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Kunal Nayyar Biography - From Wikipedia
Born - April 30, 1981 (1981-04-30), London, England, UK
Occupation - Actor/Writer
Years active - 2007–present
Kunal Nayyar (born April 30, 1981, London, England, UK) is an English-Indian comic actor. He is currently known for his role as Rajesh Koothrappali on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory
Education
St. Columba's School (New Delhi, India)
University of Portland (Portland, Oregon), BS in Business
Temple University (Philadelphia), Masters in Fine Arts
Career
Recently, Nayyar teamed up with Oroon Das, to write the critically acclaimed play Cotton Candy, which is currently still running in New Delhi, India.
Nayyar also previously guest-starred in the CBS drama NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Service) in the episode “Suspicion” (Season 4, Episode 12), in which he played Youssef Zidan, a terrorist.
He was on The Bonnie Hunt Show on April 22, 2009 and on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on May 8th.
Kunal Nayyar's role in The Big Bang Theory is his first as a regular on a television series. He previously had a guest starring role on NCIS.
Nayyar is currently writing his first feature film, and his critically acclaimed play, "Cotton Candy," continues to run in New Delhi.
His theater acting credits include "Huck and Holden" at the Dahlia Theater in Los Angeles, for which Kunal was awarded best male lead in a play on the West Coast by the Garland Awards, and "Loves Labors Lost" at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford upon Avon, England.
Always a performer, Nayyar began acting in musicals and plays at a young age. After high school, he left India for the United States where he majored in business and took many acting classes at the University of Portland (Portland, Oregon). In his senior year, he was nominated as the best actor in his play, "The Rose Tattoo," and was given an invitation to the American College Theater Festival (ACTF) to compete in an acting competition where he eventually won the Mark Twain Award for comic brilliance as well as a fellowship to the prestigious Sundance Theater Lab. He went on to receive his Masters in Fine Arts (MFA) from Temple University in Philadelphia.
Nayyar played badminton for his school team and competed at state level in the region of North India. He is also a fanatical fan of cricket. He is said to have a killer shoulder shimmy. According to Nayyar, wikipedia says his name means "one who sees beauty in everything" and it comes from a Himalayan bird known as the Painted Snipe.
He was born in London, England, and spent most of his younger years growing up in New Delhi, India. He currently resides in Los Angeles.
Kunal Nayyar's role in THE BIG BANG THEORY is his first as a regular on a television series. He had a guest starring role on NCIS.
Nayyar is currently writing his first feature film, and his critically acclaimed play, "Cotton Candy," continues to run in New Delhi.
His theater acting credits include "Huck and Holden" at the Dahlia Theater in Los Angeles, for which Kunal was awarded best male lead in a play on the West Coast by the Garland Awards, and "Loves Labors Lost" at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford upon Avon, England.
Always a performer, Nayyar began acting in musicals and plays at a young age. After high school, he left India for the United States where he majored in business and took many acting classes at the University of Portland. In his senior year, he was nominated as the best actor in his play, "The Rose Tattoo," and was given an invitation to the American College Theater Festival (ACTF) to compete in an acting competition where he eventually won the Mark Twain Award for comic brilliance as well as a fellowship to the prestigious Sundance Theater Lab. He went on to receive his Masters in Fine Arts (MFA) from Temple University in Philadelphia.
Nayyar played badminton for his school team and competed at state level in the region of North India. He is also a fanatical fan of cricket. He is said to have a killer shoulder shimmy. According to Nayyar, wikipedia says his name means "one who sees beauty in everything" and it comes from a Himalayan bird known as the Painted Snipe.
He was born in London, England, and spent most of his younger years growing up in New Delhi, India. He currently resides in Los Angeles.
Nayyar's birth date is April 30.
Kunal Nayyar Trivia
Age: 28 years old
Birthday: April 30, 1981
Birthplace: London, England, UK
Hometown: New Delhi, India
Current Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Your character on The Big Bang Theory (Koothrappali) has quite a long name that I would assume is pretty hard to pronounce. Have you and your
fellow actors had a hard time getting it out during the production of the show?
Kunal Nayyar: Surprisingly my character's name rolls off the tongue pretty easily for everyone. It is my real name (Kunal) that sometimes is
harder for the directors, producers, and writers and they have a harder time getting that out correct. I have heard some really fantastic versions
of my name from them.
What is it like being the 'new guy' to show business and landing a big TV show like The Big Bang Theory?
Kunal Nayyar: Amazing. My career has taken off pretty quickly. I have been in the right place at the right time, but I feel like I have earned
it from my time in theatre and doing stuff in India.
You did a guest stint on NCIS how was that experience?
Kunal Nayyar: It was my first TV experience. I had done a lot in India, but this took off very quickly for me. As I said before I was in the
right place at the right time. It all came very easy for me, but it was fun because I got to play a terrorist and I am such the opposite of that
which was great.
How is working on a one hour drama different from working on a 30-minute sitcom?
Kunal Nayyar: Well the biggest difference is working in front of a studio audience and working with four cameras vs. a single camera for dramas.
Also with the dramas there is take after take. With sitcoms you are playing to the audience that is watching you as well as the cameras and I
am so used to doing that from my stage work.
Have you guys gotten the chance to do any improv yet or are you just working with the scripts?
Kunal Nayyar: The writing is so good and we are so new that we haven't really done any improv, but they allow us to do physical stuff and move
props and such.
Your character has trouble with the ladies. You don’t talk much but we did get to hear your thoughts when Penny was talking to you. Will we eventually
see you actually talk with Penny and will she help you break out of your shell?
Kunal Nayyar: I think we will eventually hear much more from Koothrappali. It may be season 10 before we actually hear him speak more than a
few words but it will happen. Coming up we will see him in an interesting situation with a woman and trying to be social out at a party although
I think he will always be a little awkward about it all.
Leonard and Sheldon are physicist's and Penny works at the Cheesecake Factory, we haven't really been told what your character does, so is he
a physicist as well?
Kunal Nayyar: Yes all four of the guys work at the UCLA lab and eventually you will get to seem them at work.
So does this mean we will get to see where the other guys live and their lives outside of Sheldon and Leonard's place?
Kunal Nayyar: Yes we are going to go in-depth into all of their lives.
Being a nerd or geek is popular on TV right now, there is Chuck on NBC and you guys on CBS so would you say that your character is more a nerd,
or a geek or neither?
Kunal Nayyar: Actually I think Koothrappali is a sexy beast [laughs]. Well I would say that he is a geek-nerd who is a nerd-geek. He is just
a very smart guy who lives in a bubble and doesn't really care what is going on around him as long as particle physics is evolving his life is
good.
Is there anything coming up for your character that you can divulge?
Kunal Nayyar: I think we will see Koothrappali evolve and become a little more social with women. Hopefully his inability to speak will evolve
soon. He will always be socially awkward but hopefully he will figure it out a little bit. Or maybe we will learn that he has a secret at home
like a talking robot or something.
So what's the best thing about being on this show?
Kunal Nayyar: Well it's awesome to be on a prime-time TV show, but I think the best thing is the cast who I love and the producers, our directors, and we're having such a good time because we love each other and that speaks to the amount of fun we're having.
You ever take any costumes?
Kunal Nayyar: Yeah, there's a little cardigan that I asked if I could have because it was really cool and it fit me well and I did.
You seem to have a lot of fun with Kuthrapali gets drunk. What's it like shifting gears with the character from a reserved, painfully shy guy to a party animal?
Kunal Nayyar: I think that's the beauty of it. That's the most fun when he does get to release all this stuff. To actually have the opportunity to get drunk and relax, it really is a bodily thing. Now that I'm drunk, I'm going to drop my shoulders and smile a lot. And it works! So it's more a physical thing than an emotional thing.
How much of this character is you? What is the geekiest thing about you?
Kunal Nayyar: There are some similarities. I think his innocence and my innocence and intertwined with each other. I mean I love playing videogames and he loves playing videogames and I think Raj, when he's alone, loses his mind in the TV screen. We have those similarities. There are a few things about geek culture that I love. I love retro sneakers and stuff like that. I think I do dress up a little differently. But we definitely do have some similarities.
What about that crowd today? Were you expecting that size?
Kunal Nayyar: I thought thirty people would show up. I am so out of touch with reality! You're on the set and you watch the show and you see in the magazines that nine million people watch the show and you think, "Oh, that's cool." But you don't ever have an experience like this where you're this close to people that love the show. It's truly a blessed feeling.
What are your first impressions of Comic-Con?
Kunal Nayyar: Comic-Con has been an amazing experience. It's overwhelming, I have to admit, because of the lines and the crowds.
At this point, we're joined by Simon Helberg.
Simon, all of these characters have sort of an innocence to them but your character, Wolowitz, is so sexually forward. How do you balance that so that we find you endearing instead of creepy?
Simon Helberg: Yeah, it's a fine line. I can't imagine an audience being repulsed by my sexuality. I guess it could happen. There's a harmlessness I think he has. When someone is over-stating it so much, you're almost able to see him not able to have enough courage to make it into the bedroom. It's "Methinks thou dost protest too much." It's like "We get it. You're a sexual creature." But the innocence is the challenge for me. I guess just being as genuine as I can and not being seductive to the point of people wanting to throw up in their mouth.
Do you guys find you get more attention from the ladies now?
Helberg: Well, I'm married so I can't. But yes. [laughter] From my wife. She likes me a little more I think.
Kunal Nayyar: Of course. You're on a TV show.
Anything you guys see at Comic-Con that you can use as motivation or character tips?
Helberg: We haven't seen that much. We've just been driving by them but even then I'm sure there's stuff we can pull.
Kunal Nayyar: Actors are always looking so this is a perfect place to see these kind of people that we portray on the show.
Do you think you could walk around and not get noticed?
Helberg: It feels like we'd get noticed, just after today's panel. If any of those people were there, they were pretty die-hard. I do want to see what it's like.
Kunal Nayyar: I think if Simon or I were on our own, it would be a little harder to recognize, but if the two of us are together or Jim [Parsons], me and Simon are together, then I think people would recognize us a lot more. I think Jim is a lot more recognizable.
What were some of your favorite moments from season one?
Kunal Nayyar: I just loved when we were all wearing The Flash costume from the Halloween episode. I just couldn't get over all of us wearing the same thing.
Helberg: I liked the swelling up from eating the peanuts.
Kunal Nayyar: I loved when the drugs wore off and I was talking to Missy and the drugs wore off and my voice got really high pitched. I loved that whole episode. His thing with the magic trick.
We talked about the amount of people lining up for you guys. Who would you line up for?
Helberg: Probably Elvis Costello. The Beatles. I think anyone would line up for The Beatles. There's only two left. If The Beatles re-unite, I'll line up. If they find out a way to make that happen.
Kunal Nayyar: I would definitely line up for "The Lord of the Rings". I'm a huge "Lord of the Rings" geek.
Simon, what was it like working with Joss Whedon?
Helberg: It was great. I sort of happened into that thing. I had no idea what I was getting into. I just asked to be a part of ["Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog"] and I just think it's terrific. I'm just such a huge fan of his and it's weird to be in it and the music is wonderful. And Joss is such a sweet, unassuming guy. He's so humble. You'd never know he's such an auteur and so influential because when he talks he's just like a guy with a t-shirt hanging out and I think that what makes him so influential to people.
Any projects coming up for you guys?
Helberg: I'm going to be in the new Coen Brothers movie which I found out about recently.
Kunal Nayyar: Nothing right now. When you're in the season, it's hard to find things. It's a full-time job.
Kunal Nayyar's role in THE BIG BANG THEORY is his first as a regular on a television series. He had a guest starring role on NCIS.
Nayyar is currently writing his first feature film, and his critically acclaimed play, Cotton Candy, continues to run in New Delhi.
His theater acting credits include Huck and Holden at the Dahlia Theater in Los Angeles, for which Kunal was awarded best male lead in a play on the West Coast by the Garland Awards, and Loves Labors Lost at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford upon Avon, England.
Always a performer, Nayyar began acting in musicals and plays at a young age. After high school, he left India for the United States where he majored in business and took many acting classes at the University of Portland. In his senior year, he was nominated as the best actor in his play, The Rose Tattoo, and was given an invitation to the American College Theater Festival (ACTF) to compete in an acting competition where he eventually won the Mark Twain Award for comic brilliance as well as a fellowship to the prestigious Sundance Theater Lab. He went on to receive his Masters in Fine Arts (MFA) from Temple University in Philadelphia.
Nayyar played badminton for his school team and competed at state level in the region of North India. He is also a fanatical fan of cricket. He is said to have a killer shoulder shimmy. According to Nayyar, wikipedia says his name means one who sees beauty in everything and it comes from a Himalayan bird known as the Painted Snipe.
He was born in London, England, and spent most of his younger years growing up in New Delhi, India. He currently resides in Los Angeles.
Nayyar's birth date is April 30.
Just because one is a genius at particle astrophysics does not mean he has the ability to manipulate astrology to create a physical attraction toward him from attractive females. Then again, leaving New Delhi, India at the age of 18 after chasing down badminton and chasing similar-aged women around is not exactly the ideal formula for mating either.
Yet, such situations appear to define the life and times of Kunal Nayyar. Of course, one of those situations is entirely fictional, while the other is…well, factually true but verified by only a few. Of course, just ask Nayyar to explain to you his “Big Bang Theory” on attracting women. He will be sure to give you the “thrust” of it over some drinks on a Monday night at 8:00 p.m. (local time, of course).
At that time, you will have to be tuned into CBS. That is when his show is on-air, and you will have a chance to meet Nayyar’s fictional character, Rajesh Koothrappali, a twenty-something scientist whose expertise is in particle astrophysics (and not attracting particles of clothing off women with the use of asteroids or theories of simple physics). In fact, the young genius who works in the Physics department of Cal-tech has a mild case of selective mutism –- Koothrappali is so shy, he is unable to talk to women face-to-face unless he is intoxicated, and even then, he only speaks to them indirectly.
If only Nayyar was this shy around women in real life.
In case you have not already figured it out, the truthful story of Nayyar involves his days living in India’s capitol city as an adolescent, when and where he only cared about two things –- playing badminton and chasing girls. While he was mum about his success in either activity, both were apparently put on hold when he was 18.
“I was too busy playing badminton and chasing girls,” the supporting actor on CBS’s primetime situational comedy The Big Bang Theory told Buzzine in an exclusive interview. “Then I came to Portland to attend university and took acting classes. When I graduated, I realized acting is what I really wanted to do.”
No, Nayyar did not take college coursework on how to act in front of women. Instead, he genuinely wanted to act in front of a camera. Here he is, a few years later, playing a supporting character on one of CBS’s primetime sitcoms. It is a huge step in the right direction for the aspiring British-born, Indian-raised and Hollywood-residing actor.
“I want to be a class act like George Clooney and not just be some young stud trying to make it in Hollywood,” Nayyar candidly told Buzzine. “Being an actor is learning to be yourself. It’s years of practice and hard work.”
It was during his college days at the University of Portland he discovered his passion of acting and will to work hard in order to move up the entertainment ladder. Originally arriving in the Pacific Northwest to pursue an education in business administration on a full scholarship, Nayyar was intrigued by a few acting courses on the class schedule.
While he earned his Bachelors degree in business, Nayyar knew he was onto something with his parallel education in acting. In fact, at one point during his studies, he won an acting award, placing among the top 16 finalists out of an application pool of more than 3,000 aspiring actors. “It wasn’t a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Nayyar said about the award launching him onto a path of potential stardom. “It gave me a lot of confidence. It made me want to be real good.”
After earning a Master’s degree from Temple University, the bushy-haired actor found himself in Hollywood and auditioning for a television pilot. His audition for a regular supporting role on The Big Bang Theory proved successful –- the show’s suits thought Nayyar would be perfectly cast as an anti-social nerd working at one of the country’s elite universities. While obviously the antithesis of whom he is in person -– a badminton-playing class act that does not turn into a mute when he is near women -– Nayyar was not going to pass up the opportunity to play a regular on a CBS sitcom.
Of course, the young actor, who spoke to Buzzine while in a mall, hopes the big bang in his career is a little more than a theory, and he is relying upon his real personality (and not the one in The Big Bang Theory) to make his dream career a reality. For starters, he co-wrote an Indian play entitled Cotton Candy, which is still running somewhere in the Indian capitol city.
“I wrote it three summers ago in Delhi, in light of London Bombings (on July 7, 2005). It took four days to write and I wrote it while drinking lots of whiskey,” Nayyar affably said. “It became a phenomenon and took off. It is basically about two guys sitting on coach discussing their perspectives on life. India has a very conservative façade, but there are drugs and sex underneath, among the youth. The play touches on all of those issues.”
It is here where Nayyar ultimately hopes to take his career –- inspiring social change and making a difference in the lives of many through the medium of the silver screen or stage. “I would love to do it all — continue to write and eventually open an acting school in Delhi,” the ambitious actor, who is fluent in Hindi, Punjabi and English, told Buzzine. “Eventually, I want to become a global icon.”
Perhaps he will become a worldwide phenomenon in the way that Slumdog Millionaire did over these past few months –- of which Nayyar has an interesting perspective. “It was an incredible story. Indians are among the world leaders in talent.”
Thanks to the success of the Danny Boyle film, Nayyar thinks the world’s eyes have officially been opened to see the depth of talent to be found even in the poorest places of the Indian subcontinent. “As Slumdog showed you with the young kids, India has a plethora of talent. People just have to be willing to invest time and money into bringing that talent into the forefront.”
In the meantime, show some support for Nayyar and bring his talent to the forefront by supporting his character, Rajesh Koothrappali, on The Big Bang Theory, which airs each Monday night on CBS. (Check local listings.)
While big Bollywood stars dream about working in Hollywood, one Indian actor is already doing it, Kunal Nayyar, one of the stars of the The Big Bang Theory, on which he plays the scholastically brilliant but pathologically shy Rajesh Koothrappali, Ph.D. The rakishly handsome Kunal took some time from his busy Hollywood schedule – and post-Oscar recovery – to talk with me about being Indian in Hollywood, Slumdog Millionaire, and, of course, geek pride.
Kunal was born in London but raised in New Delhi, where his family still lives. He didn’t come to the United States until college, where he earned a degree in business. But, his interest in acting was always lurking in the background and after satisfying his parents with a practical degree, he was free to pursue his passion. With a Masters in Fine Arts from Temple University and a long resume of plays under his belt, the question was now how to earn a living. Well, to make a living in acting, says Kunal, “you have to go to Los Angeles”.
When I asked Kunal why he chose Los Angeles – and Hollywood – over Mumbai or even London, he didn’t hesitate. America had become his new home. This was where he had built up his resume, made friends, and, more importantly, made contacts. Besides, he continued, there weren’t any Indians from India doing any serious acting in Hollywood. “How cool would it be if I made it here?”
The difficulties faced by ethnic actors, especially Asian actors, in Hollywood are fairly well known – that’s a large part of the joke in the Harold and Kumar movies after all. Still, Kunal says that while the leads may still go to the white guys with blue eyes, the casting calls for that guy’s best friend or co-worker are more and more often “ethnically open.” Although he’s happy playing Raj for now, and the show has a few more years to go until syndication, Kunal hopes that more and more roles become ethnically open so that “in 7 or 10 years, I can play a detective or a cop and really kick some ass.” (He’s also open to my suggestion that I write in to the producers of the show to have them give Raj a Bollywood-style dream sequence, where he gets to dishoom-dishoom some bad guys.)
While Raj is certainly not a tough guy, like a cop or a detective, he does have his own quiet appeal. (Well, he’s quiet until you get a couple of drinks in him…) I prodded Kunal a little on the NRI (Non-Resident Indian) stereotype issue but he didn’t bite. “If you go to Silicon Valley or the research department of a university, you find a lot of Indians.” And Raj isn’t exactly portrayed as your average NRI - he’s super smart but with some real pathological issues. And, can we really hang an entire nation of people on one character on one TV show? Well, I certainly hope the great Bollywood watching audience doesn’t hold all white people responsible for the filmi actions of Tom Alter – how many virtuous heroines did he hold hostage over the years?
More interesting to Kunal is the nerdy aspect of his current character. When I asked him if he was a nerd in high school, he couldn’t give me a straight answer. “I went to an all boys high school, and we were all sort of nerds.” The great social divide of American high schools was non-existant for Kunal. In India, it seems, being a jock isn’t enough to make you popular and liking Star Wars, reading comics, and being smart isn’t enough to get you socially ostracized and labeled a nerd. The cast, along with the show runners, of The Big Bang Theory did a panel at Comic Con last year and Kunal spoke with great affection the fans – nerds, in other words – who would come up to the cast and tell them, “Thank you for making us look cool.” Everybody likes an underdog!
And speaking of dogs, the big wins of Slumdog Millionaire at the Oscars have brought the idea of Indian cinema and Indian stories to Hollywood’s attention. Of course, Kunal had seen it and called all the fuss “well-deserved hype” as well as saying the success of the film could only be a blessing for actors like him as the whole world gets used to seeing Indian faces on the big screen. The conversation turned, as it had to, to Bollywood. Would Kunal ever consider going to Mumbai? “Of course! I’m from India; I speak Hindi; it’s my home.” He hinted that he had made some contacts in the industry – I couldn’t weasel out any names, but I’m crossing my fingers for Anurag Kashyap – so, maybe we’ll be seeing him in Bollywood sooner rather than later.