Kunal Nayyar is an actor best known for his role on the hit CBS show, “The Big Bang Theory”. While in undergraduate school for business, Kunal had an epiphany on stage that would change his life’s direction from business to acting. With an MFA in Acting from Temple University, Kunal found steady work on London stages and small television roles until 2007 when he auditioned for “Raj” on “The Big Bang Theory”. Kunal sits down and shares his story, his advice to new actors, and a glimpse into what it’s like going through his Twitter feed.
Transcript
>> My name is Kunal Nayyar, and I'm an actor. I play Raj on The Big Bang Theory. The Big Bang Theory we shoot in front of a live audience, so the laughter is real. That's on a Tuesday night. So my workweek starts on a Wednesday. Wednesday, Tuesday night, I get a script delivered to the house. I open it, I read it, I show up at the table, read the next day on Wednesday. We do a table read with all the writers and the producers and the network, CBS and Warner Bros. And then we rehearse that day. And then that night, I get a new script, which is the same story, but a few changes, jokes here and there. Thursday, we rehearse. Same thing, we do a run-through in the afternoon for everyone. Get the same script on Friday with a few changes. Have the weekend off. Monday, we pre-shoot scenes that are difficult to do in front of a live audience like car scenes or things with a lot of coverage or dialogue. Sometimes when we have guest stars, they like to pre-shoot a bunch of the scenes because it can be-- the environment is very quick-based. And then on Tuesday when we shoot, we shoot the entire show in 3 1/2 hours. There is 42 pages in 3 1/2 hours of an episode that, over its like cycle, a billion people have watched. So you have to get it right. So the pressure is high. I think the first time Raj spoke to Penny, it was Episode 8, I think, that was great for just me as an actor. Because I was having to do so much physical comedy. Then I had this episode I was drunk the whole time talking to Penny, and that was fun. So many where we got to meet Stephen Hawking, and Stephen Hawking was on the episode. Leonard Nimoy, Billy Bob Thornton. All the guest stars that we've had so far have been so incredible for us. In film acting, you can't, when you're on camera, I mean, the camera is right on your face, people are watching you on a hundred foot screen, you really can't, you know, I'm a very like expressive person when I talk, but you can't use all of these things in film. You just have to really quiet everything down and listen. On stage, if you did that, you'd be a horrible stage actor, because the problem is the person in the 15th row doesn't have a huge screen. They're watching you on stage. You can't just act surprised and do this. You have to do that. Because you have to use your entire physical body to express what you're trying to say. And that's just the biggest difference.
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