Last Things First: Kumail Nanjiani

A dozen years removed from his debut stand-up special, Beta Male on Comedy Central, Kumail Nanjiani’s fans can finally see him in a new hour, Night Thoughts, which premiered in December 2025 on both Hulu and Disney+.

In between, he and his wife Emily V. Gordon received an Academy Award nomination for their screenplay for The Big Sick (and won Best First Screenplay for it at the Independent Spirit Awards). On his own, Nanjiani has earned two Emmy nominations (the first, for guest acting in The Twilight Zone; the second, for his lead performance in a limited series for Hulu’s Welcome to Chippendales). He also shared in a Screen Actors Guild Award win with the cast of Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building. Night Thoughts finds Nanjiani in contention for his first Golden Globe, for Best Performance in Stand-Up Comedy on Television. His new special catches fans up on how fame has and hasn’t changed him, most strikingly by how the public reacted to his body transformation for Eternals, and then for their reaction to the Marvel movie itself.

I spoke with Nanjiani over Zoom to see whether all of that therapy has translated into better mental and emotional health for him in receiving both validation and criticism from strangers online, and how he’s slowly become more comfortable putting himself out there in bigger and bigger pop-culture franchises. In 2026, you’re already guaranteed to see him in the second season of Amazon Prime Video’s Fallout, as well as the upcoming season 21 of Taskmaster. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!

Here’s a preview of his new special, Kumail Nanjiai: Night Thoughts.

And you can read plenty of our conversation over on Decider, where I’m their resident comedy critic. Here’s just one snippet, regarding his thoughts on driving down Sunset Boulevard, and no longer seeing Meltdown Comics, which was a pivotal place and time for you and Emily producing comedy shows (Nerdmelt) in the back room and eventually The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail for Comedy Central?

It was actually horrible. We just drove by it like two or three days ago, so it’s very recent. It’s amazing that you ask that. It’s become like a high-rise and I could only tell where it was by the restaurant that was across the street. I was like, oh, that was Meltdown. You know what’s weird? When I started doing stand-up again at the end of 2023 so many young comedians would be like, “You know I used to watch Meltdown on TV and that’s one of the reasons i wanted to become a comedian” and it’s weird when you go from like, you know, the cool new comedian to a couple of generations above that. You know, you bring up New York. I remember being in New York and being one of the cool young comedians, you know, and when I would do a show with Patton Oswalt being, “Oh my God, it means so much to me! You’re one of the reasons I became a comedian.” And then now, to be one of the people that you know, is like — I’m not comparing myself to Patton Oswalt at all. He’s a f—ing legend. But just like, oh, people who are in high school watched me and are now doing very well in their careers.

So please enjoy this clip from Nanjiani and Jonah Ray back in their Comedy Central Nerdmelt days and nights.