Hasan Minhaj

I had a huge Indian wedding, and I did it for my wife, and I did it for my white friends.

To show that a comedian on stage in India talking about sanitation or in South Africa talking about HIV and AIDS awareness, if you follow the joke into their lives, you can see that, like, oh, these things aren't just contrived in joke books. This is real life. I think the best comedians have that bravery and courage to say, Oh, this is what it is.

One thing I found very interesting about comedians around the world was their knowledge of stuff outside of their own culture and comfort zone. That's not very common in the States. We produce our own soft power, which is pop culture, but we rarely try to absorb and learn information from other cultures and countries.

I've learned to start from a really sound argument, boil down the essence of what you're trying to say, then build your humor around that, rather than starting with, 'This sounds funny,' and going from there.