A chat with the Iranian-American comedian who sent
1,500 plus audience into a laughing trance at UNOC
By Anand Holla
Dressed casually in a black shirt, black jeans and a black-and-white cap bearing a logo formed from his initials, Amir K fiddles with his phone backstage at the Qatar National Convention Centre. Nothing about his laidback demeanour suggests that he will, 30 minutes later, take the stage and send a 1500-plus audience into a laughing trance.
That coolth has as much to do with his style of improv comedy as it has to do with his unruffled approach to standup itself. “My parents wanted me to study, go to law school. So I did all that, worked in real estate business, made a bunch of money and then gave it all up to kick off my journey in standup comedy around five-and-a-half years ago,” says Amir Kamyab, who has styled himself as Amir K.
The Tehran-born, Southern California-raised, Los Angeles-based Iranian-American was among the six comedians who performed at the United Nations of Comedy (UNOC) show, on Saturday, to a rousing response. “After a point, I wanted to follow my dream as I realised that it’s not money that made me happy,” he says.
A self-confessed class clown, Amir has been the funny guy, right from his school days. “I always dreamt of doing standup,” he says, “I would watch Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, Martin Lawrence, Jim Carrey and Robin Williams, and tell myself I want to do that. I love character-based comedy.”
Winner of several standup competitions across the US and a regular performer at top comedy clubs there, Amir has shed his material off the funnies on Iranian families and their idiosyncrasies.
“I don’t do much of that now,” he says, “I realise that as I grow old, my comedy pretty much reflects whatever point of life I am at. I started off talking about all the wild, crazy stuff, like partying and hanging out with friends. But now my jokes deal with why I am the way I am, what I want to do, what’s happening around us, you know, the real things. And some of the jokes I do in the US, I can’t do here.”
Clearly, Amir doesn’t like the idea of censorship. “We are artistes. When you are painting something, and they say you can’t use blue, you will say – But I really want to use blue! I find myself editing lines in my head while on stage, which ruins my flow. That said, comedy is now coming a long way here in the Middle East. People must realise that it’s just words and it’s all for a laugh,” he says.
At the show, from making jokes about a camera hovering over his head to picking on the audience, Amir’s unpredictable set had the audience in splits. “It’s so hot here in Qatar man,” he said, “I had to take 78 Ice Bucket Challenges since I landed.” Slipping effortlessly into a slew of characters – an Indian pilot eager to offer tech support services from the cockpit to gay men at comedy clubs – nothing was off limits.
Understandably, his process of writing comedy makes way for such spontaneity. “A lot of comedians like to write their material before, walk up and deliver. I like to write on stage, you know riffing, which is essentially going up on stage and improvising on the spot. So I talk to the crowd a bit, step out of the script, and make jokes up along the way. With that, all my shows seem different,” he points out.
Though Amir found his true métier in not sticking to the script, finding that smoothness and a comfortable mental space on stage took some time. “At times, it may sound a little robotic,” he cautions, “But that’s where the years of experience come to the rescue. It’s like a sculpture you are working on, and you keep learning how you must proceed.”
Amir considers work ethic to be the biggest factor in standup success. “You must be willing to go out every night and perform, you know, sacrifice your family life, relationships, everything. But you must have talent. There are a lot of guys who don’t have the talent and they keep trying in vain,” he says.
For Amir though, talent has never been in short supply. As he awaits the release of his two Hollywood films – he plays Michael Zahir in the horror flick The Pyramid, and Stoner Amir in the comedy Jimmy Vestvood: Amerikan Hero, with fellow Iranian-American standup comedian-friend and mentor Maz Jobrani – Amir’s focus remains to be as “real” an act as possible.
“The goal is to be a fluid comedian,” says Amir, “To be so spontaneous and smooth that I should be exactly the same guy on stage as I am off stage.
“Basically, I should be able to walk up from here to the stage and be just the same guy.” That is actually how it seemed on Saturday – it was the same guy, the same coolth, on and off the stage.
