- 2 days ago
Creative Types with Virginia Trioli - Season 3 - Episode 04: Nazeem Hussain
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:06Nazeem, hello.
00:07Hello, Virginia. How are you?
00:08I'm really well.
00:10Well, this is a lot of fun
00:11because you're one of our most important comedians.
00:15Don't laugh.
00:16No, I love being called an important comedian.
00:20Well, because you say that you want to make the majority
00:23feel like the minority for one hour.
00:26That would be something that is in my mind.
00:27And I wouldn't normally want to let other people know about,
00:31but here we are.
00:32Too late.
00:33I mean, yeah, I think that's fun if you can kind of flip a dynamic.
00:38It's not that I go out looking for controversial issues to talk about.
00:42Like, I want to make people laugh.
00:44I want to have a good time.
00:45But comedy feels like the only tool I have at my disposal
00:49to make sense of this ridiculous world we're living in at the moment.
00:53Well, I'm looking forward to seeing you in action, Nazeem.
00:56Can't wait.
00:56OK, bye.
00:57Bye.
01:01I'm Virginia Trioli,
01:02and I've spent my life paying attention to creative Australians
01:06and wondering, what is going on in that wild mind of theirs?
01:12In this series, I'll showcase artists and performers
01:15at the peak of their powers
01:16and tell the story of their triumphs, their stumbles,
01:20and why they make the glorious work we love so much.
01:23Donuts for Nazeem Hussain.
01:26Nazeem Hussain is one of the biggest stars of Australian comedy,
01:30whose provocative shows have won international acclaim.
01:33Right, let the house just go now or we're coming in.
01:36Sir, please remain calm.
01:39For more than two decades,
01:40his audacious stand-up and sketch comedy
01:43has held up a mirror to society,
01:46revealing uncomfortable but hilarious truths.
01:49That's not even an insult,
01:50calling someone un-Australian.
01:52Like, 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
02:07because we are a country of so many brilliant, creative types.
02:23Hey.
02:23Hey, hello, Nazeem, how are you?
02:25Good, how are you?
02:26Great to see you here.
02:27You're about to go in there and wow an audience.
02:30Well, that's the plan.
02:31Okay.
02:32I hope they've studied the refund policy.
02:34Because there is none.
02:38So we're heading to the powerhouse here.
02:40Have you played this joint before?
02:41This is honestly one of my top five venues in Australia.
02:44Oh, really?
02:44It is beautiful.
02:46It feels like a treat.
02:47And the acoustic, everything's great about it.
03:01What's your pre-show prep?
03:04The aim is to try and be chill, but I inevitably pace a lot and look at my notebook and
03:09feel like I need to cram more and more jokes and ideas.
03:13But in theory, just be chill and just act like I'm not thinking about the show.
03:17I'm not thinking about it.
03:46in that brown people makes me like i like that ratio that is good right i'll tell you a bit
03:53of
03:53personal news everybody i just became a dad everyone we had a baby boy we named him yusuf
04:00yusuf muhammad hussein now 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
04:10that was a solid hour of race jokes everyone gets skewered and yet every person there is absolutely
04:18laughing their guts out including me how do you manage that i think it's more just about moving
04:23the camera around and just sort of just letting everyone feel a little different for me making a
04:30joke is effective when there's tension to pop like when there's a when there's a bubble of expectation
04:36or people don't really know where something's going you know if there's a joke about brown people
04:39and white people are laughing yeah they get self-conscious and then it goes both ways
04:43everyone's sort of looking at each other figuring out like whether you know so i feel like is it okay
04:49there's a lot of thinking going on it's race jokes within race jokes within race jokes which is a
04:54complicated and tricky little thing to land it doesn't always land a lot of the writing happens
04:59on stage and oh really yeah and i think it kind of has to because you know you've got you
05:04might have
05:05an idea that's funny and yeah you can only figure it out on stage in front of an audience yeah
05:10and
05:10find out whether they're gonna laugh and meanwhile i can't sleep like i'm wide away my friends are
05:14like just get noise cancelling headphones listen to white noise that'll help you sleep so it's all
05:18right well what's white noise like cold play do you mean and um you can ask almost any comedian uh
05:25where's the line where's the line that you won't cross i don't know if i can i don't know if
05:30that
05:30matters to you that 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 but i am very conscious to not make fun of people who
05:39are
05:39routinely humiliated or do it in a way that doesn't like bring them in yeah because the audience will
05:44let you know it doesn't feel nice like it feels like a bully up on stage yeah there is definitely
05:49a
05:49line i think there is a responsibility if you've got a microphone he comes at it from his own perspective
05:54which is really important i suppose threw him in a very small venue it would have been 50 seats maybe
06:00i remember me and my wife were the only white people in the crowd i was watching people i felt
06:05who hadn't laughed that hard in australia before in terms of that they had some comedy made for them
06:12and i was like oh this is how white people feel every day and uh and it made me realize
06:17just how
06:18important representation is i found um i found something called brown noise have you guys heard of
06:24it's like a real thing yeah it's like i uh i found a three and a half hour track and
06:28i put my noise
06:29cancelling headphones on and i pressed play and i said welcome to brown noise and that was just my
06:34mum's voice you should have been a doctor you 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 playing the
06:45room and so yeah like if they're laughing i just keep going i'm not too i'm not shy to
06:53to milk something dry
07:11you smell that oh my goodness nazeem was born and raised in melbourne's burwood the middle child
07:18of sri lankan migrants it's a surprise like a kinder surprise oh my god look oh yum
07:25a background rich with inspiration for his comedy
07:30this is the food that gets you into trouble when you're a immigrant kid in primary school i remember
07:34like opening my lunch box and kids are like what the hell is that and i was like nothing just
07:38close
07:38it put it away
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 yeah i think this is me at kinder i think i
08:02actually
08:03wanted to be a firefighter for a very short period of time most kids do yeah and then my mum
08:07was like
08:07no a doctor or lawyer that's it well i want to bring your mum straight into the conversation here she
08:13is
08:13and that's you there and your sister and your dad um because she she is central to of course your
08:20life
08:21but also your comedic life yeah she's sort of like a comedy origin story really your mum she kind of
08:26is
08:26i think like you know she's sort of represents like a bigger version of me you know um someone that's
08:33navigating between two worlds uh who doesn't know how to keep things in doesn't really navigate the
08:41subtlety uh that well and that's me i'm just all out she effectively raised us you know my dad left
08:49when
08:50we're i was about five or six so yeah single mum you know having to work several jobs uh navigate
08:56a different culture uh try to raise us as good muslims with a sri lankan identity so she uh she
09:02really dialed up all aspects of her personality isn't there a story about her pulling in the former
09:07premier jeff kennett to the aid of her children yes my sister was getting bullied so my mum took matters
09:12into
09:12her own hands of course just uh went straight to the principal the prince we didn't really have an
09:17intention of resolving the thing my mum then got in the car drove straight to the local mp's office
09:22uh who at the time was jeff kennett premier of victoria had no appointment just walked in with
09:27her hijab she saw jeff walks into his office the receptionist chased my mum my mum locked the door
09:32behind her spoke to jeff kennett 45 minutes later walks back into the principal's office with jeff kennett
09:38by her side jeff's like just just do whatever this woman says all right just and then the bullying
09:42stopped so you know you can't wait for people to do things or say things for you you know you
09:46just
09:46got to front 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
09:58and then they would you know everyone would laugh at them sometimes they would cry but they would never
10:01mess with me again the laughter that i'd get when i'd tease someone back that was like a weapon so
10:06it's
10:06just like it wasn't i wasn't trying to find the hypocrisy i was trying to find the laugh so do
10:10we see this
10:11as the beginning of your comedic voice probably now that you know we're digging into that part of my
10:16childhood the kid who made his bullies laugh was on the cusp of becoming a confident young comedian
10:24community television offered him a defining opportunity we've got a new coffee maker well
10:31i tend to like making tea more than coffee but uh four years after 9 11 while studying law and
10:37science
10:37at university nazeem and some fellow muslim friends put together a show on community television
10:43called salaam cafe this is surely not a permanent appointment what are you criticizing my food
10:48without even tasting it yes yes i am salam cafe was a huge moment in my career it's probably where
10:55um
10:55well it's where television started for me a bunch of friends including waleed ali susan carland
10:59just talking about muslim life i think in a way the show came about because
11:05you know it's post 9 11 we were in the news a lot muslims yes not for good stuff surprise
11:10and
11:11sort of came from this frustration um about like let's just do a show that let's be on tv
11:17as people that we know but i had no filter i'd just say anything and do anything and then you'd
11:22get
11:22feedback so i learned that like oh there's an audience out there that don't all like you and you're
11:27going to hear from them articulately and so we would get these angry emails from people from muslims
11:32saying that we shouldn't be making fun of the religion which we weren't i think i don't know
11:38and then non-muslims were like stop trying to make muslims not look like terrorists and pretend that
11:43you're not we know what you're really about so you couldn't win and so through that experience i sort
11:48of learned to develop a thick skin i guess like that you can't convince everybody it is day one of
11:53the race for camden and i'm going to camden to meet the people to press the flesh the halal flesh
11:58to
11:58see what makes them tick in a non-explosive type of way it was in these early days of salaam
12:04cafe
12:04that nazeem created what was to become an enduring character in his comedy uncle sam we are here in
12:11camden which will soon become a slam den tell me about the origin story of this particular character
12:19we were like we need a segment tomorrow we've got the deadline what are we gonna do i was like
12:23let's
12:23go to frankston 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 nuts is that like a papadum go talk to this boy he's by himself he must be muslim because
12:40nobody
12:41liking him are you muslim the character comes from just like many uncles that i've grown up around
12:48they just have this like beautiful view of the community and faith and they just want to share
12:54it with people so um at a time when people were really like freaked out about muslims this is
12:58probably when i enjoyed playing that character the most he's written to be as as kind of guileless and
13:04and almost to be daffy like a daffy uncle but what's he trying to do turn australian you know sharia
13:10right actually try to introduce sharia law into australia and that's the gag i think the fact that uncle sam
13:16is quietly spoken and quite polite amuses me and he walked down the street and he talked to
13:22australians who would patronize him and not realize that he was uh ripping the piss out of them
13:27it's just the most perfect satire well i think this is where this very this man who's very dear to
13:34you i'm a ramen comes in how old were you when you met each other uh teenagers i think like
13:41we would
13:41go to muslim community events and you know when everybody else was trying to take things seriously
13:46we were not taking you're sitting at the back making jokes and so it was kind of fun to meet
13:52someone who was also just as irreverent well you put together uh the the show that ended up being
13:58your breakthrough moment the two of you which is fear of a brown planet what's your name in the pink
14:05victoria nice to meet you victoria i'll take you on a date victoria candlelight dinner i'd be sitting
14:10here gazing at you you'd be sitting there gazing straight back at me and my mum
14:19i was probably the more well definitely more palatable of the two of us like i was sugar and
14:24he was spice you know um you either like him or you're like i can't do chili um so he
14:28was um yeah
14:29felt really exciting to be able to say your thoughts on a microphone to people that
14:36clap 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 judgments of the edinburgh festival you got a one star review this morning which said
14:56amongst other things that uh we were racist and uh that we weren't good enough comedians to write
15:02about coming from immigrant stock first couple of weeks it was brutal i think it was a one-star
15:09review i think one-star review we had like i can see i can see you fit you still feel
15:13it just like
15:15oh it's so i got so much to say about reviews but like the worst reviews are the ones that
15:19actually
15:19make sense and you're like oh you're right you're right yeah oh i hate you though why'd you just tell
15:24everyone yes you know sometimes you need that pressure to to to cut the crap and just get straight to
15:30the
15:30yeah to the funny bits um so i think it was good the second half of the run there was
15:35an improvement
15:35and um suddenly we sort of like started to figure out what made the show good and funny and yeah
15:43people
15:43started coming what were you learning so so what do you learn when you do stand up night after night
15:47after night it's getting yourself away from the sort of easy laughs yes that makes you a better comedian
15:53so let me get this right so for white people to go out and enjoy the company of other white
16:00people
16:00for 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 called you called yourself a tax accountant batman
16:28tax accountancy by day pretty much literally what by night comedian yeah like i would i was walking
16:35to gigs with my suit on and my shirt and i'd be taking my my suit off on the way
16:39sometimes just like
16:40batman and literally going on stage with like suit pants and a shirt like oh if you take off two
16:44buttons
16:44kind of looks casual definitely very different worlds when you're at pwc you get an extraordinary
16:50opportunity from sbs yeah i sort of so why don't we just pitch this idea to sbs you know because
16:56that's
16:57this that would be the exact show that i want to do not thinking that they would say yes and
17:00then they
17:00said yes and i was like oh crap but i got a job well you you said i should i
17:05go what'd they say and so
17:07i was like look you know sbs have offered me this tv show but pwc is number one for me
17:11um that's just you
17:12i don't know i'll say no he's like wait wait they've given you your own show i'm like yeah he's
17:16like you've got to say yes you idiots like did you need to hear that i think i did that
17:20is a great
17:20thing to be told it was a pretty like it gave me a lot of comfort well i've got some
17:24legally brown here
17:26the sbs show and in this particular scene white man dancing so matt o'kine uh goes searching kind of
17:35almost almost in a sort of a furtive drug dealy type way yeah to be taught how to dance like
17:41a
17:41white man and what ensues is a a cringing juicingly accurate representation of what it is like
17:48but of course in that kind of you know reverse racism way that you love to do you want to
17:55dance
17:55like a white man watch and learn
18:08he's sweating i actually pulled a neck muscle doing this
18:14yes notice his intense sex face and how his feet are constantly out of time with the music and the
18:19rest of
18:20his body it's like poetry white sneakers and then some river dance the river dance
18:33damn i swear you guys were white the way you were moving just then so what's the challenge of sketch
18:38comedy when you're doing that so when you're doing something like legally brown on sbs and you're having
18:41to churn it out you're working in a team i guess you're working with other writers oh it's like it
18:45is
18:45so much more i would say in many ways more difficult than stand-up because because well you need to
18:51write the sketch as well so 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 you've got to be
19:00able to
19:00say the things that you want to say and not be told off by the networks and if one of
19:05those elements
19:06falls over like it's just not funny and and the audience doesn't know why he's one of a rare breed
19:12comedian who can do stand-up and sketch comedy there are a lot of comedians who can only do one
19:16or the
19:16other and he can do both seamlessly yes
19:29nazeem's comedy career can be hectic and unpredictable so he seeks out ways to find focus
19:42very good jiu-jitsu is this old martial art there's so much order there's a way things are
19:50done there's respect there's a hierarchy so it's the structure of my life where everything else is chaotic
19:58jiu-jitsu has completely upgraded my life like i'll go every morning at 6 30 and it's almost getting
20:05bashed every morning there's something about like being physical where you are grappling to not get
20:12choked out or have your arm snapped off that it's like it unlocks the creative side of my brain and
20:17for the rest of the day i kind of ride that wave as a comedian who plays with risk nazeem's
20:29not afraid
20:29to make himself vulnerable in 2017 he took a bold step by appearing on i'm a celebrity get me out
20:38of here
20:39this powerful exchange was highlighted by the network as a key and highly emotional moment
20:45of nazeem sharing how the aftermath of the lint cafe siege affected his family so that was horrific
20:53and it was very frightening for a lot of people and my sister then texts me and she says nazeem
20:57she goes i'm scared to wear the hijab home because i think people are going to attack me and then
21:00throughout the day that hashtags are trending i'll ride with you non-muslims are volunteering to sit with
21:05muslims and make them feel more comfortable and then she then messaged me later on going no you
21:09know what i now feel comfortable and safe knowing that my fellow australians are willing to stand up
21:15and support me on public transport and that made me like it actually made me cry when that happened
21:21because that man wanted to divide australia he wanted us to turn on each other he was a lunatic but
21:27what he did instead was make us come together the fly on the wall style of the production
21:32lent nazeem's very personal story an air of authentic self-revelation that struck deeply with
21:38his cast mates and the viewers it was a turning point it changed a lot of things for you didn't
21:46it
21:46that kind of show i felt like i didn't need to do any any more like explaining like i sometimes
21:51felt
21:51like to do a punchline on a joke about whatever i'd have to first prove to the audience that i'm
21:56with you
21:57and that look i 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 oh we
22:04know
22:04this guy we love we know where his heart's at so you just get straight to the punchline they they
22:08they know what interesting so it sort of kind of plowed the field it just made it so much easier
22:12to tell
22:22jokes ordinary australians can smell and see an underdog our government still hasn't got the
22:28message i reckon what might overwhelmingly pressure them to stop funding this genocide is maybe if we
22:33just did something small just started australia the way we said gaza instead of calling it gaza
22:37we started calling it gaza and australians be like oh shit gaza's in strife quick someone call
22:43up bunnings let's organize a sausage sizzle your comedy has referenced palestine gaza and israel from
22:50day dot right from the very beginning did the events of october 7 make it harder for you to want
22:57to do
22:57comedy around palestine and gaza yeah 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 um i don't just speak
23:16first and think second when it comes to big issues like that um so i'm lucky to be around some
23:20clever
23:21people in 2025 nazeem released an excerpt from his totally normal show as an online special do you reckon
23:29we should make jokes about israel tonight all right called jokes about israel for 12 and a half minutes
23:37it's now become one of his most watched online clips israel doesn't let anybody leave they control
23:43everything that comes in food water medicine electricity it's like being in a relationship
23:48with r kelly you know does that punchline justify the speech well you had that repeated refrain where
23:59you say did the punchline justify the speech i found that really fascinating to watch a comedian clearly
24:06having to walk an absolute tightrope of i'm here to tell jokes but i'm here telling jokes about something
24:12that matters to me deeply and is an incredibly serious subject and divisive subject obviously
24:17merely mentioning israel or palestine or gaza is heavy and people are immediately tense then the
24:22jokes are like not surface level but they're easier to digest and it starts to get a little
24:27harder to to maintain the veneer of comedy around yes yes so by the end of that routine effectively
24:34like i'm laying on a punchline but it's almost just like to serve the mechanical purpose
24:39of justifying what i've just said you might not necessarily be setting out to change minds but
24:43have you ever had any jewish or zionist supporters come to you and say that you've changed their mind
24:51oh i've had a lot of jewish people um tell me that they love what i'm doing and support me
24:58and i've had people really kick up a fuss in the show um who have come to the show within
25:03the show yeah
25:04yeah um when i get on the israel material um but to be honest i feel like when there's someone
25:10in the
25:11crowd that does or says something yeah you know i've got the mic um it really brings the audience
25:16together so it actually improves the show right so it really gets the energy back up at the 50 minute
25:21mark
25:22i think it's great that he covers all those subject areas because you know a lot of people put them
25:27in
25:27the too hard basket i mean to some degree i do if i'm honest i think it's outside my specialty
25:33people understand nas has um an understanding of that situation to be able to talk about it if
25:42someone else did that heavy-handed and didn't have an affinity with it we wouldn't accept it
25:48it's his resume that says this material is safe in these hands i went to um rural country town here
25:57in queensland called capella and i got to the hotel there's a middle-aged woman standing there
26:02named barbara bleached blonde hair she had a cigarette hanging out of her mouth and she
26:07was holding my uh set list and at the bottom i had in big bold letters jokes about israel
26:11she looked really pissed off she's like is this yours i said yep you a comedian are you i said
26:16yep
26:16my name's akmal and um so she gives it to me as i'm walking off she goes oi akmal i
26:23said yeah and
26:24she puts a white fist in the air she goes free palestine and that just blew my mind that's how
26:34you
26:34know that israel's gone too far when even bogan queenslanders are like nah i'm with the arabs on
26:41he's actually here
26:45anyway that's how i met my wife so
26:55so what's been the most unexpected response 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 he said yeah i haven't felt like laughing um
27:08you know for the last couple of years and so yeah that was something that really made it to me
27:12yeah
27:12yeah it's a good answer oh i understand how words can hurt also how words can have real life
27:22implications 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
27:35create a wedge where we're pushed further apart listen you guys been great thank you so much for
27:39coming i appreciate you coming out thank you thank you so much
Comments