(upbeat music)
- Oh my gosh, man.
- Hi. How are you?
- So nice to meet you.
- Likewise.
- Absolute pleasure.
- You look great in this chair by the way.
- You look great, and I'm having a beard envy right now.
- Oh, really.
- This is ridic...
It's got a life of its own
- Its glorious
- I wake up sometimes in the morning,
and I find things inside it from weeks ago.
(man laughs)
- Oh, I wish I could find things in this.
I just find disappointment.
(laughs)
I hear you just had a 10 year wedding anniversary.
Congratulations.
- Yeah, thank you.
(audience claps)
- That's massive.
- That's like 50 years in Hollywood.
I think that is what it means
- Exactly.
- No, it was amazing.
You know, obviously given COVID
it's difficult to celebrate the way we wanted to.
- Sure.
- But we had some of our closest friends over.
My parents flew in from India.
- Wow.
- Which was great. So having them,
my dad gave like 15 speeches.
It was really, really a wonderful
and after the two years that we've all
had a great, great, great time.
- What's it actually like
when your parents visit you from India?
Do they do enjoy it out here?
- Yeah. I mean, their social life in New Delhi is very busy,
so I think they get bored very quickly over here,
but, you know, I think that I realize
how LA I've become when they're here,
- Yeah
'Cause I'm like,
"Hey, I'm gonna go on a coffee run.
Can I get you something?"
They're like, "Yeah, we'll take a couple of black coffees."
And I'm like,
"Okay. I'll get my iced cappuccino with almond milk,"
(audience laughs)
extra cold, anything that comes out of my mouth,
I feel like every time we're at lunch,
they're like, "Yeah, we'll have a salad."
And I'm like, "Yeah, I'll have some avocado toast."
(audience laughs)
Can we please make sure that it's on flax seed?
- Yeah, exactly.
You know, it's like these words are coming out of my mouth,
but in slow motion.
And I'm like, "What has happened to me?"
(audience laughs)
I've literally...
And you know, 'cause I'm always like,
"I'm not that person in LA," but I clearly am.
- We become who we hang around with,
and that's just-
- We really.
- That's just what happened
- Exactly. I had like 10 green juices this morning.
- I know.
Wow, you're gonna be very regular lately.
I like
(audience laughing)
- [Derrick] What? Too much?
Too much for break time?
By the way...
- This is Derrick's last day hosting Kelly Clarkson Show.
- What we all know here,
actually, speaking of your family and your heritage,
you actually just celebrated Diwali?
- Yes
- With a few of your friends,
Lilly Singh, Kal Penn, and Priyanka Chopra?
- Yeah
(audience applauding)
- And for those who usually don't know what that is,
explain there what that celebration is like
and what are the party is like?
- Basically, Diwali is the festival of light.
Like it's our Indian Christmas basically.
And we drink whiskey and we gamble
and we love things on fire.
(both laughing)
- These pictures look um incredible.
- Exactly we dance and we have a great time together.
And I've been here.
When I started throwing Diwali parties
in 2006, there weren't a lot of Indians,
doing it at the same time,
but now everyone is throwing this most lavish Diwali parties
And it's like the Bollywood-Hollywood Diwali party war.
- That's amazing
- You know, what started as a small gathering of people
is now turned into this most amazing,
beautiful, brilliant parties.
So my budget keeps going up
and I'm thinking next year,
we'll just have every Indian together at one party.
- I love that. Well, can I like...
Could I go to something like that?
- Yeah, we'll charge you a cover fee, but...
(audience laughing)
- Oh yeah, okay.
- Only because only because the dancing looks so much fun,
- You'd love it.
- I love it.
- You must come.
- We just saw a clip of your new show "Suspicion."
What can you tell us about that?
That looks really, really good.
- Other than my terrible British accent, it's...
- It sound pretty good to me.
- It's a who done it show.
It's based on an Israeli show called "False Flag."
This is called um suspicion.
And it's 4 British citizens implicated in a kidnapping.
Uma Thurman is in it uh, amongst un un um a stellar cast.
And I hope you love it. It's it's really,
it's like nail biting
till the last second of eight episodes.
- Man. Honestly just go see the trailer.
Cause it hooked me straight away when I saw it,
it looks so, so good.
You actually spoke in Oxford last year and said your first
Emmy ceremony was an absolute
- Disaster
- Disaster. Like what was that like?
Like I got to hear that story.
- I mean, I was, you know, I was 25.
I was on this show. I just come on to graduate school.
I thought it was an actor. And I went the Emmy's.
I was like, oh my God.
And I was so nervous.
I got into the limo so early that I got to the Emmy's
the red carpet was not even set up.
(Audience laughing)
Oh my God.
My publicist is like,
Hey, can you just circle downtown for the next two hours?
Cause no one is here.
- Yeah
- So I went to a Mexican restaurant and I had
three shots of tequila.
- Uh Uh
- And I had some tacos
and then I showed up to the red carpet
and I had to use the bathroom, I had to pee so badly
I, and the bathrooms is at the end of the red carpet.
- Oh Jesus
- So I had to walk the entire red carpet
ducking all the interviews and you know
there's Meryl Streep, and I'm like,
sorry, Marilyn got to go to the bathroom.
(audience laughing)
So go to the bathroom pee, then walk.
I had to cross the whole red carpet again. And then start.
- Start over again. I wonder if you're like any like any,
you know, photo bombs, you know
- You know probably like.
(audience laughing)
- You just hold it
- Exactly you just hold it.
(host laughing)
- But the people, you know,
I don't want to like burst the bubble of anyone
about these awards shows.
But at the end of these award shows,
everyone has to stand no matter
what big celebrity you are,
you have to stand in line as you know,
and wait for your limo.
Everyone does, a limo or car, whatever that's pick you up.
You have to wait for it and
everyone's exhausted and kind of angry
they didn't win or drunk or cause you start getting ready
eight hours before you actually end up.
- Yeah, it's a long day.
- It's a long day and people are like,
feet are hurting, you know,
and everyone's freaking out and you have to stand in line.
So you hear like
(Kunal whooshing)
Clooney Clooney, 7 0 7 7 for Clooney.
(audience laughing)
Car's ready. You know,
when you see like the biggest stars
- And then they rush past you and.
- And then if you ever want to see celebrities
in Los Angeles on any award show night,
go to the in and out burger
(audience laughing)
on any award show, Oscars,
- Yeah
- Emmys, globe, sags critics.
- Yeah
- You go to the in and out in Hollywood,
- And there's a line of limos
and celebrities just shoving down the cheeseburger
(audience laughing)
- in their dressing
- In their dressing and the tuxes.
(audience applauding)
That's it, just celebrities, just like that
- That said...
That was an absolute celebrity life hack
for any folks out there.
- You know what I mean?
- Absolutely
- Exactly
- So I found this really interesting.
You have been very open about anxiety and panic attacks
- Hmm
- Actually. And so why is that so important to you
to share with others?
- I think that for me
when I began to experience anxiety
and it happened to me in a lot of stages of my life,
I first thought something was wrong with me
- Yeah
- Or that I can't reach out for help.
Cause I'm crazy
- Mh
- or I have mental health issues.
- Right.
- And if your tooth hurts, you go to the dentist,
- Yep
- you know, if your knee hurts,
you go see an orthopedic surgeon.
- Yeah
I mean, but if this, if this hurts,
If things going on here and you want to seek help,
the first instinct you have is, oh, I'm ugly.
I'm broken. Something's wrong with me.
So I, I brought this to light to normalize it.
Like, Hey, you feeling down, go see someone who can help.
Your tooth hurts, go to the dentist.
to normalize, you're not, in fact,
I think you're crazier, If you're happy all the time.
I don't know if I meet someone
(audience laughing)
who's happy all the time. I'm like,
you should probably see your therapist
- Yeah
(audience laughing)
- You should probably go and seek help
- Like its normal to be
- Who told you in this
- Yeah
- In this life that you're never gonna experience
stress or panic or, uh, anxiety
- It's what, its, you know, it's the way
I kind of feel like it's like, you know,
in the 70s, 80s it was like that,
that physical health raise and awareness.
And now I think we're in, like in that stage, you know,
a society and like that mental health awareness,
which is so important. I think
- Well its okay to be vulnerable.
- Yeah.
- It's, what's wrong.
We've been, we've been taught
that it's weak to be vulnerable.
How silly?
- Its beautiful
- The most beautiful thing.
Yeah.
(audience applause)
- Wow, thank you, Ben, for being open and sharing,
normalizing that.
So I have to ask about the big bang theory,
because it's one of the greatest
and biggest shows of all time.
Um, Have you missed being a part of that?
Like how, how has it been?
- Yeah, of course.
I mean, it's, it's so difficult to put it into words.
Cause that was my entire life for almost 13 years.
I grew up on that show, um and it's very difficult to,
it feels like it happened to someone else, but me
cause I was inside of it.
- Mh
- And I think slowly and slowly
I'm beginning to process what it was
- Yeah
like, like even when I talk to the cast mates,
like we just, it's hard to just make
small talk, cause so much happened.
And every time we see each other,
we almost ended up like just crying.
Cause we don't even know how to express that emotion.
- That's in me, and it's to experience something
with a group of people that like, you know,
no, nobody else can
- no.
- Its, its you understand
- You have a similar experience like
you on the TV show for a long time,
- 17 seasons, you know? And you
- And so You know what it's like?
- Yeah. It's a wild feeling.
I mean, and you, you played a nerd on the show.
What, what would you say just personally
would be like one of the nerdiest things about you?
- That's not fair.
- I mean, my.
(audience laughing)
- I mean my dog is called Boba Fett
from star wars and, I love Lord, you know
Lord of the rings, like,
I went to watch the Return of the King
I started crying in the theme song music
played in the beginning, So yeah, I'm uh
- What about you? You
- Uh, I mean, I, I love star Trek, by the way,
Lord of the rings. I
- I mean,
- I can, we can talk all day about this.
I mean
We can talk about all this. Oh man.
Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Kunal Nayyar
(audience applauding)