Speaker 1: Pushkin, it is intoxicating. You open up your phone and
Speaker 1: it's like, quote tweet this guy's awesome. Quote tweet, this
Speaker 1: is awesome. Quote tweet this is awesome. Everybody that you respect,
Speaker 1: admire can participate in lifting you up and saying you're awesome.
Speaker 1: Hussan Minhaj was hearing a lot of positive feedback after
Speaker 1: one of his comedy routines went viral a few years back.
Speaker 1: You may know Hussan from The Daily Show or his
Speaker 1: Netflix series Patriot Act. At the time, Hussan relished his
Speaker 1: increasing popularity, but in our conversation, he revealed a desire
Speaker 1: to move beyond a career that's so dependent on whether
Speaker 1: or not people like him. Do you like me? How
Speaker 1: many millions of people like me? So I can hopefully
Speaker 1: continue doing this? Man, I don't want to participate on
Speaker 1: today's episode. What happens when our self worth and livelihood
Speaker 1: rely on how much people like us? I'm maya Shunker
Speaker 1: and this is a slight change of plans, A show
Speaker 1: about who we are and who we become in the
Speaker 1: face of a big change. Husson's brand of comedy is
Speaker 1: overtly political and often provocative. In his Netflix show Patriot Act.
Speaker 1: He took on powerful world leaders like the Saudi crown
Speaker 1: Prince and the President of China. You might also remember
Speaker 1: his speech at the White House Correspondence dinner back in
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen when Trump was president. The leader of our
Speaker 1: country is not here, and that's because he lives in Moscow.
Speaker 1: It is a very long flight. It'd be hard for
Speaker 1: Glad to make it. Glad can't just make it on
Speaker 1: a Saturday. It's a Saturday. As for the other guy,
Speaker 1: I think he's in Pennsylvania because he can't take a joke.
Speaker 1: Hussan was initially drawn to comedy because it allowed him
Speaker 1: to hold people in power accountable. He's always liked playing
Speaker 1: the role of Jester and identity he talks about in
Speaker 1: his Netflix special The King's Jester. It's a role Hussan
Speaker 1: began playing back when he was in elementary school. Comedians
Speaker 1: sometimes identify and they see the world as this thing
Speaker 1: where there's people in the front of the class and
Speaker 1: then there's people in the back of the class, and
Speaker 1: there is a divide between those people. So they're kind
Speaker 1: of is the people in the front of the class
Speaker 1: that uphold the status quo, that are like goody goody
Speaker 1: students type a high achieving whatever the teacher tells me
Speaker 1: to do, that's like the Old Testament, and I take
Speaker 1: it as this is the Holy Scripture life. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a seven year old. Yeah, Jesus, I know. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: As I'm like looking you directly in the eye, I'm like,
Speaker 1: there's there's a particular type of person that's yeah, person
Speaker 1: who I don't know makes up extra credit projects when
Speaker 1: they don't even exist. Yeah. And then there's people in
Speaker 1: the back of the room that's like, this is kind
Speaker 1: of insane. They kind of understand the cosmic joke, so
Speaker 1: to speak. Missus Ladington does not have all the answers.
Speaker 1: Mister DeMarco, the gym teacher does not have all the answers,
Speaker 1: and for him or her to be decreeing this to
Speaker 1: us is absolutely ridiculous. So they're you know, shooting spitballs
Speaker 1: from the back of the class. And I definitely felt
Speaker 1: growing up that I was outside of the core group
Speaker 1: of thirty kids and I'm observing this thing. So there
Speaker 1: was this feeling where I always felt like I was
Speaker 1: the DVD commentary to the story that was happening in
Speaker 1: real time. Where I'm like, WHOA, that's kind of weird
Speaker 1: that Andrew does this and Brittany does this, and I
Speaker 1: was able to kind of piece those things together in
Speaker 1: those moments where I would sometimes be a smart alec
Speaker 1: in class or growing up, it felt like all the
Speaker 1: code lined up in that moment, the tetris of my
Speaker 1: comedy logic lined up perfectly, and just for a moment,
Speaker 1: I kind of felt a sense of agency. Is there
Speaker 1: a memory you have of a time when you felt like, oh,
Speaker 1: I got a knack for this, like I'm pretty talented
Speaker 1: at it. I was in the third grade in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety three. I'll never forget this. Miss Anderson was my
Speaker 1: teacher of the third fourth grade combo. She loved diet pepsi.
Speaker 1: This was during an era in the nineties where like
Speaker 1: a lot of adults would just not drink water, but
Speaker 1: they would pound eighty plus ounces of these big gulp
Speaker 1: diets because we were told there's no consequences, just like water.
Speaker 1: It's just like water. Who needs water? But kids couldn't
Speaker 1: drink it. This was also during an era where kids
Speaker 1: could not have soda pop right. It was a bad thing.
Speaker 1: And I remember she would sometimes have a case, like
Speaker 1: a twelve pack case on her desk, and I would
Speaker 1: just observe her being yo. She is shotgunning diet pepsi
Speaker 1: throughout the day and nobody seems to think this is weird.
Speaker 1: And I remember one day I go, Miss Anderson, can
Speaker 1: I get a diet pepsi? And she's like, kids can't
Speaker 1: drink soda? Pop I go, okay, Miss Anderson. And then
Speaker 1: my dad loved watching sixty Minutes, and I remember there
Speaker 1: was this big investigative report on sixty Minutes about how
Speaker 1: diet soda causes cancer and I go, oh my god,
Speaker 1: she's like shotgunning, you know, cancer juice. And I remember
Speaker 1: the next day I went in to class and I go, hey,
Speaker 1: miss Anderson, can I get a diet pepsi? And she goes, hassen,
Speaker 1: children cannot drink soda. And I go, you're right, miss Anderson.
Speaker 1: Only adults should get cancer. And I got I got
Speaker 1: in such big trouble. She like wrote it down and
Speaker 1: I got a pink slip and it was a whole thing.
Speaker 1: Did the other kids in class laugh when you said that? No,
Speaker 1: they didn't laugh because they didn't know understand that's right.
Speaker 1: At I had seen the report, but you felt this
Speaker 1: is interesting, right, because you did not get any social
Speaker 1: validation in that moment that you were funny. But I
Speaker 1: had asked you tell me about the time you realize
Speaker 1: that you're funny, and you're naming this moment, which means
Speaker 1: there was some confidence there that you knew you had
Speaker 1: landed this joke, that it was objectively funny, very funny.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this too, where there's kind of
Speaker 1: this duality that I think comedians inhabit, where on one hand,
Speaker 1: you're like, I'm the shit, I deserve to be on
Speaker 1: stage and people should listen to what I have to say.
Speaker 1: My opinions are probably the most important in this entire room.
Speaker 1: But there's also this extreme lack of self confidence of like,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty worthless, I'm not shit, And it's that duality.
Speaker 1: It's the arrogance and this complete lack of any self
Speaker 1: esteem that you vacillate between that kind of allows you
Speaker 1: to be a comedian, because I think our hippocratic oath
Speaker 1: for comics is I ain't shit, and neither are you.
Speaker 1: So you have to start by interrogating yourself, and then
Speaker 1: that gives you license to be able to be like
Speaker 1: and you ain't shit either. So after many years, let's
Speaker 1: fast forward a bit, after many years of hustling, your
Speaker 1: big dreams start coming true. You get a job as
Speaker 1: a correspondent on The Daily Show, which on Stewart, which
Speaker 1: I imagine is just one of those like mind blowing
Speaker 1: moments of like, holy crap, I cannot believe this is
Speaker 1: coming to fruition. Yeah, it was the first time in
Speaker 1: my life I felt like I was chosen and it
Speaker 1: really meant a lot to me. And it felt like
Speaker 1: making an entertainment. It's very competitive and it's not guaranteed,
Speaker 1: and there's so many people that I know that are
Speaker 1: super funny that just never make it and they never
Speaker 1: just get quote unquote chosen. So it was one of
Speaker 1: those things where it felt very validating that, man, this
Speaker 1: thing I devoted my life too. At that point, it
Speaker 1: was ten years, one month in nine days that it
Speaker 1: was for something. And you know, the show's known for
Speaker 1: blending comedy and political activism. Right, I'm wondering if there's
Speaker 1: a memorable segment that you worked on in which you felt,
Speaker 1: maybe for the first time, the power of marrying comedy
Speaker 1: and political activism. Oh yeah, I think It's that perfect
Speaker 1: combination of silly and sincere. That's the perfect combo for me.
Speaker 1: So I remember I was at the Daily Show and
Speaker 1: it was during the twenty sixteen election. That was one
Speaker 1: of my favorite pieces. And what's great about the Daily
Speaker 1: Shows you get to do it live from the conventions.
Speaker 1: And at that time, this was right, you know, peque
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, Mexicans are rapists, Muslim band moment, right, And
Speaker 1: so one of the things that you get to do
Speaker 1: what the convention is you get to meet delegates from
Speaker 1: every state they're walking around. And so the segment I
Speaker 1: pitched was called Hustan's Farewell Tour, where I get to
Speaker 1: go up to people and I go, hey, I'm musamanaj
Speaker 1: where are you from? And you know, they go, ah,
Speaker 1: I'm a delegate from Montana. I go, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I've always wanted to go to Montana. What's Montana? Like, Well,
Speaker 1: it's big scott country. We can't wait for you to
Speaker 1: check it out, and I go I can't and they
Speaker 1: go why and I go because the person you're voting
Speaker 1: for it wants to ban me from the country, you know.
Speaker 1: And then it's like, who Husting's farewell to her? And
Speaker 1: it's a montage like that. What's the best thing about
Speaker 1: Wisconsin Green Bay Packers and Georgia we have great whitewater rafting.
Speaker 1: I would love to go whitewater rafting. What's the best
Speaker 1: thing about Oklahoma? Yea, wow, I would love to go there.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you're always welcome to car I would love to
Speaker 1: come down and see a game. Yes, I can't why
Speaker 1: I'm a Muslim. And if Donald Trump is elected, he's
Speaker 1: probably gonna throw me out. As we cut together the package,
Speaker 1: it just got more and more ridiculous and funny. And
Speaker 1: then at the end there was this really nice moment
Speaker 1: where someone was like, he's not going to do that.
Speaker 1: He doesn't mean that, and I go, really, And there'd
Speaker 1: sometimes be these older delegates and then be like I
Speaker 1: would never let that happen. I go why not? And
Speaker 1: they go because you're one of the good ones, And
Speaker 1: I go, you know what, I feel the same way
Speaker 1: about you, and we'd kind of hug and embrace, and
Speaker 1: that to me is like the perfect cocktail. It's just
Speaker 1: the perfect cocktail of comedy and I love it. Some
Speaker 1: people get mad, some people feel righteous indignation. How could
Speaker 1: you say this? I don't care about any of that.
Speaker 1: The incongruity of all of this is fucking hilarious. That's
Speaker 1: what I find so funny. After your time at The
Speaker 1: Daily Show, Yeah, Netflix green lights a show that you've created,
Speaker 1: it's called Patriot Act. Yeah. And I mean, this is
Speaker 1: the first time in your career where you were at
Speaker 1: the helm of a TV series and for your first episode,
Speaker 1: you end up taking on a particularly risky topic, right,
Speaker 1: which is the Saudi crown prince. Yeah. And this is
Speaker 1: following the murder of journalist Jamal Kashogi who has murdered
Speaker 1: of the Saudi consulate in Isthanbul, and the story really
Speaker 1: blows up online, right, And I'm curious if you can
Speaker 1: walk me through the decision making calculus behind all this
Speaker 1: and then we can talk about what happened after. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So at that point in my life, the decision making
Speaker 1: calculus always is chase the truth. And Hindi, there's this
Speaker 1: word called good goody, which means like a tickle in
Speaker 1: your tummy. And there's always whenever I'm writing a joke
Speaker 1: or I'm working on something, there's always this little tickle
Speaker 1: in my tummy of like what if I said this
Speaker 1: kind of like that miss Anderson moment, What if I
Speaker 1: said this in this moment, chasing that because that's a
Speaker 1: little bit out of your comfort zone, you're breaking with
Speaker 1: the status quo is. And the calculus that I had
Speaker 1: was I know that every other show in late night
Speaker 1: right now does not know how to position themselves in
Speaker 1: relation to this subject. Like Stephen Colbert won't have the
Speaker 1: same angle I will be able to have here, and
Speaker 1: he won't be able to talk about being Muslim and
Speaker 1: having that relationship to Saudi Arabia as like an Indian,
Speaker 1: as an American, as a Muslim. He won't be able
Speaker 1: to triangulate that. So that's part of the math for me.
Speaker 1: Just a few months ago, Prom Prince Mohammed bin Salman
Speaker 1: aka MBS was hailed as the reformer the Arab rule needed.
Speaker 1: But the revelations about Kashogi's killing have shattered that image.
Speaker 1: And it blows my mind that it took the killing
Speaker 1: of a Washington Post journalist for everyone to go, oh,
Speaker 1: I guess he's really not a reformer. Meanwhile, every Muslim
Speaker 1: person you know was like, yeah, no shit, he's the
Speaker 1: crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. Well. Netflix under fire today
Speaker 1: after its decision to pull an episode of a comedy
Speaker 1: show that was critical of Crown Prince Mohammed been Salman
Speaker 1: and his alleged role in the killing of journalist Jamaica's Shogi.
Speaker 1: So the episode gets banned in Saudi Arabia. It becomes
Speaker 1: a big international news story about tech platform censorship and
Speaker 1: what you can and can't say. I didn't know I'd
Speaker 1: be at the center of that. Are you talking the
Speaker 1: special about how intoxicating it was? Oh, it feels great
Speaker 1: to get all of this attention right, to be trending
Speaker 1: on Twitter and all the likes, all the comments, all
Speaker 1: the retweets, comments, retweets. Give them to me. Tell me
Speaker 1: more about what that experience was like on a psychological level,
Speaker 1: like being almost confronted with a new tier of attention. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is intoxicating. You feel like you're pretty drunk on it.
Speaker 1: You feel like you're the coolest kid in high school.
Speaker 1: Like everybody's inviting you over to the blue benches and
Speaker 1: they're like, you're bucking awesome, and it feels like you're
Speaker 1: at a slot machine. You open up your phone and
Speaker 1: you just hit refresh and it's like, quote tweet, this
Speaker 1: guy's awesome. Quote tweet this is awesome. Quote tweet this
Speaker 1: is awesome. It's this crazy feeling where pre social media
Speaker 1: you had to do a lot to curry favor and
Speaker 1: validation from people, but this puts that on steroids because
Speaker 1: everyone around the world can participate, pay in lifting you
Speaker 1: up and saying you're awesome. And the sick part of
Speaker 1: it is if you start to understand the rhythm of
Speaker 1: the algorithm, you can kind of break down how it works.
Speaker 1: You say something divisive, irreverent, bold, and you find someone
Speaker 1: a point of your ire and you go, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: going to target in on this person and I'm going
Speaker 1: to upload the video at nine am est. That way,
Speaker 1: everybody gets it burst thing in the fucking morning and
Speaker 1: they pull out their phone and oh you let it
Speaker 1: rip all day long. So you talked about the fact that,
Speaker 1: at some point, working on these Patriot Act episodes, after
Speaker 1: getting recognized as one of times hundred most influential people
Speaker 1: in the world, your wife Beena observes that you seem
Speaker 1: to only care about certain topics when quote the cameras
Speaker 1: are on. Yeah, right. Was that the first time that
Speaker 1: you began noticing just how much you were being driven
Speaker 1: by the attention and recognition, Like was it in that
Speaker 1: moment with your wife? Yeah? You know, Bean has always
Speaker 1: been kind of this jimminy cricket to me because she
Speaker 1: is one of the best people I've ever met in
Speaker 1: my life. And there's a reason why. Like the moment
Speaker 1: I met her, I just remember being like, she's one
Speaker 1: of those people that is a good person, whether or
Speaker 1: not there's social cloud or validation from it. She will
Speaker 1: do the right things privately when she checks me on stuff,
Speaker 1: I really have to reckon with it. I mean, you've
Speaker 1: said that you don't want to be doing the right
Speaker 1: thing for the wrong reasons, right, What are the wrong
Speaker 1: reasons to do something social signaling? You stand with Ukraine.
Speaker 1: You put up the black box or you do the
Speaker 1: hashtag because everybody that morning is doing it and you
Speaker 1: want to be part of the end group. The right
Speaker 1: reason to do it is, you know, this is in
Speaker 1: every ancient tradition or faith right you give with one
Speaker 1: hand without the other hand, knowing like you own it
Speaker 1: anonymously on gofund me. This is so interesting, Hussan, because
Speaker 1: I think there are other comedians that would just hold
Speaker 1: themselves to a different standard. They would think look, the
Speaker 1: right reason is just being desirous of making people laugh
Speaker 1: and engaging them. And so the fact that you're even
Speaker 1: asking yourself these types of questions shows me that you
Speaker 1: do identify as more than just a comedian. I want
Speaker 1: to be the best artist I can be, which requires honesty,
Speaker 1: and I just want to be a good person. And
Speaker 1: by good I mean the people that know me the
Speaker 1: most can testify and be like, he's a good dude,
Speaker 1: he is ethical, he is sincere, he is a person
Speaker 1: of his word, like all of those things. And the
Speaker 1: people that can validate that are my wife, my two kids,
Speaker 1: the crew that I grew up with, my sister, my parents.
Speaker 1: All those people can really vouch for that. The thing
Speaker 1: that I'm noticing is that there are quote unquote good
Speaker 1: guys and good gals visa vie what they say on Twitter,
Speaker 1: but they ain't shit outside of that, and I think
Speaker 1: that's the social grift we're all observing. We'll be back
Speaker 1: in a moment with a slight change of plans. We're
Speaker 1: back with comedian Hussan Minhaj. Hussan says he's eager to
Speaker 1: do things for the right reasons rather than for social
Speaker 1: cloud or validation. But I wanted to push him a
Speaker 1: bit on this desire for pure intentions. It seemed like
Speaker 1: he was holding himself to a pretty high standard, and
Speaker 1: I wondered whether the focus on purity might actually prevent
Speaker 1: him from doing social good. I think one challenge I
Speaker 1: have around assigning so much importance to the purity of
Speaker 1: our motives is that I want to make sure that
Speaker 1: we're being reasonable with ourselves about what's possible to accomplish.
Speaker 1: And I say this only because, Okay, here's a hypothetical.
Speaker 1: Let's say that you, Hussan, have brought light to the
Speaker 1: fact that there is an innocent person sitting in a
Speaker 1: jail somewhere in the world, and as a result of
Speaker 1: your advocacy, a result of the fact that you shed
Speaker 1: light on this right, that person is free. Yes, but
Speaker 1: then I maya the mad cognitive scientists have created this machine,
Speaker 1: what's called a hypothetical. How pure is this dude, really?
Speaker 1: MRI machine? Okay, I put you in the scanner. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like we get some pretty troubling news. We find out, hey,
Speaker 1: actually seventy percent of Hussan's brain, you know, shine a
Speaker 1: light on this piece of information because he wanted a
Speaker 1: popular story on Instagram, but thirty percent of him cared
Speaker 1: about the person. Yeah, and okay, I might think that's
Speaker 1: not great. I would prefer if Hussan got to one
Speaker 1: hundred percent in terms of his motives. But I would
Speaker 1: never have wanted that quote impurity to curb your behaviors
Speaker 1: because the behavior is now positive. But this is just
Speaker 1: a personal journey for me, maya for me, you know,
Speaker 1: especially because the Internet has now made the world the
Speaker 1: quad at Davis High. Like everybody is now in the
Speaker 1: quad and it's lunchtime and the popular kids and the
Speaker 1: job everybody's that now it's eight billion people that are
Speaker 1: in this quad at lunch. So the reason why I
Speaker 1: have to check my motives is because it's becoming harder
Speaker 1: than ever to find out why you're doing something. And
Speaker 1: the thing for me is if I can lock in
Speaker 1: on what the truth is in my heart selfishly, it'll
Speaker 1: make me a better artist. I don't want to disappoint myself.
Speaker 1: And if I can hold myself to that standard at
Speaker 1: least that I'm trying, then I can also be braver
Speaker 1: and more vigilant in my art because as an individual,
Speaker 1: I am seeking capital t truth, not consensus. And I
Speaker 1: wonder whether your aspiration to try your hardest to do
Speaker 1: the right thing for the right reasons is in some
Speaker 1: way a stabilization exercise. It's grounding you in a sturdier
Speaker 1: place where because you feel so firmly in your own
Speaker 1: convictions and you have that inner belief, in some sense,
Speaker 1: it kind of insulates you from that noise that's happening
Speaker 1: on the outside, because you're like, you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: not as vulnerable as you think anymore, because I know
Speaker 1: I put up this episode for the right reason. I
Speaker 1: know I made this joke because I actually want to
Speaker 1: help this person. So if you think it's lame, or
Speaker 1: you think it's stupid, or you think that I'm blah
Speaker 1: or this or that, like I'm a little bit more
Speaker 1: impenetrable than I was before. Correct, Yes, okay, so this
Speaker 1: is why I have to use this mental exercise to
Speaker 1: be like, I gotta know who I am, because otherwise
Speaker 1: I'm now relying on everyone else to tell me who
Speaker 1: I am all the time, and that's just too disoriented.
Speaker 1: Can't I can't. Yeah, that's too fragile. It's too fragile
Speaker 1: a position to be in. I completely understand that what
Speaker 1: you're saying is for you to have a sustainable career,
Speaker 1: for you to feel like you can actually create the
Speaker 1: best art and create armor around yourself, because it's only
Speaker 1: going to get Sorry, I just feel cynical about the future,
Speaker 1: but it's only going to get worse. It's only going
Speaker 1: to get nastier because I mean more vehicles by which
Speaker 1: people are going to be able to troll you and
Speaker 1: take you down and shake yourself confidence. And so it
Speaker 1: feels very wise to me that you're trying to put
Speaker 1: in that work now to create the only version of
Speaker 1: armor really that exists today, which is a sense of
Speaker 1: who you are and the reasons why you're doing the
Speaker 1: things you're doing. You know, when the special premiered, I
Speaker 1: did this event for Netflix employees, so they screened it
Speaker 1: at the Netflix offices, The King's Jester, and then afterwards
Speaker 1: we did a Q and A with the staff. One
Speaker 1: of the employees at Netflix goes, hey, huss and we
Speaker 1: all know that you did comedy, much to the chagrin
Speaker 1: of your parents. If your daughter wants to do comedy,
Speaker 1: will you let her? I go No, Here's why I'm
Speaker 1: genuinely afraid, and I don't want my daughter to do comedy.
Speaker 1: I don't want my daughter to participate in an art
Speaker 1: form that is reliant on whether or not people like her.
Speaker 1: From the moment she gets on stage at that first
Speaker 1: open mic in front of ten people at the Brainwash
Speaker 1: Cafe in San Francisco, the whole subtext of that interaction
Speaker 1: will be do you guys like me? To the moment
Speaker 1: she auditions for her first improv team, do you like me?
Speaker 1: Hopefully she advances, and she auditions for SNL Lauren SNL?
Speaker 1: Do you like me? Now? She has a career. Now
Speaker 1: she's doing that at scale. Do you guys like me? Oh?
Speaker 1: She has a pilot and it goes to air? Do
Speaker 1: you like me? How many millions of people like me? So?
Speaker 1: I can hopefully continue doing this. Man, I don't want
Speaker 1: to participate in this business that's entirely dependent on whether
Speaker 1: or not people like me. This episode comes out, people
Speaker 1: are going to tweet I didn't like him. I didn't
Speaker 1: like that episode. I don't know if you had this
Speaker 1: in your community growing up, there was always that one
Speaker 1: kid that got into Stanford or that one kid that
Speaker 1: got into mit. So an art community, it was an
Speaker 1: akilsachdev and I still believe this. People are like, are
Speaker 1: you happy with your life? I go. If I could
Speaker 1: go back in time, I would cut my own finger
Speaker 1: off to nakil sad stuff. I'm not lying, Maya. I've
Speaker 1: hosted the White House Correspondence dinner. Yeah, I'm doing pretty well.
Speaker 1: I would do anything to trade places. Why do we
Speaker 1: value that more? Well? Because what's beautiful about nikkil And
Speaker 1: it's funny. I'm still very good friends with Nikil Is.
Speaker 1: He has created a line of work where his self
Speaker 1: worth is not linked to whether or not people like him.
Speaker 1: He works in like investment banking. You can't go after
Speaker 1: him on Twitter. You can't say he fell off. He
Speaker 1: can walk through the grocery store and with his partners lover,
Speaker 1: and no one's going to take a photo of him
Speaker 1: and be like, whoa, Nick's getting old. There is no
Speaker 1: thing like that. He is truly free. He's free from
Speaker 1: all this, Maya. It's interesting because, like you said, he's
Speaker 1: not really beholden to anyone, right, His worth doesn't come
Speaker 1: from other people's approval or whether they find him funny
Speaker 1: or charming or whatnot. This is whying to kill sachtev One.
Speaker 1: He's not playing a game that's predicated on whether or
Speaker 1: not people like him. So how do you work with that?
Speaker 1: Because you know, it's one thing to make a resolution
Speaker 1: to yourself to say, look, I want to not care
Speaker 1: what other people think. I want to be proud of
Speaker 1: the stuff that I do. I want to bring the
Speaker 1: purest motives and intentions. But it's not like overnight you're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: made that resolution, brain transplant, you know, accomplish Now I'm
Speaker 1: a new person and I've rid myself of all personal
Speaker 1: ambition and the desire to be loved and the desire
Speaker 1: to be liked and whatnot. Are there strategies that you're
Speaker 1: using to actively try and cultivate a more resilient mindset
Speaker 1: or a more pure approach to the work that you do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the ultimate way to defeat this thing, and
Speaker 1: it is the cosmic joke. I have to leave the game,
Speaker 1: like I got to graduate from the game and move
Speaker 1: on to something else. I think this industry will draw
Speaker 1: you crazy. So for me, I think there's a world
Speaker 1: where you know, I eventually move on from it and
Speaker 1: I transition to something else. Yeah, and the thing you
Speaker 1: would transition to it would have to meet the criteria
Speaker 1: where whatever the next thing I do is, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be able to establish my self worth independently of
Speaker 1: other people's subjective assessment in me totally. Being an artist
Speaker 1: is who I am. I do have this need to
Speaker 1: express myself, but I have to find new mediums as
Speaker 1: my life continues that are less and less and less
Speaker 1: attached to whether people like me or not. Maybe it's writing,
Speaker 1: maybe it's producing, maybe it's direct behind the camera. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but if you are to really go full Kama kazimission
Speaker 1: on this, then you actually have to leave the game
Speaker 1: and never come back. No. It's such an honest take
Speaker 1: because I think a lot of people they look, maybe
Speaker 1: the Buddhist monks are capable of this. They're like, I
Speaker 1: will transcend this shit. I will reach a state of
Speaker 1: enlightenment in which I do my best work. I am
Speaker 1: an artist. I go up on stage, I do my
Speaker 1: stand up routine, and I just don't care what their
Speaker 1: response is anymore. And to me, that feels like an
Speaker 1: impossible task because look, part of the it's baked into
Speaker 1: the game, baked into the calculus of being a good comedian,
Speaker 1: to constantly be narrating in your own head and having
Speaker 1: this voice. Are people going to find this funny? Are
Speaker 1: you gonna find this bit funnier than this bit? Are
Speaker 1: they going to think I'm a little bit too smartie
Speaker 1: if I were to say this thing, or any think
Speaker 1: of a little bit too humble braggy if I do
Speaker 1: it right. So that's such a hard tension to navigate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: was there a moment of reckoning in even just the
Speaker 1: last year where you found yourself unhappy? You found yourself
Speaker 1: despite having all the dreams that little Hussan had for himself,
Speaker 1: Like you're sitting there and you're thinking, oh gosh, this
Speaker 1: is not I'm not having the experience I should be
Speaker 1: having given that I'm in this position. I think there
Speaker 1: was some morning I was getting some bad news, something
Speaker 1: was happening, and my son is really cute. He's too
Speaker 1: He's like in he cute. Yeah, he still smells really good,
Speaker 1: and he just wants to nuzzle and cuddle and all
Speaker 1: that stuff, and I just I'm holding him, and then
Speaker 1: I got my phone in one hand and I'm dealing
Speaker 1: with just like some bullshit that's attached to just this
Speaker 1: stupid Hollywood stuff, and I'm like this is idiotic, Like
Speaker 1: this game I'm playing is so stupid because also the
Speaker 1: thing that I was dealing with was some like press
Speaker 1: perception BS thing. It'd be one thing if I was
Speaker 1: like cuddling my son and I'm dealing with like notes
Speaker 1: about the set or there's something productive that's about again
Speaker 1: like what I'm talking about seeking truth. It was this
Speaker 1: just like ego cloud pr some email thing, someone said
Speaker 1: this about the special. Do you have a comment some
Speaker 1: like idiotic thing. What's your response to the critic? Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's Yeah? You spent two years of your life writing, performing,
Speaker 1: crafting this thing. This person has a response to your thing.
Speaker 1: Do you have a response to their response? What are
Speaker 1: we doing? What on earth am I doing? I'm gonna
Speaker 1: miss these amazing moments with him for this, and I
Speaker 1: can't continue to be a part of this. I mean,
Speaker 1: the reason I love that you're saying this right now
Speaker 1: is that these are the kind of reflections people have
Speaker 1: when they're at the lowest part of their careers. It's
Speaker 1: how they find ways to rationalize the lack of success
Speaker 1: or the great fall from a top. They say, you know,
Speaker 1: none of this stuff mattered anyway. I mean, what is fame?
Speaker 1: It's a flimsy thing. It's a transient thing. It was
Speaker 1: just based on, you know, whether other people like you.
Speaker 1: And I feel like I see it more as a
Speaker 1: retroactive rationalization of no longer being at the summit. And
Speaker 1: so what means a lot to me right now is
Speaker 1: that you're at the proverbial summit. Maybe you'll go higher, Hussan,
Speaker 1: but you're at the highest point you've been at relative
Speaker 1: to the rest of your career. Yeah, and you're standing
Speaker 1: there and you're still able to see the cosmic joke
Speaker 1: you're You're still able to see with some perspective, how harmful,
Speaker 1: how pernician is, how destabilizing, Like we're all so vulnerable
Speaker 1: to the perils of this game. You know. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: can kind of feel like, yeah, this can't sustain itself.
Speaker 1: I'm getting older, I'm getting grays in the beard. It's
Speaker 1: it's fine, it's okay. Just keep it moving and continue
Speaker 1: to find ways to express yourself and be honest in
Speaker 1: your art. But you only win by leaving the game.
Speaker 1: And again, I think that is actually the true comic
Speaker 1: understands the joke of it all. That would be the
Speaker 1: most comedian thing to do. Hey, thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1: Join me next week when I talked to Vanessa Bonds,
Speaker 1: a social psychologist and author of the book You Have
Speaker 1: More Influence than you think. Vanessa is on a mission
Speaker 1: to make us more mindful of all the ways we
Speaker 1: already exert influence, often without realizing it. It's not just
Speaker 1: the times that we're up in the front of the room.
Speaker 1: It's not just the times we're actively trying to persuade someone.
Speaker 1: It's also the times we just make a throwaway comment
Speaker 1: and suddenly that changes the way someone feels about something.
Speaker 1: You know, It's just our mere presence in a room
Speaker 1: that changes, you know, how people talk about a particular topic.
Speaker 1: A Slight Change of Plans is created, written, and executive
Speaker 1: produced by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Change family includes
Speaker 1: our showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate Parkinson Morgan,
Speaker 1: our sound engineer Andrew Bastola, and our associate producer Sarah McCrae.
Speaker 1: Louise Scara wrote our delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith
Speaker 1: helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of Plans is
Speaker 1: a production of Pushkin Industries. So big thanks to everyone there,
Speaker 1: and of course, of very special thanks to Jimmy Lee.
Speaker 1: You can follow a slight change of plans on Instagram
Speaker 1: at doctor Maya Shunker