Kiran Deol is a comedian and actress whose show business career began auspiciously enough when she followed up her college thesis with a documentary short, Woman Rebel, that was shortlisted for the Academy Awards. As an actress, she co-starred in the 2019 NBC sitcom, Sunnyside, and before that, chalked up numerous guest-starring roles on shows such as Modern Family, The Mindy Project, How to Get Away With Murder, New Girl, The Newsroom, Weeds, and Grey’s Anatomy. As a comedian, she co-hosts a weekly show Thursdays in Los Angeles called Peacock, and has performed on Gotham Comedy Live and Hulu’s Coming to the Stage. She’s also a regular on the podcasts Lovett or Leave It and Hysteria. She joined me to talk about her latest project, a one-person show called Joysuck that follows the aftermath when a stranger tried to suck the joy out of her life by smashing her face with a bottle. Deol is taking Joysuck to the Edinburgh Fringe, but first she’s talking to me about it, as well as why Hollywood has sucked the joy out of being a working writer or actor enough for both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA to go on strike.
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This transcript has been edited and condensed only slightly for your convenience.
Last things first, the events that you talk about in Joysuck just happened within the past year, correct?
Correct. Correct. Correct.
So when it happened, you weren't already thinking — well, you weren't thinking these events would happen in the first place — but then in the aftermath, you weren't immediately sitting there thinking to yourself, oh, you know what, this will be a great show for Fringe?
Definitely not. I was excited to take something to Fringe and I did the Soho Theatre in January. I think we can say this — it’s in the paragraph description for the Fringe — in December, I was walking with a friend outside of 7-Eleven and I got assaulted, I got hit in the face with a bottle in an unprovoked assault that set off this chain of events that included some surgeries and trial and all of this kind of thing. So yeah, I was not expecting to make the show about that. End of January, I did the Soho Theatre in London, and had a show that I was planning to bring to Edinburgh called Joysuck, and then the last five minutes of that show, were kind of addressing this experience and how joy sucks will keep happening. And this is why we need the perspective on joy suck. As you know, things that suck your joy out and how do you get back to like a kind of childhood level of joy, which is kind of what the show was about. But then as I started to evolve and develop, I just started to play around and it felt really exciting and really personal, and really interesting and dynamic, hopefully, to kind of share just a very personal emotional trajectory of what happened. And so that ending ended up becoming kind of the beginning. And you saw my Work In Progress version of that reworked hour since then, which was always the plan for years, five years ago, it was the plan.
The classic formula is tragedy plus time equals comedy. But for you to be processing this as you're processing this, so to speak, processing it onstage while you're also processing it just in your day-to-day life. Is how you tend to work?
Yeah, this is a great question. For me, the stand-up was a lifesaver for processing it because even like when you were back from surgeries and you couldn't drink alcohol and then like being able to like even go out to some shows with like the nose cast. I have a weekly show in Los Angeles called Peacock. That's every Thursday. Being able to just talk about it when it was raw for several weeks, and it did not have to be super funny or like maybe there's one thing that was funny was really helpful because for me, it helped take an event that was you know, objectively awful. And you get to reframe and recontextualize it and find a way to help your brain tell a story in a way that makes sense to you and feels kind of empowering because you're finding what's funny, you're finding the jokes. You're taking something that was a very isolating experience that was quite violent, and you're getting into a shared piece of community where we can all laugh together. And to me that's just like, Yeah, I think it's been like one of the most cathartic and helpful ways to deal with it. Honestly.
What strikes me about your career is that your first experience with show business or filmmaking or being in the business is OK, so you go to Harvard, you have a friend from Nepal, it strikes an interest in you to learn more, you write your senior thesis about what's going on in Nepal
Look at you knowing shit. My God!
And then you decide, oh, you know what, I should make a documentary film based on my thesis. And then that documentary short ends up getting shortlisted for the Academy Awards, gets an Emmy (nom) from the News and Documentary Emmys. What was your actual thought process, when you decided after graduating from Harvard, you're going to kind of just keep going with your thesis?
That's so great. I love that. You’re like: So what the fuck happened to you? Is your question. And like so first of all, let me just say all that stuff did happen. It got nominated for an Emmy. It didn't win, but that also wasn't enough at the time to get me an agent — representation in the entertainment business, you know, because it was a different time, honestly. And it was like, you know, I always say The Academy like there was a movie called Rabbit à la Berlin. That kind of makes me laugh. I mean, God bless. Like six out of seven of these films that were shortlisted for the Oscars were amazing. Fantastic. Chef’s kiss.. All great. Just flavor of the week. One was about rabbits. The fall of the Berlin Wall from the point of view of the rabbits inside of the Berlin Wall, that was in black and white, and also German voiceover of the rabbits for 40 minutes with English subtitles. And that movie got nominated for an Oscar over my movie? And I was like my joke to that was always, like, I was like, yeah, you know, because the Academy, their demographic, they’re like Berlin Wall: important. Women, those are the things you put your cigarettes out on. You know what, just dark. It’s dark.
Maybe they all had visceral memories of Watership Down. I saw that as a child in the movie theater, and it scarred me.
Yeah, and you were like, and I blame myself because it's like the next time that I make a movie about women rebel soldiers, I think we know what I need to do. Add rabbits. Obviously more rabbits. Honestly, this hour, probably need some rabbits.
But when you made that short, though, you're thinking this is going to be my entree into Hollywood, or were you?
No, I think I knew I wanted to be in an artistic career. And I think I knew the themes that were interesting to me. I think I wanted to make a fiction feature film, and then I like, talked to somebody at some like, I don't know, like a Harvard business conference. And he was like, Have you thought about a documentary? He was like, it's much easier to fund or whatever. And I was like, Yeah, documentary! you know, because I was like, 14 years old, and I didn't realize how much work, time effort and energy it would take. So yeah, let's do it! And then, you know, and then I did, but it just took much longer. I thought it would be a summer and it was like, you know, whatever, a year and a half. And so I got very lucky in a lot of ways, had a lot of help from like so many generous people there. But the crazy thing about that when I look back on it. I think I said this in the version of the show that you watched. It's like the tagline of that show, and the thing I was always interested in about those women rebel soldiers was like, up until that point, a lot of the images that I saw, South Asian women specifically were like, oh, like my husband's like weak. It was like, you know, like weak, vulnerable victims. Like somebody threw acid on my face, like my husband's gonna burn me at the stake because of this. And not to say like, all this stuff is very serious and it happens but the women in my life were these badass like, bitches. Yeah, they're like tiny ladies, but they're tough as nails. They’re immigrants, they're really resilient and weathered. I didn’t see that image of South Asian women in Western media. And so when I learned that 40% of the rebel army in Nepal were women over the course of a 10-year revolution, and I didn't know it, my jaw was on the floor. I was like, because it's such an arresting image. It's like, these women holding guns. There's this element of agency. And I think I said this in the show. It's like the tagline was kind of like — agents of change, not victims of circumstance — was the idea. And so there's a great irony. I was talking to a buddy of mine about how sometimes themes seem to traverse your own life. So this idea of being an agent of change and not another victim of circumstance, that's exactly kind of, in this context of literally being assaulted, where the state of California is sending you mail where you are called a victim. Finding a way to try to be an agent of change in that, only this time, it's like very personal to me specifically. And so, like an exploration of I just think like a lifelong theme of how do you feel a sense of agency in your life, because everyone wants to feel that, I think the vast majority of people, and then there's a couple of people who are amazing victims, most of them are — stay with me — billionaires. That's right.
I was gonna say conservative college students who are told that their opinions don't matter.
God, poor for President of Disney. It's just unrealistic sitting in that, Sun Valley.
Was there anything in your own childhood, because I know you were born in England, but then your family decides to leave England for Florida?
[NOTE: She made a short film about her family’s immigration story for Sundance Now]
As we know, this is the path right?
This is the way. Maybe predicting the events of the ABC sitcom, Fresh Off the Boat. They're like, Oh, yeah, Florida in the 90s. That's what you do.
Florida in the 90s, baby.
I mean, Fresh Off the Boat did try to have a spin off. I don't know if you were ever up for this. With Vir Das as a motel owner.
I have heard of this. And how was that? I didn’t see it.
I guess it didn't take. I watched it, because I've had Vir on the podcast. So I was intrigued to see what would happen. I guess a subplot was just that the Indian American experience was owning a motel. In Florida.
Which is hilarious. I mean, I think there are a lot of hotel owners, but that wasn't my family. There's a lot of franchise business. I think a lot of times if you're an immigrant and you come in and you know somebody that's doing one thing, they know how to say oh, like you do it like this, like this is how you do this thing. And so that's why you get a lot of immigrants who come in. And like a bunch of people on motels. I think it's like the Patels. I'm not a Patel, I'm a Deol, thank you. But a lot of Indians owned hotels, because it's like, you know, you come in and like talk to the people you know, and they know all of the hoops, the logistics, how to get through it. So like, there's kind of a fast track to understanding how you would franchise a business how you would do this thing.
Yeah, like the donut stores in Southern California.
Exactly. Like the donut stores in Southern California is a perfect example. I don't remember the ethnicity of the guy. But yeah, people come and then they're like, how do I do a thing? And everything has a million steps.
So in my neighborhood I think all of the Dunkin Donuts in my neighborhood, all the employees are Bengali
Love that. I love that.
It starts with with one cluster of people and then they just will bring in the rest of you and this is how you get it.
Yeah, this is how you get in, this is what you do. They’re showing you the ropes.
What were your parents doing?
My dad was a computer engineer, and my mom was a teacher who worked in early childhood education. Now she has preschools, so she has two preschools that she wants with a business partner, so very clever lady.
So what did they think when you have that Harvard degree, then you have this award-nominated short film. And then you say to them, yeah, I think I'm gonna be a comedian and actress now?
Yeah, exactly. That's great. I will say I was very lucky in terms of like, because I did theater in high school. I always knew I wanted to be in the arts. And storytelling. Was funny in high school and then did some of the acting and directing in college and just didn't really know what direction it was gonna go. And so the documentary was like the right thing out of school, if that makes sense. It was like the writing and that went to the documentary as opposed to like, I don't know what Michael Moore's path was, but it feels to me like he was probably like, I want to make documentary films! from like the beginning. I feel like I kind of ended up making one and then people were like, Oh, this is what you do. And I was like, it is? And I was like, Oh, weird, you know, which is hilarious. And after that. I remember, it was a pure hustle. Really no resources, like going to like the South Central library and like looking at grants on their computer, their public computer, and then cold calling people. My executive producer on that movie was a cold call. Who was incredible, you know, still a friend today. And for all these reasons, I think it was quite taxing. And I think when it was over instead of feeling like yeah, let's do this again. I was like, it'd be fun to do something fun. And there was never like a plan, like a deliberate plan, but CBS had a sketch, comedy diversity showcase that they were doing, and I was like, comedy: that sounds fun. Fun! And then I like met a bunch of people doing that, who I really respect and I felt really lucky to meet at that time. And I remember thinking I could see myself making a career here. I liked that the people were I mean, it's like, you know, you're in comedy. It's like people are hustlers. They're writing, they're performing. Some of them are now you know, running shows, some of them are doing stand-up. There's a real range of what you can do as a comedian and all of it involves agency, and that is recognized by the entertainment business in a way that, you know, if an actress is like, I'm a writer, they're like, OK, sweetheart. Sure you are. I feel, I mean, maybe that's me being I'm projecting too much, but
We are talking at a time when both the actors and the writers are on strike because as much as you might want to be in your villain area, you're dealing with actual villains in their villain era.
100% Yeah, they are. Somebody put it this way. It's actually kind of insane that this person selling stuff is telling the person making stuff that they don't deserve a cut of the thing they made. Like, that's crazy. You didn't make anything. And that is not to minimize the importance of distribution or the business part. But like, I think there is something when like a business model gets really out of whack and what greed looks like and we're seeing it, you know, we're seeing it all over America.
It brings me back to Sunnyside. You know, I was interested in it not just because I live in Astoria, Queens, which is a neighborhood over, I've spent many times in Sunnyside but also because it was he was full of stand-up comedians, so it was a treat to see you and Joel Kim Booster and Moses storm. And I feel like even at the time, I felt like that was an early warning sign of how the business was failing. Because NBC, I mean, you can tell me what happened from your perspective. But I remember even writing at the time when the network canceled the show. They had an opportunity to put it on Hulu for no additional cost.
Or Peacock. Yeah.
And they didn't. Now it seems, oh they did that because they didn't want to pay you.
That's funny. I don't even know if the residuals on that were high enough to warrant that being the decision. But what strikes me about it is I think about those show creators and like the pedigree of those creators and it's the guys who did The Good Place and Parks and Recreation and a lot of the seminal hits of that time and so, you know, the irony to me is like, I remember I got Sunnyside at the same — I got that job and then a couple months later the audition for Never Have I Ever came out, the show on Netflix, so I couldn't go out for it. But I look back on it even now. And I think if I had had the decision of which one I wanted at the time, I absolutely would have gone for Sunnyside. I just know there's no doubt in my mind I would have done that. What I see the change in the business model is you know, you watch season one of The Office — Season Two, Season Three, the show gets progressively better because I think that those show creators really are taking, I mean a bunch of like really tremendously talented comedic talent, but then they're finding it. They're finding how to write to each character, finding the voice, and they incorporate your voice. You know, they try to get interesting people and then it just takes a second for it all to gel. And it does, but you need to give it a minute, for those like kind of ensemble comedies. And what really struck me about it is I was like, wow, like somebody like Mike Schur, that entire camp is filled up. You would think that they built a lot of goodwill with that network. Just given how much money they made them. And it's wild to me that they didn't give them the grace of like, a couple of seasons to get it right. If that makes sense. Because I do think the show would have grown and the show you saw in season one would have evolved into a show in season three that just, you know, it's an iterative process, especially comedy. You came to a work in progress of my show, because comedy is an iterative process. It gets better the more you do it and the more a group of people is working together, the more familiar you become. That part, that grace seems to like, now it feels like everything drops at the same time. You need to come out guns blazing, which really is not helpful for the ensemble comedy. In my opinion, like Schitt’s Creek. Because the budget was so small, they had time to iterate and find it, right? Just very different from like a White Lotus, pure creator, single creator who's like writing the whole thing, has like a very specific vision. And both are valid, but I think that some of the most beloved television shows that people watch on repeat, this has been the process to make is like this iterative process. And by taking that away, how do you expect to make those kinds of shows.
I don’t know.
By the way, your answer is: Uhhh. great answer Great answer.
You know, NBC gave A.P. Bio a chance after trying to cancel it they gave it another shot on Peacock. You know they had that Seeso platform for a hot minute. I forget if that overlapped at all with Sunnyside.
I think that was an RIP before Sunnyside came along. I think it was Seeso first, because Cameron Esposito and River Butcher had a show on tha,t I think. And then Peacock came along, and the irony is my live comedy show weekly is called Peacock, and we predated the network. So we'll see who lasts longer.
What about your career before then? Interestingly, you had a pilot with Moses, the season before Sunnyside, right?
So crazy, right?
Your career before that, though. You were having one of those careers where you could book a guest-starring role at least once or twice a year with a major network show. As a working actor, was that something that could sustain you then? Or did you find over the course of the past decade or so that, that's another reason why you have to be on strike?
It's gone way down. It used to be that if you had booked a couple of guest stars a year, you'd be OK. Right? It went from like, I don't know, maybe for network like, they went from something like, I don't know, $10 grand plus residuals, like for an hour, to I don't know what the hours are now. But like, I know I have friends who are working on Netflix shows recurring or like Apple shows, and I mean, recurring. They'd be working three episodes for $1,200 a day and then there's no residuals. So those jobs are incredibly difficult to book, you know, like, just just in terms of the pure value of people going out. Any role you see on television, there were 60+ people trying to get that role. Right. And so it's like to get that job is a challenge. It's hard. And then when you get it, you're not gonna get all of them. They're not all gonna go your way. It's like baseball, there's a very high rate of failure, but when you hit one out of the park, you hit one out of park. So you need those jobs to pay you well, because that's how you sustain in the industry. I mean, I was thinking about if I got paid for all the auditions I've done, and how close they came. It's like my financial situation. I would be rich. I would be getting the nicer housing in Edinburgh. It'd be a real difference. And to be clear, if you were paying for auditions maybe less people wouldn't be auditioning. So like, I'm sure there would be some like contraction in the economics. I get that. But for the business model to have changed as rapidly as it did in terms of the sustainability of anything but like the top 1% of creators to be able to make stuff and make a living doing it. For people on The Bear to like not have enough money to live for the year while it's a massive hit. That's insane! What are we doing? And then for like the very, very top people, $100 million deals didn't exist, like six years ago or whatever it was 10 years ago, and then you're paying, you know, these like insane premiums for like the top of 1% of the 1%. This is not the way to run a business or a country in my opinion. But again,
It's great if you're Ryan Murphy or Shonda Rhimes, but
Yeah and like but then I'm even curious because like, you know, Mike Schur is in that position, but I don't think he thinks you know, I think this is all about your orientation into what you think labor looks like. What you think value is. And do you truly believe like, I was talking to a dude who had sold a company to Google, was one of those like wunderkind kind of guys and he goes, do you really inherently believe that one person's flavor is worth $78,000 a day? And somebody else's labor is worth like, $250 a day. Does that sound right to you? Like, does that sound right? That doesn't sound right. I always think about it like preschool shit. My mother's children in like the preschool would be like, That's fucked up. Do you know what I mean? Why are we doing that as grownups behind the guise of lawyers and like unions and pretending to be like, what do they just the way because Wall Street? Get the fuck out of my life! You're just being a dick fuck like you're just being a dick fuck. Is that a direct quote? Can you put that in the Dick Fuck: An Episode with Kiran Deol.
From Joysuck to Dick Fuck.
Yeah, exactly. She's an innovator, ladies and gentelemen.
You mentioned your weekly live show in LA. When you're not showing up one time in my lifetime on my podcast, you're showing up multiple times on others, whether it's Lovett or Leave It or Hysteria. How important is it these days for working comedian to have your fingers in all these different places?
That's a great question. I don't know. Is the answer. I don't know. I'm just out here on the streets. You know, doing what I do. I don't know how you feel about comedians, but I always feel like, they're like the guy on the corner with like a trench coat. it's like an open trench coat and I'm like, do you want this cup? And they're like, No, I don't want a cup. I need some keys. And I was like, I got some keys right here. You know, and it's like, you're just constantly like, have all these wares. That's what I feel like a comedian really is. And I love that about it. You know, I feel like it's the same thing. It's like the guy in the corner just selling a bunch of, you don't want a bag? I got a shirt. You don't want a shirt? I got a hat. Do you want the socks? And they’re like get away from me. To me that's, that's a comedian.
So it is important to have lots of pockets.
Lots of pockets.
You need some places to put all these things.
Otherwise how are you going to pull them out and pull off that hat trick? Yeah. Because the thing is, what I do love about comedy is I do think even though the actual act of stand-up is quite solitary, there is a like a massive community. I'm hopping on your podcast. Like, Lovett or Leave It has terrific producers and then I get to like, go joke around and kick it with like friends, some hilarious people. You know what I mean? It's fun. I have fun, you know, or folks come out to my shows and they’re like, maybe you could do this or try this here and you hear thoughts from people. So I think it's also like, you know, trying to remember to be collaborative and participate in a in a community. Like there's a community aspect to that, too. Because nobody's like, you don't want to live in a vacuum. That's no fun.
You've proven your ability to adapt I mean, a year ago, you were probably thinking, I might take a show to Edinburgh, but it was a completely different show.
It would have been a different — it was a different show.
As you said it was a completely different show. You get hit by a stranger outside of 7-Eleven with a glass bottle in the face and suddenly, five minutes at the end of your show turns into the entirely different show. And now you have this new show that you've been able to cathartically work through and you're able to showcase it to the world at a time when you couldn't be doing anything else otherwise.
HAHAHAHA. My friend will say and this is a very LA thing. I don't think a New Yorker would ever say this. But it's just the universe is always working for you, Kiran, it’s always working for you. It's never working against you. And I say shut up, you know, to that. But the way that you phrase that so eloquently, makes her sound correct?
Well, I maybe correct, but I may also have to shut up, so Kiran Deol, thank you so much. I enjoyed seeing your show in progress in Brooklyn and I look forward to seeing how much it has progressed when we reconnect in Scotland.
I'm so excited, and I'm so excited to see you now and excited to see you there.