Interview
Interview
Omid Djalili went to a Ricky Gervais gig because he needed a wee
Talking comedy, cannibalism and Colin Firth’s sexy dreams with the stand-up who wants to be remembered for his football skills
“You just want to put your fingers in your ears and go, la, la, la, la, la” says Omid Djalili, doing just that. “Everything is so nuanced and difficult to get at the moment.” He’s speaking, of course, about politics, the news, and the state of 2025 – not about his latest stand-up show, Namaste, that attempts to make sense of it all.
“It all started after 7 October 2023,” he explains. “For someone like myself, who’s been living with all this Israel and Palestine stuff all my life, we know it didn’t actually start then, but right after that The New York Comedy Festival invited me to do a pop-up show. It’s a real honour, but I asked them why they picked me and they just said, “because we want to know what you’ve got to say”. When I got there, and I saw the guest list was full of all these very important people, I knew I’d have to give them something special. So I started working on it.”
Framing political satire through his comedy since his first Fringe show in 1995, Djalili is now celebrating 30 years on stage – the next milestone in a career that’s grown alongside his acting credits to see him become one of the most celebrated stand-ups around. Not that you’d know to speak to him…
“I usually watch my act back after 20 shows, and think, ‘Oh God, I don’t like the tone’… This is too needy,” he laughs, not half as confident as you’d expect him to be as Namaste enters a 37-date long UK run. “I did a solid three months of shows last year and now I finally think I’m comfortable in my skin to do it for the rest of this year. I think it’s a good show. It’s ready for the world now!”
Before that, we got stuck in a lift with Djalili to ask the important questions…
Who would you most like to be stuck in a lift with?
It would probably be someone really big and muscular in case we’re in there for a long time and we have to eat each other. So I would go for Dwayne Johnson. We’d probably have to draw straws but I’ve always got a long straw that I keep in my coat pocket all the time, so I’d get to eat him. So, yeah, Dwyane The Rock Johnson, because there’s a lot of meat on him.
Who would you least like to be stuck in a lift with?
Dwyane The Rock Johnson, because there’s a lot of meat on him… If I’m in the lift with him, and he finds out that I cheated with the straw thing, I don’t think I’d win that fight.
What’s the weirdest interaction you’ve ever had with a famous person?
A while ago, in 2005, Colin Firth emailed me asking if I could do a charity gig for his mum. His mum was the headmistress of a school, and it would mean traveling down to Hampshire and doing a gig at a girls’ school, which I did. We raised, I think, £2000 or something. I didn’t meet Colin at the time, but he thanked me, and that was that.
A few years later, I mean, a good few years later, without even having seen him, Colin just emailed me out the blue and said, “Dear Omid, I’m sorry to tell you this, I had a dream about you last night. You were a lap dancer”. That’s all he said. So, I wrote back “Dear Colin, how strange, I had the same dream. And your cheque bounced”. He wrote back, “That’s because the lap dance was wholly inadequate”.
I saw him after that, on the set of Mamma Mia 2, and we didn’t say a word about it. When I went home, I got another email from him saying, “you’ll be hearing from my lawyers about the bounced cheque”. He just continued the thread, years later.
What was the last gig or show that you went to?
I recently went to see Ricky Gervais do a warm-up gig. I popped into Leicester Square theatre because I was dying to go to the toilet. I walked past thinking [the staff] wouldn’t recognise me, but they did, and they asked me what I was doing in the theatre. I was too embarrassed to admit that I just needed the toilet so I said I just wanted to see what was on. They told me Ricky Gervais was on that night. I was supposed to be going to go to a football match in the evening but I felt like I had to ask if Ricky had any tickets left, and he did, so I bought them, just so I had an excuse to go to the toilet. I had no intention of going, but it was fantastic. I sent a tweet, and I said I’ve just seen Ricky Gervais. And he sent me a lovely text back thanking me for coming.
What’s on your rider?
Dwyane The Rock Johnson, because there’s a lot of meat on him.
What did the 12-year-old you imagine you’d be doing now?
The 12-year-old me was really into Asterix, and I always remember there was a character in it who was a soothsayer. I remember thinking then, I wonder what my future looks like. So it’s interesting you asked that question. Would I have known that in about 40 odd years’ time I’d be talking to Ticketmaster, trying to promote my stand-up show? I think actually, what I thought I was going to be was an astrophysicist. I thought I was going to be very involved in the sciences – my big dream at the time was to create the first human colony on Mars. And I think I thought that by the year 2024 or 2025, I’d be in my 50s, and I’d be working towards that. I would have be absolutely gobsmacked if someone told me then that I would have on stage instead!
What’s the worst advice you’ve ever been given?
“Just wing it”. Comics say to each other a lot “Oh, don’t worry. If I were you, I’d just wing it”, which means just go on stage and don’t prepare anything. Don’t be prepared for the audience. It never goes well. I often rely on my instincts, and my instincts are very bad, all of the time.
Which film have you rewatched the most times?
The Graduate. When I saw it first, when I was 13, I was obviously very taken aback by the romance of it. And then you look at the politics of it, you see what was going on in America at the time, how disaffected the youth were… The most important shot in that film is after he’s grabbed the girl from the altar and run away to the back of the bus, and they’re both completely quiet. They’ve got nothing to say to each other. That’s not the film that I saw when I was a kid. But then you watch again, and you look at the comedy of it. And then, later on, when you’re a bit more seasoned as an actor, you see it from an acting point of view. So yeah, that’s a film I must have seen about 16 times from beginning to the end.
What’s your most controversial food opinion?
I did one of those BBC cooking shows once and someone asked me about my favourite breakfast, and I said I liked having fried eggs on fried bread with either honey or jam. This was in the days where everybody was on Twitter, and I opened up my phone afterwards to all these disgusted replies. “How dare you!”. I got absolutely attacked. I just wrote back to each one, “Try it”.
About 10 people then wrote back and said, “you know what? You’re absolutely right. That is the greatest breakfast of all time”. You fry the bread, then you put some jam or honey on it. Then you fry the egg, you put the egg on top, a little bit of salt and pepper, and that’s it. You get two of those and you’re done for the whole day. It’s the savoury mixed in with a little bit of sweetness that really makes it amazing.
What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?
Telesales was really not for me. I did it after I left university and I got £100 for three days of training. I did it for a day and a half, and the bloke literally brought me in and gave me £50 to f*ck off. He said he’d been listening in to my calls and I was too empathetic. I was calling some old woman who was by herself and I’d be on the phone for an hour, giving her encouragement. “It’s not over. No, I’m sure you could still get married again…”.
What’s the skill that no one else knows that you’re great at?
Just Google it. “Omid robo-keeper”.
Does that count as something no one else knows? It was on The One Show…
Well it’s worth mentioning again because I’m the only person to beat Messi and Ronaldo. I did it on my first go. They told me it was actually impossible to beat, but I went top left, and I was so accurate. It’s on YouTube. When you get off the phone, just tap in “Omid robo-keeper”. It’s a 37 second clip. And I actually do it. It’s incredible. I was always very accurate in my shooting whenever I played like a celebrity soccer thing, I always I used to score. It’s just a skill I have that don’t get to bring out too much.
Do you have any superstitions?
No, I think it’s bad luck to have superstitions. Seriously though, “Omid robo-keeper”… Google it.
