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Creative Types With Virginia Trioli S03E04
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00:06Nazeem, hello. Hello, Virginia. How are you? I'm really well. Well, this is a lot of fun
00:11because you're one of our most important comedians. Don't laugh. No, I love being called an important
00:18comedian. Well, because you say that you want to make the majority feel like the minority
00:24for one hour. That would be something that is in my mind. And I wouldn't normally want
00:29to let other people know about, but here we are. Too late. I mean, yeah, I think it's fun
00:36if you can kind of flip a dynamic. It's not that I go out looking for controversial issues
00:41to talk about. Like, I want to make people laugh. I want to have a good time. But comedy feels
00:47like the only tool I have at my disposal to make sense of this ridiculous world we're
00:52living in at the moment. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing you in action, Nazeem.
00:56Can't wait. Okay, bye. Bye.
01:01I'm Virginia Trioli, and I've spent my life paying attention to creative Australians and
01:06wondering what is going on in that wild mind of theirs. In this series, I'll showcase artists
01:14and performers at the peak of their powers and tell the story of their triumphs, their stumbles,
01:19and why they make the glorious work we love so much. Donuts for Nazeem Hussain. Nazeem Hussain
01:27is one of the biggest stars of Australian comedy, whose provocative shows have won international
01:33acclaim.
01:33Right, let the house just go now or we're coming in. Sir, please remain calm. For more than two decades,
01:40his audacious stand-up and sketch comedy has held up a mirror to society, revealing uncomfortable
01:47but hilarious truths.
01:49That's not even an insult, calling someone un-Australian. Like, everywhere but Australia and Bali is un-Australian.
01:56Don't you reckon?
02:03I'm thrilled to be unashamedly celebrating the art of making, because we are a country
02:09of so many brilliant creative types.
02:23Hey. Hey, hello Nazeem, how are you? Good, how are you? Great to see you here. Yes. You're about to
02:28go in there and wow an audience.
02:30Well, that's the plan. Okay. I hope they've studied the refund policy, because there is none.
02:38So we're heading to the powerhouse here. Have you played this joint before?
02:41This is honestly one of my top five venues in Australia. Oh really? It is beautiful,
02:46it feels like a treat, and the acoustic, everything's great about it.
03:02What's your pre-show prep? The aim is to try and be chill, but I inevitably pace a lot and
03:08look
03:08out my notebook and feel like I need to cram more and more jokes and ideas. But in theory,
03:14just be chill and just act like I'm not thinking about the show.
03:17I'm not thinking about the show. I'm not thinking about the show. I'm not thinking about the show.
03:48Brown pill makes me like... I like that ratio. That is good.
03:52Right. I'll tell you a bit of personal news, everybody. I just became a dad, everyone.
03:58We had a baby boy. We named him Yusuf. Yusuf Muhammad Hussein.
04:02Now we named him that because we're trying to save money, if I'm honest.
04:05Disneyland's expensive. No way he's getting on a plane with that name. So...
04:11Well, Nazeem, that was a solid hour of race jokes. Everyone gets skewered,
04:16and yet every person there is absolutely laughing their guts out, including me.
04:20How do you manage that? I think it's more just about moving the camera around and just sort of
04:25just letting everyone feel a little different. For me, making a joke is effective when there's
04:31tension to pop, like when there's a bubble of expectation or people don't really know where
04:37something's going. You know, if there's a joke about brown people and white people are laughing,
04:40they get self-conscious, and then it goes both ways. Everyone's sort of looking at each other,
04:44figuring out, like, whether... So I feel like... Is it okay to laugh?
04:48Is it okay to laugh? There's a lot of thinking going on.
04:50It's race jokes within race jokes within race jokes, which is a complicated
04:54and tricky little thing to land. It doesn't always land.
04:58A lot of the writing happens on stage, and... Oh, really?
05:02Yeah, and I think it kind of has to, because, you know, you've got... You might have an idea
05:05that's funny, and, you know, you can only figure it out on stage in front of an audience.
05:10Yeah. And find out whether they're going to laugh.
05:11And meanwhile, I can't sleep. Like, I'm wide awake.
05:13My friends are like, just get noise-cancelling headphones. Listen to white noise.
05:17That'll help you sleep. So I was like, all right, well, what's white noise? Like, Coldplay, do you mean?
05:23You can ask almost any comedian, where's the line? Where's the line that you won't cross?
05:28I don't know if I can... I don't know if that matters to you.
05:31That might be how it comes across. Like, there's a, you know, there's a veneer of like,
05:34I don't care, I'll just say anything. But I am very conscious to not make fun of people
05:38who are routinely humiliated or do it in a way that doesn't, like, bring them in.
05:43Yeah. Because the audience will let you know it doesn't feel nice.
05:46Like, it feels like a bully up on stage. Yeah, there is definitely a line. I think there is
05:50a responsibility if you've got a microphone. He comes at it from his own perspective,
05:54which is really important. I suppose for him in a very small venue. It would have been 50 seats,
06:00maybe. I remember me and my wife were the only white people in the crowd. I was watching people
06:05I felt who hadn't laughed that hard in Australia before, in terms of that they had some comedy made
06:11for them. And I was like, oh, this is how white people feel every day. And, uh, and it made
06:17me
06:17realise just how important representation is. I found, um, I found something called brown noise.
06:22Have you guys heard of brown noise? It's like a real thing, yeah. It's like, I, uh, I found a
06:26three
06:26and a half hour track and I put my noise cancelling headphones on and I pressed play and I said,
06:31welcome to brown noise. And then it was just my mum's voice. You should have been a doctor,
06:36you should have been a doctor, you should have been a doctor.
06:40I feel like the better I get a comedy or the more I do it, the more comfortable I am
06:44with like
06:44playing the room. And so yeah, like if they're laughing, I just keep going. I'm not too,
06:52I'm not shy to, to milk something dry.
07:12Can you smell that? Oh my goodness. Nazeem was born and raised in Melbourne's Burwood,
07:17the middle child of Sri Lankan migrants. It's a surprise, like a kinder surprise. Oh my God, look.
07:23Oh, yum. A background rich with inspiration for his comedy.
07:30This is the food that gets you into trouble when you're an immigrant kid. In primary school,
07:34I remember like opening my lunchbox and kids are like, what the hell is that? And I was like,
07:38nothing. Just close it, put it away. Veggie white. Veggie white.
07:44I'm stuffed. Absolutely delicious. And a nap.
07:54Nazeem, who's this cheerful, happy little kid?
07:56In this picture. The only brown in the village. I think that's me, yeah. I think this is me at
08:01kinder. I think I actually wanted to be a firefighter for a very short period of time.
08:05Most kids do. Yeah. And then my mum was like, no, a doctor or a lawyer. That's it.
08:10Well, I want to bring your mum straight into the conversation. Here she is. And that's you there,
08:15and your sister and your dad. Because she, she is central to, of course, your life, but also
08:21your comedic life. She's sort of like a comedy origin story, really, your mum. She kind of is.
08:27I think like, you know, she sort of represents like a bigger version of me, you know, um, someone
08:32that's navigating between two worlds, uh, who doesn't know how to keep things in. Doesn't really
08:40navigate the subtlety, uh, that well. And that's me. I'm just all out. She effectively raised us,
08:49you know, my dad left when we're, I was about five or six. So yeah, a single mum, you know,
08:53having to work several jobs, uh, navigate a different culture, uh, try to raise us as good
08:59Muslims with a Sri Lankan identity. So she, uh, she really dialed up all aspects of her personality.
09:05Isn't there a story about her pulling in the former premier Jeff Kennett to the aid of her children?
09:10Yes. My sister was getting bullied. So my mum took matters into her own hands.
09:13Of course. Just, uh, went straight to the principal. The principal,
09:16we didn't really have an intention of resolving the thing. My mum then got in the car,
09:20drove straight to the local MP's office, uh, who at the time was Jeff Kennett,
09:24premier of Victoria, had no appointment, just walked in with her hijab. She saw Jeff walks into
09:29his office. The receptionist chased my mum. My mum locked the door behind her, spoke to Jeff Kennett,
09:3545 minutes later, walks back into the principal's office with Jeff Kennett by her side. Jeff's like,
09:39just, just do whatever this woman says, or I just, and then the bullying stopped. So, you know,
09:43you can't wait for people to do things or say things for you. She, you know, you just got to
09:47front foot it. So you're, you're a kid who's getting bullied and learning to have a smart mouth
09:53to deal it back. Yeah. Very early on with kids that would make jokes about me, I'd give it straight
09:57back and then they would, you know, everyone would laugh at them. Sometimes they would cry,
10:00but they would never mess with me again. The laughter that I'd get when I'd tease someone back,
10:05that was like a weapon. So it's just like, it wasn't, I wasn't trying to find the hypocrisy. I was
10:08trying to
10:08find the laugh. So do we see this as the beginning of your comedic voice? Probably now that, you know,
10:14we're digging into that part of my childhood. The kid who made his bullies laugh was on the cusp of
10:22becoming a confident young comedian. Community television offered him a defining opportunity.
10:29We've got a new coffee maker. Well, I tend to like making tea more than coffee, but, uh,
10:34Four years after 9-11, while studying law and science at university, Nazeem and some fellow
10:40Muslim friends put together a show on community television called Salaam Cafe. This is surely
10:46not a permanent appointment. What are you, criticising my tea without even tasting it? Yes. Yes, I am.
10:51Salaam Cafe was a huge moment in my career. It's probably where, um, well, it's where television started
10:56for me. Yeah. A bunch of friends, including Waleed Ali, Susan Carland, just talking about Muslim life.
11:01I think, in a way, the show came about because, you know, it's post 9-11. We were in the
11:07news a lot,
11:08Muslims. Yes. Um, not for good stuff. Surprise. And sort of came from this frustration, um, about,
11:14like, let's just do a show that, let's be on TV as people that we know. But I had no
11:19filter. I'd just
11:20say anything and do anything. And then you'd get feedback. So I learned that, like, oh, there's an
11:24audience out there that don't all like you and you're going to hear from them articulately. And so we would
11:29get these angry emails from people from Muslims saying that we shouldn't be making fun of the
11:36religion, which we weren't, I think, I don't know. And then non-Muslims who were like, stop trying to
11:41make Muslims not look like terrorists and pretend that you're not. We know what you're really about.
11:45So you couldn't win. And so through that experience, I sort of learned to develop a thick skin,
11:49I guess, like that you can't convince everybody. It is day one of the race for Camden. And I'm going
11:54to
11:54Camden to meet the people, to press the flesh, the halal flesh, to see what makes them tick in a
12:00non-explosive type of way. It was in these early days of Salaam Cafe that Nazeem created what was
12:06to become an enduring character in his comedy, Uncle Sam. We are here in Camden, which will soon become
12:14a slam-down. Tell me about the origin story of this particular character. We were like, we need a
12:20segment. Tomorrow we've got the deadline. What are we going to do? I was like, let's just go to
12:23Frankston and just interview some, some bogans, you know. So we just went down there and I just
12:28started acting like an uncle and just getting all these crazy responses. And we aired that and it
12:32went nice. What is Ramadan? Ramadan! Is that like a papadum? Go talk to this boy. He's by himself.
12:39He must be Muslim because nobody liking him. Are you Muslim? The character comes from just like many
12:47uncles that I've grown up around. They just have this like beautiful view of the community and faith
12:52and they just want to share it with people. So at a time when people were really like freaked out
12:57about Muslims, this is probably when I enjoyed playing that character the most. He's written to
13:02be as, as kind of guileless and almost to be daffy, like a daffy uncle. But what's he trying to
13:08do?
13:08Turn Australian, you know, Sharia, right? Actually trying to introduce Sharia law into Australia.
13:13And that's the gag. I think the fact that Uncle Sam is quietly spoken and quite polite
13:19amuses me. And he walked down the street and he would talk to Australians who would patronise him
13:23and not realise that he was ripping the piss out of them. It's just the most perfect satire.
13:30Well, I think this is where this very, this man who's very dear to you,
13:35Ima Rahman, comes in. How old were you when you met each other?
13:38Uh, teenagers. I think like we would go to Muslim community events and, you know,
13:43when everybody else was trying to take things seriously, we were not taking it seriously.
13:48You were sitting up the back making jokes.
13:50We were sitting up the back making jokes. And so it was kind of fun to meet someone
13:53who was also just as irreverent.
13:55Well, you put together the, the show that ended up being your breakthrough moment, the two of you,
14:00which is Fear of a Brown Planet.
14:02What's your name? In the pink? Victoria. Victoria. Nice to meet you, Victoria.
14:07I'll take you on a date, Victoria. Candlelight dinner. I'd be sitting here gazing at you.
14:12You'd be sitting there gazing straight back at me and my mum.
14:19I was probably the more, well, definitely the more palatable of the two of us.
14:23Like, I was sugar and he was spice. You know, um, you either like him or you're like,
14:26I can't do chilli. Um, so he was, um, yeah, it felt really exciting to be able to say your
14:33thoughts
14:33on a microphone to people that clap with you and laugh and it just felt really good for us.
14:43After their early success in Australia, Nazeem and Amer took Fear of a Brown Planet
14:48to the tough judgements of the Edinburgh Festival.
14:52We got a one-star review this morning, which said, amongst other things, that, uh,
14:58we were racist and, uh, that we weren't good enough comedians to write about coming from immigrant stock.
15:06First couple of weeks, it was brutal. I think it was a one-star review, I think.
15:10It was a one-star review. We had like... I can see, I can see, you still feel it.
15:14I still feel it. It's just like, oh, it's so... I've got so much to say about reviews, but like
15:17some...
15:18The worst reviews are the ones that actually make sense and you're like,
15:20oh, you're right. You're right, yeah.
15:22Oh, I hate you though. Why'd you just tell everyone? Yes.
15:25You know, sometimes you need that pressure to cut the crap and just get straight to the...
15:30Yeah. To the funny bits. Um, so I think it was good.
15:33The second half of the run, there was an improvement and, um, suddenly we sort of, like,
15:37started to figure out what made the show good and funny and, yeah, people started coming.
15:43What were you learning? So what do you learn when you do stand-up night after night after night?
15:48It's getting yourself away from the sort of easy laughs.
15:52Yes. That makes you a better comedian.
15:54So, let me get this right. So for white people to go out and enjoy the company of other white
16:00people,
16:01for that to happen, you need to intoxicate yourselves, is that? In order for that to happen, is that...?
16:13While Nazeem's comedy career was taking off, he was working as a tax accountant at PwC.
16:20But his dual life was about to come to a head.
16:24You called yourself a tax accountant Batman.
16:27Ha, ha, ha, ha. Tax accountancy by day?
16:29Pretty much. Literally. And what, by night?
16:32Comedian. Yeah, like, I was walking to gigs with my suit on and my shirt,
16:37and I'd be taking my suit off on the white sometimes.
16:40Just like Batman.
16:40And literally, yeah, going on stage with, like, suit pants and a shirt, like,
16:43oh, if I take off two buttons, it kind of looks casual. Definitely very different worlds.
16:48When you're at PwC, you get an extraordinary opportunity from SBS.
16:52Yeah. So I sort of said, why don't we just pitch this idea to SBS?
16:56You know, because that would be the exact show that I'd want to do.
16:59Not thinking that they would say yes, and then they said yes,
17:01and I was like, oh, crap, but I've got a job.
17:03Well, you said, like, should I go? And what'd they say?
17:06And so I was like, look, you know, SBS have offered me this TV show,
17:09but PwC is number one for me. That's just, you know, I'll say no.
17:14He's like, wait, wait, they've given you your own show? I'm like, yeah.
17:16He's like, you've got to say yes, you idiots. Like...
17:18Did you need to hear that? I think I did.
17:20That is a great thing to be told. It was a pretty, like, it gave me a lot of comfort.
17:23Well, I've got some Legally Brown here, the SBS show,
17:27and in this particular scene, white man dancing.
17:31So Matt O'Kine goes searching,
17:36almost in a sort of a furtive, drug deal-y type way,
17:39to be taught how to dance like a white man.
17:42And what ensues is a cringe-inducingly accurate representation of what it is like.
17:49But, of course, in that kind of, you know, reverse racism way that you love to do.
17:54You want to dance like a white man?
17:58Watch and learn.
18:08He's sweating.
18:09I actually pulled a neck muscle doing this.
18:12Oh, strange.
18:14Yes, notice his intense sex face and how his feet are constantly out of time with the music
18:19and the rest of his body. It's like poetry. White sneakers.
18:26And then some Riverdance.
18:27The Riverdance.
18:32Damn, I swear you guys were white the way you were moving just then.
18:36So what's the challenge of sketch comedy when you're doing that?
18:39So when you're doing something like Legally Brown on SBS and you're having to churn it out,
18:42you're working in a team, I guess? You're working with other writers?
18:44Oh, it's like, it is so much more, I would say in many ways more difficult than stand-up.
18:50Because?
18:51Well, you need to write the sketch as well.
18:53So you've got to have a good team of writers, good comedy actors or comedians.
18:56You've got to have people that edit well and know how to get the timing right.
18:59You've got to be able to say the things that you want to say and not be told off by
19:04the networks.
19:04And if one of those elements falls over, like, it's just not funny and the audience doesn't know why.
19:10He's one of a rare breed of comedian who can do stand-up and sketch comedy.
19:15There are a lot of comedians who can only do one or the other, and he can do both seamlessly.
19:19Yes.
19:29Nazeem's comedy career can be hectic and unpredictable.
19:33So he seeks out ways to find focus.
19:45Jiu-jitsu is this old martial art.
19:48There's so much order, there's a way things are done, there's respect, there's a hierarchy.
19:53So it's the structure of my life where everything else is chaotic.
19:58Jiu-jitsu has completely upgraded my life.
20:02Like, I'll go every morning at 6.30, and it's almost getting bashed every morning.
20:08There's something about, like, being physical, where you are grappling to not get choked out or have
20:13your arm snapped off, that it's like it unlocks the creative side of my brain. And for the rest of
20:18the day, I kind of ride that wave.
20:25As a comedian who plays with risk, Nazeem's not afraid to make himself vulnerable.
20:33In 2017, he took a bold step by appearing on I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.
20:39This powerful exchange was highlighted by the network as a key and highly emotional moment
20:46of Nazeem sharing how the aftermath of the Lint Cafe siege affected his family.
20:52So that was horrific and it was very frightening for a lot of people. And my sister then texts me
20:56and she says, Nazeem, she goes, I'm scared to wear the hijab home because I think people are going to
21:00attack me. And then throughout the day, that hashtag started trending, I'll ride with you.
21:03Non-Muslims were volunteering to sit with Muslims and make them feel more comfortable.
21:07And then she then messaged me later on going, no, you know what, I now feel comfortable and safe
21:12knowing that my fellow Australians are willing to stand up and support me on public transport.
21:17Yeah, that's nice.
21:18And that made me, like, it actually made me cry when that happened because
21:22that man wanted to divide Australia. He wanted us to turn on each other.
21:26Oh, he's a lunatic.
21:27But what he did instead was make us come together.
21:30The fly-on-the-wall style of the production lent Nazeem's very personal story an air of authentic
21:36self-revelation that struck deeply with his castmates and the viewers. It was a turning point.
21:44It changed a lot of things for you, didn't it? That kind of show.
21:47I felt like I didn't need to do any more, like, explaining. Like, I sometimes felt like to do a
21:51punchline on a joke about whatever, I'd have to first prove to the audience that I'm with you
21:57and that look, you know, I love Australia too, but this is something that I'm a bit annoyed with.
22:01And then, you know, then you can get to the funny. But after that show, people were like,
22:04oh, we know this guy we love, we know where his heart's at. So you just get straight to the
22:07punchline.
22:08They, they, they know why.
22:09Isn't that interesting?
22:10So it sort of kind of ploughed the field.
22:11It just made it so much easier to tell jokes.
22:23Ordinary Australians can smell and see an underdog. Our government still hasn't got the message.
22:28I reckon what might overwhelmingly pressure them to stop funding this genocide is maybe,
22:32if we all just did something small, just started ozifying the way we said Gaza,
22:36instead of calling it Gaza, we started calling it Gaza. Then Australians would be like, oh,
22:39shit! Gaza's in strife, quick! Someone call up Bunnings, let's organise a sausage sizzle!
22:46Your comedy has referenced Palestine, Gaza and Israel from day dot, right from the very beginning.
22:52Did the events of October 7 make it harder for you to want to do comedy around Palestine and Gaza?
23:00Yeah, it was definitely something that I didn't walk into like, you know,
23:03without thinking or overthinking. And I took a lot of guidance and advice from people I trust.
23:09People who I know understand the landscape. It's one thing that I always do. I don't just
23:15speak first and think second when it comes to big issues like that. So I'm lucky to be around some
23:20clever people. In 2025, Nazeem released an excerpt from his totally normal show as an online special.
23:28Do you reckon we should make jokes about Israel tonight?
23:33Called jokes about Israel for 12 and a half minutes, it's now become one of his most watched online
23:40clips. Israel doesn't let anybody leave. They control everything that comes in. Food, water,
23:45medicine, electricity. It's like being in a relationship with R Kelly, you know?
23:52Does that punchline justify the speech?
23:57Well, you had that repeated refrain where you say, did the punchline justify the speech? I found that
24:03really fascinating to watch a comedian clearly having to walk an absolute tightrope of, I'm here to tell
24:09jokes, but I'm here telling jokes about something that matters to me deeply and is an incredibly serious
24:15subject and divisive subject. Obviously, merely mentioning Israel or Palestine or Gaza is heavy
24:21and people are immediately tense. But then the jokes are like, not surface level, but they're easier
24:25to digest and it starts to get a little harder to maintain the veneer of comedy around it. And so
24:31by the end of that routine, effectively, like, I'm laying on a punchline, but it's almost just like
24:37to serve the mechanical purpose of justifying what I've just said. You might not necessarily be setting
24:41out to change minds, but have you ever had any Jewish or Zionist supporters come to you and say
24:49that you've changed their mind? Oh, I've had a lot of Jewish people, um, tell me that they love what
24:56I'm doing and support me. And I've had people really kick up a fuss in the show, um, who have
25:02come to
25:02the show. Within the show? Yeah, yeah. Um, when I get on the Israel material. Um, but to be honest,
25:08I feel like when there's someone in the crowd that does or says something, you know, I've got the
25:14mic, um, it really brings the audience together. So it actually improves the show. It really gets
25:20the energy back up at the 50 minute mark. I think it's great that he covers all those subject areas
25:25because, you know, a lot of people put them in the too hard basket. I mean, to some degree I
25:29do,
25:29if I'm honest, I think it's outside my specialty. People understand Naz has, um, an understanding
25:37of that situation to be able to talk about it. If someone else did that heavy handed and didn't
25:45have an affinity with it, we wouldn't accept it. It's his resume that says this material is safe in
25:54his hands. I went to, um, rural country town here in Queensland called Capella and I got to the hotel.
26:00There was a middle-aged woman standing there, uh, named Barbara. Bleached blonde hair, she had a
26:05cigarette hanging out of her mouth and she was holding my, uh, set list and at the bottom, uh,
26:09had in big bold letters, jokes about Israel. She looked really pissed off. She was like,
26:12is this yours? I said, yep. Are you a comedian, are you? I said, yep, my name's Akmal. And, um,
26:20so she gives it to me. As I'm walking off, she goes, oi Akmal. I said, yeah. And she puts
26:25a white
26:25fist in the air and she goes, free Palestine. And that just blew my mind. That's how you know
26:34that Israel's gone too far when even Bogan Queenslanders are like, nah, I'm with the Arabs
26:40on these actually, yeah. Anyhow, that's how I met my wife. So.
26:55So what's been the most unexpected response? Oh, I had a Palestinian guy who came to my show. He's an
27:02artist. He's from Gaza. And then afterwards he came out and he said, yeah, I haven't felt like laughing,
27:06um, you know, for the last couple of years. And so, yeah, that was something that really mattered to me.
27:12Yeah. That's a good answer. Oh, hmm. I understand how words can hurt. Also how words can have real
27:22life implications. Yeah. Um, but I guess if I did have an intention, it would be that my comedy
27:29brings us closer together and makes us understand each other more as opposed to like, create a wage where
27:36pushed further apart. Listen, you guys have been great. Thank you so much for coming. I appreciate you
27:40coming out. Thank you. Thank you so much.
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