Catch Kumail Nanjiani In 3-D!

By Kristy Mangel in Arts & Entertainment on Aug 26, 2010 3:20PM

Kumail Nanjiani | Photo by David Angelo

CHICAGOIST: So, Franklin & Nash, huh? Congratulations again! What’s the show going to be about, who are you going to play, and have you started filming? How’d you land that, anyway?

Kumail: Ummmm, actually, it’s Franklin and Bash. With a B. I can't believe you would get such an intuitive title wrong. I mean, all it is is names of two people you haven't heard of. Do you ever get the movie title, Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, wrong? No. No you don't. (That, BTW, is my favorite movie title of all time. It has everything. Two people we don’t know, a random word that has nothing to do with the movie, and a colon.)

The show is about a lawyer firm. I play a genius lawyer who is also a germophobe and has that thing where you can't leave the house. Xenophobia? No that's when you hate aliens or something. Whatever that thing is, I have it.

I got the part through the normal audition process, went through three rounds of auditions. One of the creators had seen Michael and Michael Have Issues ("So you were the one," etc.) and knew me from there.

C: 3-D is becoming the almost de facto movie release standard these days, it seems. Do you think live performance will have a corresponding “format” in the years ahead?

Kumail: I think stand-up will start incorporating time travel. It will have a steep learning curve at first, due to the following challenges:

1. Comics may get confused and end up doing callbacks before they actually do the joke they are referencing. These will be coined "callforwards."

2. It’s very distracting to set up a joke while covered in the blood of baby Hitler.

C: What does a typical day of food look like for you? I’ve been thinking a lot about food lately, specifically about how tiring it is to always have to figure it out. Like, at least three times every day.

Kumail: How much better would it be if we were still attached to our mothers via umbilical cords? "I'll have what she's having." But then I guess you'd have to convince your mom to eat whatever it is you really wanna eat. "Mom, I hear their burritos are good." But then she wants to get the salad. Ugh... salad.

L.A. has great Mexican food. Oh, and there's this thing now where they put Korean food into tacos. It is so incredibly delicious.

C: You recently moved to L.A. How much more do you love it in comparison to where you were last at, i.e. Brooklyn, and how much less do you love it than Chicago? How long did you live in Chicago, again? I want to say six years. Am I pretty close? Wait. I think it was three.

Kumail: I was in Chicago for six years. I miss it every day. I miss Potbelly and everything else. It’s got its own thing going. You could walk down any street in Chicago and know exactly which town you are in.

L.A. is great, and has perfect weather every day. Like, every single day is 75 degrees. The trade-off is that you have to drive everywhere, and everybody wants to be famous. The guy making my coffee right now? He really wants to be famous. But then I wanna be famous too, so I don't really get to talk.

NY is amazing, but the default setting is that everybody hates you. On the street, on the train, in the grocery store, everybody hates you. They decided that as a city a while ago ("Our thing should be that everybody hates everybody!") and then it was put to a vote, and the decision was made, asshole. But I love NY intensely. It’s extremely exciting and it made me a better comedian and a more interesting person. It really did.

C: So, this is basically the last time we are ever going to see you perform in Chicago again? That’s the feeling I’m getting from the stuff I’m reading about the upcoming Hideout show. Say it ain’t so?

Kumail: Yeah, this is my farewell tour. So I do every city once and then I quit stand-up and go back to Med school, which is misleading since I have never been to Med school in the first place. But, hey, with time travel in stand-up, maybe you'll see me again in the past? So look forward (backward?) to that. Yes, look backward to that.

C: How’s Emily doing?

Kumail: She is great and wonderful!

See Kumail Nanjiani at the Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, Sunday, August 29, 7 p.m. or 9:30 p.m., $12. Also performing will be Chicago expat and staff writer for Tosh.0 Joselyn Hughes, and Chicago comics Adam Burke and Beth Stelling, both recently featured in the Just for Laughs Chicago Comedy Festival 2010. Tickets are going quickly; visit here to purchase.