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HBO:
Tell us a little about your show for One Night Stand?
Omid Djalili:
It's confusing for people because I'm a British-born Iranian, and just to try and cover what that means is part of it. I don't want to be too cultural, as a lot of comedians are. But in a half an hour I'll try and capture a few things about myself, a few things about my culture and try to be funny and informative, as entertaining and elevating as I possibly can.
HBO:
Persians don't really have a big presence as an immigrant community in the United States. Is that different in England?
Omid Djalili:
No, it's the same. There are very few Iranians - I think after the revolution in 1979, only the rich ones came to America. All the drug addicts and drug dealers went to Japan, for some reason. And all the intellectuals came to Europe. But even so, they're very few in number. I think in Britain there must be about 50-60,000 Iranians. There's not that many altogether. So we're a minority within a minority, really. On top of that I'm not even a Muslim. I'm a Bajai, which is a minority within a minority within a minority.
HBO:
This may just be a reflection of my ignorance, but it would seem like, for Muslims, it's very tough to do comedy because there's so much that's literally taboo. Not just comically taboo, but literally, dangerously taboo. Does being Bajai give you a free pass in some ways?
Omid Djalili:
The Bajaians are very cool, actually, because things like art and music are very much encouraged within the Bajaian community, and we've tried to reach a kind of excellence in those fields. Within the Iranian culture, people don't really participate in the arts. Although, strangely enough, Iranian film has become really famous in the world -- some of their directors are the most acclaimed. But art and culture in general are not something anybody in my family did. I think we had a couple of pianists and people who played guitar. But to get up and do jokes or act in a film is a completely new, bizarre thing. Some of them like it and some of them, at the beginning, were kind of like -- You think you're some kind of De Niro? Well, look at you - you're fat, you're bald. What are you trying to do? So I think it's just a very new thing. And I think there's many more people in the Iranian community that are encouraged to try it now - especially when they see me. They go, If that fat, bald guy can do, I can do it. You know? So. Ha, ha.
HBO:
Was it tough to break into comedy in, in the U.K. as an Iranian?
Omid Djalili:
It was only tough in my own mind because I just didn't think that I could do it. I just never even considered it at all until my wife took me to the Comedy Store in London and I saw comedians for the first time. Unlike a lot of people who do it now who kind of think, Oh, I could do that, I just thought: Oh, I could never do that. It's impossible. These guys are geniuses.
But when I first started doing it, I was just really encouraged by the fact that I must have cornered some kind of niche in the market, because people responded so strongly to what I was doing. And I thought, Hey, I should really take this seriously.
HBO:
What was your first act like?
Omid Djalili:
At the beginning it was just a few silly accents and a funny walks and funny faces. But I think after I started winning some awards, I started taking it very seriously. Around 2000, I won some, and then after 9/11, when I saw that so few people were dealing with the whole issue -- maybe people would just do a joke and move on -- I decided to do a whole show called Behind Enemy Lines, which then went on to be multi-award winning and all that kind of stuff. Although I'm not going to do too much of that show here tonight, I'll probably do a selection of a few things, just to show them I'm a nice guy. I'm a little bit crazy, but that's all. Hey, he's a wacky, crazy Iranian.
But it was difficult to get started, in my own mind, but only when I wondered if anybody would accept me. When they did, then it was all fine.
HBO:
So before your wife brought you to the Comedy Store in London, what were you doing?
Omid Djalili:
I was working with a moderate degree of success as an experimental theatre director. I'd moved to the former Czechoslovakia in 1990, inspired by the Berlin Wall coming down. I saw the velvet revolution and Czechoslovakia seemed to be a great center for experimental theatre. So I was doing very bizarre, weird theatre.
HBO:
Bizarre weird theatre... can you give us an example?
Omid Djalili:
I remember the first piece of theatre I was involved with -- I was onstage in darkness, and there was a goldfish in a stream coming down from the top of the stage with a tight pin spot. And a guy with a cello in the background, boom, one note. And when the goldfish came to ground level the lights came on and a magnum .44 went click. A device in the goldfish made it explode, and then I had to shout 'Lenin' at the top of my voice. Then there was a blackout, and then a standing ovation. So people seemed to understand this kind of weird experimental theatre. I didn't know what I was doing but it seemed a very exciting, very important thing to be doing -- and a very important place to be in the early 1990s. I did experimental theatre for a good five years. Then my mother unfortunately passed away and we moved back to England.
My wife said, You know, you should do something to make some money. Have you thought about doing stand-up comedy? I said, What is that? And then she took me to The Comedy Store. And when we were trying to put a show together, she goes, You're a natural, do the things you do at weddings and at functions and at conferences -- which is basically a couple of silly voices, maybe a bit of disco dancing, just something like that. People seemed to like it, so I just put it together and it was such a good reaction that I tried to babe it up.
HBO:
How did your act change or evolve from there?
Omid Djalili:
There were certain world events that happened, like when Yitzak Rabin was shot, then I did a show with a Jewish comedian called Ivor Dambin called The Arab and the Jew. I did this full-on Arab character, even though I'm not an Arab, I'm Iranian. But I just took on the role of the Middle East on my shoulders, became this wild Arab character, which I play at the beginning. And things just grew from there.
HBO:
It seems like your comedy is very much connected to political realities and world events. Whereas, I think you've probably seen that most of the comedy in the States is less so.
Omid Djalili:
Yeah, but I think you have some great comedians who do tackle issues, people like Lewis Black, who I really enjoy, and Chris Rock. These people, I presume they talk about what's on people's minds but what they'd never dare say. So I think in that way, some of the best stand-up does come from America. We've got some great stand-ups in Britain - don't get me wrong. Mack, Eddie Izzard, Harry Hill - there's loads of people who are very, very funny. I used to think I should be more political, I should talk about the issues more. But somebody said, It's just such a political act that you're an Iranian doing stand-up comedy, getting onstage and even touching on 9/11. But I ended up getting into it quite deeply in my show.
HBO:
Will you be touching on 9/11 or any Middle East issues in your show for One Night Stand?
Omid Djalili:
I probably won't be doing it here - I don't have enough time in this show to go as deeply as I want. But I think it's such a political act that I can ease up and just to try and be funny as a statement in itself -- cause a lot of people don't associate humor with the Middle East. I think that if you can just be funny and if you can make fun of yourself, that makes people warm to you. Hence, one of the jokes I'll be doing tonight - that if you do laugh at an ethnic comedian, I hope many of the people warm to their culture.
HBO:
Do you tend to get a big Persian audience wherever you go?
Omid Djalili:
At the beginning, not at all. Then when people cottoned on -- there's this Iranian guy -- I was sought out by a few very liberal minded people. I used to get these guys with long beards and berets. And it wasn't Islamic but it was the black turtleneck jumper, black beret, chin beard kind of Iranians who would come to see me. Once I started doing a bit of TV, then more and more people came. But Iranians in general are not a very go-out-to-gigs kind of audience. I think of the 60,000 in Britain maybe 1,000 have seen me live. And that's over a period of 5-6 years. Then they go, If he gets big he'll be on TV, we'll just watch him on TV. So I don't usually get that many. But I hope more and more will come.
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