean, only if I'm well below the garbage line. Sure, sure. Then it's a blast. And if I've had a good show the day before. And nomination comes in? Yeah, here we go. Let's eat some cheesecake.

Yeah, okay. So that broke you out of it. And you feel slightly less tethered to the diet and amounts. Weighing? Did you ever weigh the food? I never did that. I never weighed the food. Okay.

I eyeballed it. There's some things we won't do. And weighing food is one of them, guys. It's just, you know, you look up things of what eating disorders, you know, the signs and one of them is weighing. And I'm like, oh, I don't weigh my food. So I don't have an eating disorder. Oh, great.

Great, great, great. I'm totally fine. I would say it's 30 to 40 percent better than it was same time last year right which is quite a bit better yeah a year and a half ago yeah because i did the show last year you know you may not believe this we're both gonna die yeah and no one is going to give a flying fuck about either one of us. I. In, in, within, I mean, name the time frame.

Yeah. It's gone. Even your family. One generation. It's a, there you go. I think he was like in showbiz. Yeah. That's what it'll be.

I didn't emotionally understand I was going to die until very recently I never thought about my own death until two months ago and it was the first time that it truly it hit me and it's like it's been a big thing it's been a wild ride

how did you come to realize it my cat got sick she's okay but you know uh she's 14 about to turn 15 and just she got sick and um and i and i turned 45 uh right around the same time and you know you're you're like you didn't want her to get any attention. You were like, you know what? It's my birthday. I'm sorry about your heart, honey. But big boys, 45. I was like, okay,

now, most likely, I've lived, I've spent more time here than I have left because I know most people don't make it to 90. Yeah.

So, you know, when you're in the 80s, you're like, 80 is the normal time to die. I hadn't done the math. 45, 90, most likely I've got less time left than I've lived here. And also, so hack, 0 to 20 was so slow. 20 to 40 was way fast.

I think these next 15 are going to be the fastest yet. I think these next 15 are going to be the fastest yet. So suddenly I'm now aware of like, oh, I felt I understood physically I'm on the way down. You know, hair starts growing and things start clicking and popping and all that. But now I'm like, okay, wow. This is, it's like slowly time to wrap it up. Not time to wrap it up, but on the way there. You can see the curvature can see the curvature yeah totally i can see the curvature i can see the way down yeah okay there it is and you know you're like every old person was once young obviously you intellectually know that

but when they you know when i think about stuff i did when i was 10 or 12. It's so long ago. Yeah. Just in sheer number of like objective time. Yeah. It was so long ago. I think it's good in terms of perspective. I think it's good for, especially the sort of portfolio of neuroses we share. I think it's good for like, oh, right, no one's going to care.

And it's a thing I said to Braviglia, who had a better life? William shakespeare who did everything he did if his mood was a 4.5 out of 10 uh and then there's a guy craig shakespeare who didn't do jack shit whose mood is a 8 out of 10 who had a better life well i i can't think like i can't think as me that i would rather be craig shakespeare i can't think what about mood wise sure but i i really just when you said nobody's going to remember us it really hit me like in a bad way like i was like i can't think like that yeah like it's too because it's like what's the fucking point if people are gonna forget you when you die which i know intellectually is true i completely understand conan says this all the time too

like no one's gonna remember me when i'm gone and conan's done so much it ultimately doesn't matter but but i have to think it matters. Otherwise, what's the goddamn point, man? Enjoy it for you is the point. Okay. That seems... All right, I'll let you... Yeah, okay, done. I'll do that.

Good call, dude. But otherwise, you're going to be tethered to... I know. You're going to be a hungry... You're going to be going out and auditioning at 67 and sitting in waiting rooms and shit and shit that's like i know ignominious that's a good word emily and i talk about she's like you know i could just retire and go into the woods and she's like isn't that gonna be great when we just like stop everything and just go and live somewhere and i'm like i can't wait and in my head i'm like i i don't

how do i yeah i don't think i could do that like people and i it sounds so condescending but you know people can do it people really really can and really enjoy life i don't envy it interesting you don't envy it i had i remember years and years and years ago this girl i was dating before emily we got into an argument she was like i would be thrilled to be a cat and i was like what she's like you know i was like but there's so much you're missing she's like i'm not missing it because my brain doesn't know i'm missing it but i'm like but don't you want to be able to like have all this stuff she's's like, no, I'm a cat. My cat's so happy.

And I still feel like that. I'm not comparing those people to cats. I'm just saying, I'm just saying I want to, I don't want to lose the ambition and all this stuff. Well, it's the upside of it is gave us identity worth a lot it's given it's it's a big but it's at a certain point you have to transition from fossil fuels it is guilt and pettiness and hunger for self-worth all this stuff i very much have understood for many years that my i have a negative engine i don't want to i appreciate you acknowledging it and and being embarrassed by it oh yeah and and secretly loving it and or appreciating it it has been good to me it has also been bad to me but i i know that my

ambition my desire isn't oh i want to make something great and make people's lives better i want to make something great and be like i made something great you want to make something great it's not you're not here for we didn't do this camille did this yeah you watched it yeah well again i don't and i but i don't when i watch an artist i love i don't go oh we made the godfather no they made it yeah you did an amazing job yeah fucking thank you for making that it's i i ripped you off i only gave you ten thank you for making that it's i i ripped you off i only gave you ten dollars for this yeah for the god sometimes i rip you you know sometimes i get ripped off oh sometimes i rip people off like all the time it's but but the this thing of we made

it's like no the you they tried really hard and they were weird and they were ambitious and they did it there are just some people who are very very good at what they do you know and they were ambitious and they did it. There are just some people who are very, very good at what they do. And they're good every fucking time. And it's a little bit infuriating. And some people just have that and I don't think I do. And I think that's why I have to work hard to fool people into thinking I do. Or just work hard enough to get to the point where I can do it. It just takes me a long time to... I had a thing on my wall at one point that said,

your talent is talent and hard work. Yeah. Like, my talent's talent and hard work. That's it. No, of course. Like, there is something natural, you know? We're both funny people. I've seen people who just got the hard work and with comedy, it's not enough.

No. It's not going to be enough. You see, you know, even people who are successful, who work really hard, who are pretty successful. I see it. I'm like, you don't have that in your bones. You don't got that thing. But, you know. Okay.

It is hard work. got that thing but you know um okay hard work what have you done that's made that's gotten you you've you've you've improved your life or what have you done mental health wise it's been bad we've talked about a lot of it but i think i love that thing with with revealing three things the three vulnerable things i would say of the last few years, that has been the biggest thing for us as a relationship for her, but really for me, I have this feeling a lot where I feel like I'm in the bottom of the well, I feel like I'm at a bottom of a well, and it feels very alone. And it's just, and I can be surrounded by people. I'm with Emily. It's the feeling of being worried about something or

scared of something or whatever it is and just thinking about it. And it really feels like the walls are closing in. And the only thing that lets me get out of it is telling someone about it and talking about it. It really, really works. And I can feel physically, I can feel it lifting off me. I know people are like, you know, the weight off your shoulders, that thing. It's truly the first time that I've really understood how profound that very simple phrase we've heard a million times is. It really, I feel lighter. I breathe different. Just like whatever thoughts you're having, whatever bad thing is, saying it out loud has been the thing that really, really helps. And then we have every week we do like we go out together one-on-one,

just us, you know, date night. We do that every week. And we do it many times more than one week. This happened when we were out of town a few years ago for work. We didn't know anyone and we'd just have time off. We'd go out to dinner and we were like, we never do this in LA. Doing that all the time has been great. We'll go to like, you know, it's great.

We can go to really nice restaurants and do that. Have like a long meal just the two of us. That's been fantastic and it's my favorite thing to do in the world. Sit with your wife and eat dinner? That's pretty great. If that's your favorite thing in the world, it's a great thing to have it be your favorite thing. We're going somewhere Saturday.

It's now five days away. I cannot wait to get there. It's the most exciting thing. That's awesome. Movie of your life you've made one ish and

so the movie of your life what's the arc who plays you wow what's the arc I think the arc is someone learning that they're enough

I think it's gonna end learning that they're enough. I think it's gonna end up there. That you just being you is enough. I don't think I'm gonna get there, man. But you make a movie of my life, that's the happy ending you give it. Feel like you being you is enough. And starting off with someone who really needs to you know do something this is

a question that i wish i'd asked earlier but do you think that was in you from the beginning or it was sort of um the world put it in you since i can remember i've had it yeah i don't remember being you know a real laid-back 10 year old i've always been there i mean i studied more than anybody i knew i studied all day every day um to be number one to be number one yeah so it's always been there i don't know you'll be great if that kid died and then you were finally like you know what i'm number one yeah that's when you finally realize you read his obituary that's the last thing that he was somewhere else because i was like oh this is cheating but if he's dead it's not cheating then i really am number one yeah

that's what i'm saying you read the last scene as you read his obituary that's the that's the arc yeah and you got number one credits who would play play me though? I don't know. I mean, can I, I'll be casting. Blue Sky. I played myself once before. I'll do it again. Yeah, of course. I don't think you'd have it any other way.

No, I would totally be myself. Just because I can, so I can have one moment where I feel like I'm enough. Because I'll have to be a good, I care too much about acting to not be good in that scene. And when I shoot the scene where I feel like I'm enough, it's the only time in my life I'll feel like I'm enough. You finally nailed Kumail. I finally nailed him. Yeah, and then for two days after, I'll be able to play video games and eat whatever I wanted.

What a life. Kumail Nanjiani, everybody. Go see his things and download them and watch them and enjoy it and thank him for his vulnerability. All you have to do is open, open up your hand My man I met her when she was 19 years old