Interview with Indian American stand-up comedian.
By Asif Ismail
WASHINGTON, DC: Silicon Valley, not stand-up comedy, was the first love of Dan Nainan. He worked for Intel Corp., first in Santa Clara and then in New York, for several years before becoming a full-time stand-up comedian in 2007.
Born in Bloomington, Indiana, to a Japanese child psychologist mother and an Indian nuclear physicist father — President Obama once called him “The world’s only Indian-Japanese comedian” — Nainan grew up in the Washington, DC, suburbs. In the early years, one of his mentors in the profession was Indo-Canadian stand-up comedian Russell Peters.
The 33-year-old, who calls himself a “100 percent clean” comedian, spoke to The American Bazaar recently. Here are edited excerpts:
In many ways, stand-up comedy is very un-Indian. How do you feel as a Desi stand-up comedian?
It’s really surprising to me that we can make a living. We’re just standing up and taking and regurgitating things that we think about… and they pay you for this! I’m shocked that you can get paid. And it’s a fun thing — it’s not like you have to go to an office. So, I feel extraordinarily lucky. I’m also fortunate because Russell Peters kind of started this whole thing — this whole Indian comedy thing. He’s also started comedy in many other countries around the world that didn’t have it. I feel fortunate this is happening at this time. It could have happened 30 years ago, or 30 years from now, but I’m glad it’s happening now.
Your inspiration is Russell Peters?
Oh, absolutely. He blazed a trail for all of us. I’ve done [shows in] 21 countries, like Dubai, Singapore, Malaysia, and it’s all because of him. He started it, so absolutely. I toured with him for two years. He started off small, just like anything else. He started off telling jokes at the small clubs and it’s turned into this empire. Thirty million dollars a year now — that’s what he’s making!
As far as American stand-ups, who have influenced you?
Oh, definitely Jerry Seinfeld. Jerry Seinfeld because he’s all clean — he’s not into self-destruction with drugs and alcohol, and so many people are into this — destroying themselves. But he wakes up early, he gets to bed early and people would be shocked because he would show up at the club at noon, while most of these comedians are still asleep until the afternoon.
You make fun of the Indian American culture, gods, ‘uncles’ and ‘aunties.’ Initially, did you find any resistance from the Indian American community?
No, I don’t think so. Because Russell had already started that, the barrier had already been lowered. Again, by him doing this, it was almost like everything was already done and there was no need to do anything because he already had. It’s like you walk into the snow and it’s very deep, but someone has already paved the way through, so you can just walk through the footsteps.
Well, the key is when you’re doing this you want to be irreverent and funny but you don’t want to be anything that offends the audience, and so many comedians do that. Now, I’ve done some jokes about vegetarianism, and someone came up to me and said, “I’m very offended by that.” So I took that out of my show. I don’t do it anymore. And I think that many people say, “Oh, I’m an artist, you can’t tell me what to do.” But I think that works against them. Although I have to tell you, I did a show for 6,000 Pakistani doctors. And this one Indian lady comes up, and she says, “You know there are Indian people here, too!” She was offended because I make fun of Indians, but these are the same jokes I do for Indian people.
How do you come up with your material?
Some comedians will sit at a computer and say, “I have to come up with jokes right now. But with me and some other comedians, it might happen when we walk down the street, or you might say something while we’re talking, and I’ll go, “That’s actually funny, maybe I should write that down.” And later it’ll be a joke. Or a great place is when you’re out with your friends for dinner. And you’ve got a crowd of ten people laughing and laughing, and people start saying funny things. And if you write them down, you can turn them into a joke. Or you might just read something. Like there was a guy who was on a hunger strike for thirty years. Wouldn’t he be dead after two weeks? Simple things like that.
How much of your material is understood by the so-called mainstream America?
Well, that’s a challenge that’s key. You always want to make sure your audience can relate to the material. People can’t laugh at something if they don’t know what you’re talking about. For example, if I do cricket jokes, then the Indian crowd will understand that. But if I do cricket jokes in front of a mainstream American audience, they won’t understand that. I could talk about American football. With an Indian crowd I could say, “There’s a cricket team on which everyone’s named Patel.” I can relay that to Americans by saying, imagine if there were an NFL team in which everyone was named Patel.” You know, the quarterback is named Patel and he throws to the receiver named Patel and the tackle’s named Patel and you know. You have to make sure your audience understands, so if I do an all white audience I’m not going to do jokes about Malayaees, because they won’t understand. But I love the Indian audiences—95 percent of my shows are Indian audiences and they will understand all the jokes about Malayalees being dark and Gujjus are cheap and… [chuckles]. They understand all that.
Have you ever been accused of stereotyping?
Oh, yeah. That’s most of my act.
Comes with the territory, right?
Yeah, and Russell started that. I think that Indians are so great at laughing at themselves and not uptight. The Indian audiences — they all understand English, which is great, all educated, and they’re all smart, they’ll understand my jokes, and they love to laugh at themselves. I’ve done some shows where I do Indian jokes for white people and they offended, like, “This is racist.” But then I do the same jokes for Indian people and they love it. I’m trying to do less of the ethnic stuff and do more mainstream stuff when possible — I’m trying to do more of that. The key is getting booked, and I’m booked left and right. My calendar is insane.
How many shows have you done this year?
Eighty to a hundred. And this year I’ve been all over the world with this.
You started your career with Intel. And then you made a career switch from the IT industry to stand-up comedy. Wasn’t that pretty risky, from a financial standpoint?
It was, but I wasn’t your typical starving artist, because I’d been with Intel for five years so I had some stock options, so I had a nest egg to start with. So it’s not like I went in with no money. I think the idea of approaching an artistic career with no money in your pocket is a bad idea. And I think for anything, whether it’s being a dancer, or a musician or a filmmaker, or an author, I think if you have nothing and you try to do art that way… you have to make a living. I have so many young people come up to me and go, “I want to be a comedian or musician but my parents want me to be a doctor or an engineer or something. And I say, “You can do both. You have to have a day job — it’s very important — I agree with the parents there. But, you can do this art thing at night. Write poems or songs or jokes at night when everyone else is watching TV and on the weekends when everyone else is partying. You have to work on something like this for years in order to make money. You can’t start making money right away.
What percentage of your jokes is Indian?
It depends. If it’s an Indian crowd, then it’ll be more Indian jokes but if it’s a regular, mainstream white crowd, then very little. If it’s a mainstream crowd I do mainstream jokes. If you can do non-topical, non-regional, clean jokes, you can work anywhere, which is great. A lot of comedians don’t understand that.
Do you watch any late night comedies?
I have to admit something to you which is very hard to admit, I don’t watch any television.
Not even on the internet?
Nope. No time, no interest. People are always telling me you have to watch television in order to be successful, and that is not true. People who watch a lot of television tell me you have to watch television to be successful in showbiz. And they’re watching TV and doing nothing. And I feel successful making a living in show business and I don’t watch any. Many of the famous people I’ve met, even famous TV stars, they say they don’t watch television — they don’t have time.
There has been a spectacular rise in the Indian American population, especially in the 1990s and 2000s, so is Indian culture more mainstream now?
It’s incredible what’s happening. There’s a change happening before us and it’s not very obvious but it’s incredible to me what’s going on. There’s Russell Peters, Dev Patel, who I did a movie with — I had a very small role, Aziz Ansari, Kunal Nayyar on Big Bang Theory… when you see what’s going on in the South Asian community, it’s on fire. It’s very hip to be Indian. Girls like Indian guys now! Who would have ever thought? And every time I go to meet agents for commercials they say, we’re really desperate for Indian actors. When I did this movie with Dev Patel and Aasif Mandvi, they were filming…The Last Airbender in Philadelphia. They needed for the “Fire Nation” three or four hundred Indian actors. And they couldn’t find them, because how are you going to find four hundred unemployed Indian men in Philadelphia? You can’t! I mean, there’s no such thing as an unemployed Indian guy. When did you ever see an Indian homeless guy? I mean, in America, of course there are millions in India, but here? Again, it’s an emphasis on education, family, and a lot of talent.
What inspired you to become a stand-up? Was it watching Russell Peters?
Okay, I didn’t know about him when I started. My job at Intel was to speak on stage with the senior executives all over the world. So they would bring me up to do a technical demonstration. I’d do events in Thailand, the south of France, Australia, whatever. My job was to design the demos in the lab, ship them, stream on stage — wonderful. The only problem was that I was terribly, terribly nervous about speaking in front of thousands of people. So I thought, I have to do something to get over this fear, so I took a comedy class, and I thought if I can do comedy — because not only do you have to speak, you have to make people laugh — then a business presentation would be the easiest thing in the world, and that’s exactly what happened. But what I did not anticipate, and I was going to have to have some tremendous beginner’s luck at comedy, which convinced me that the right move was to leave and to do comedy. There was a tremendous risk and everyone said I was crazy; I thought I was crazy, but it turned out to be the right move.
You have made brief forays into the movies, too…
I’ve done some very small stuff, but the big money is in commercials. I did one commercial for Apple with the two guys — I’m a Mac, I’m a PC — and not only do you get paid for the day, and the work, every time it shows you get money residually. I’ve done eight commercials this year for VMware.
Let’s talk about the state of Desi comedy and your colleagues in the business. Russell of course, you have a lot of respect for.
Yeah. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have this career.
What about the other big names?
I’d say Russell and Aziz [Ansari] are in the same league, because they can sell out whole arenas. Aasif not so much, but he’s more in television and movies, Aziz in TV comedies — everyone has a niche. And that’s what so great, you can find your niche. But all these people are far above me in terms of name recognition. But I kind of enjoy it. These people would be mobbed on the street and they don’t have any privacy. Like Kunal told me that every day twenty four hours a day there are people hanging out at the bottom of his driveway. The paparazzi, the photographers. And he makes $600,000 an episode now, Aziz is also up there. I don’t know if Aasif gets mobbed as much. I’d like to be more famous but at the same time not be very famous.
You are pitching a reality show now…
It’s something that we’re still talking about. Reality shows are becoming very popular and of course, networks love them because they don’t have to pay big stars big money, at least in the beginning. So I’m trying to pitch one, but everyone is. I’m trying to show people what I do for a living and where I travel and all the people I know, like Obama or whatever. But there’re no guarantees; you never know. The resume for a reality show is a sizzle reel — they want a three minute video showing what it is the show is going to be. So it’s a challenge, but I am going out to Los Angeles to meet with a very big manager after I get back from India, and he says you can go as far as you want, just let me know what you want to do I can help make it happen. I’ve not had a manager until now, so if he manages me we’ll see. I mean, everyone in LA and Hollywood has a big project going — the next big thing — it’s like gambling with dice. The key is to be happy every day while you’re doing it. Some people say I’ll only be happy when I get to this level, or I’ll only be happy when I get to this level, here. The key is to be happy wherever you are and that’ll make life a lot better.
1 Comment
Dan Nainan lies about his age. “Millenial” he is not; Nainan is 55. You got punked.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/05/the-media-s-favorite-millennial-is-a-55-year-old-comedian.html