Kumail Nanjiani Biography

Kumail Nanjiani is a Pakistani-American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and podcast host who is best known for his HBO comedy television series ‘Silicon Valley’ and the semi-autobiographical romantic comedy film ‘The Big Sick’. He also lent his voice to the Emmy Award-winning animated series ‘Adventure Time’ and co-hosted the Comedy Central show ‘The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail’. He gained much popularity thanks to his weekly podcast 'The X-Files Files'. His initial comedy was observational, rather than personal; however, he soon realized that he was avoiding a large part of who he was. With this realization, he decided to write a very personal story, which eventually resulted in his one-man show, ‘Unpronounceable’, that catapulted him to success. His later comic performances touched on his upbringing in Pakistan and the eventual culture shock he had to go through after relocating to the US. Realizing how Muslims are often perceived as fanatics, he makes conscious efforts to talk freely about his secular views on religion, and also does not shy away from talking about sexuality, which is usually considered a taboo in most Islamic countries.