Kumail Nanjiani

So the stakes are raised incrementally 20% each time.

And I was like, oh, I know how to be freaked out.

I know how to not be freaked out.

But I don't know how to do all the steps in between.

I remember specifically being like...

Okay, this is the moment where I decide I need to take acting classes because you're afraid to open that door because behind that door is the knowledge of how much you don't know.

That's the most terrifying thing to me.

Before you get to learning, you have to accept that you need to learn and accepting that you need to learn is very, very scary.

And so that was the moment where I was like, I need to figure this out.

I don't have access to this.

If I want to hang with all these people, I got to get good at this.

And then around that same time, we started talking about doing The Big Sick.

We were writing it.

Judd Apatow was producing it.

So I was like, if I want to have a shot at making this, I need to figure this out.

So I started taking acting classes then.

And my acting teacher, Myra Turley, who I still work with, who's one of the people who's changed my life,

You have to like access your own feelings.

And as I was doing that, I was like, oh my God, there is so much in here.

There's so much in here.