Comedian Omid Djalili: You can’t joke about trans issues and climate change on social media
Best and worst is a regular interview in which a celebrity reflects on the highs and lows of their life
Stand-up comedian Omid Djalili first made a splash at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1995 with “Short, Fat Kebab Shop Owner’s Son”, a playful skewering of his experiences as a British-Iranian man. Now 58, the comedian has had a storied career, with dozens of comedy tours, his own sketch show, and roles in major television series and films from Gladiator to James Bond, and even Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. He lives in Suffolk with his wife, Annabel Knight, with whom he has three children.
Best joke you’ve ever told?
One of my favourite jokes was: “We spent $2 billion looking for Bin Laden, we scoured the world for Bin Laden, and where did we find him? In his house, watching Arsenal versus Manchester United.” Another is a great general joke: “I hate to offend… it’s just my gift.” It’s absolutely true. I’m such a people-pleaser but I have offended so many people with my jokes, it’s quite remarkable. No comedian ever sets out to offend, we just want to make people laugh and have a good time. It must be a gift, that’s the only way I can make sense of it.
Best acting role you’ve had?
Playing the lead in David Baddiel’s film The Infidel, about a Muslim who finds out he’s a Jew, was very enjoyable. Every day I had to wake up and think hard about the character, rather than just show up and do an accent, as I’m often expected to do. I put a lot of time and thought into that role, so much so that people couldn’t distinguish between me and the character.
Best celebrity encounter?
I had a small role in a film called Spy Game and the star was Robert Redford. I was introduced to him, and I was so nervous about it, I wanted to make him laugh to ease the tension. As he put his hand out for me to shake, I said, “Mr Redford, I’m such a big fan, you’re the best thing in Hawaii Five-O.” That was a TV show which was very much beneath him. He looked me up and down and said, “Thank you, you were great in Doctor Zhivago, but you’ve really let yourself go,” his joke being that he thought I was Omar Sharif. The immediate wit was just perfection. He went above and beyond my expectations. You don’t tend to think of these big Hollywood stars as comic geniuses, but Robert Redford really is.
Best childhood memory?
Doing a trial for the Kensington and Chelsea schools football team, run by scouts for Chelsea Football Club. I was spraying the ball round like a libero. No one could get past me. I surprised myself at how good I was. Afterwards they said, “You’re the best centre-back we’ve ever seen.” I remember looking at myself in the mirror after I got home and saying “you’re amazing!”, thinking I was going to be a footballer and play for England. It was a tremendous moment of childhood narcissism. I did go on to have a trial at Chelsea when I was 14; I was up against a player called Stuart Barlow who went on to play for Everton. He was only 12, but he absolutely finished me off and I failed my trial.
Best moment of your life?
I was on The One Show in April 2014, and I was asked to shoot a football at a robot goalkeeper. You can’t score against it. Lionel Messi tried it, Cristiano Ronaldo tried it, it’s impossible. It’s calculated to look at your eye movements and where your foot is shooting, so it has already moved before you’ve even kicked the ball. Yet I noticed there was one tiny area in the top left hand corner of the goal and I just thought, “If you put your foot through it, if you give it some pace, it’ll go in.” And it did. I became the first person to beat the RoboKeeper with one shot. It healed all my childhood wounds about not being a footballer. I managed to do something that the best players in the world hadn’t done. That was enough. I pretty much stopped playing football after that.
Worst gig you’ve ever played?
Back in 2000, I was playing Thursday, Friday, Saturday at Jongleurs, Battersea. The first two nights I got standing ovations, but on the Saturday, they hated me. When things go badly, you dig in and want to prove people wrong, but it was awful. I used to do this disco dancing routine to Le Freak by Chic, and people started throwing bread baskets and bottles and cans of beer. I had to leave by walking through the crowd and I went to shake some hands and people physically recoiled. Some told me to f--- off. The next day I was on a flight and I heard a guy behind me saying, “That’s the awful guy we saw last night.” I turned to him and said, “I’m sorry, that was just a bad night,” and he said, “Nope, you were s---.” The stewardess moved me 10 rows away from this guy because she thought a fight might break out.
Worst encounter you’ve had with a member of the public?
There have been a few hairy ones. I did a show in Birmingham where I made a joke about the Muslim call to prayer. After the show, these four big Pakistani Muslim guys in suits asked me to come into the back room after the show. They told me what I was doing was disrespectful, and that they wouldn’t take any action but I should drop it from my set. They were all over 6ft tall.
I tried to make a joke that I’d never seen such tall Asian men. They didn’t think it was funny. The only way I could get out of there was complete compliance and agreement. I remember saying, “Brothers, I have been in two minds about that joke and you’re absolutely right that it’s wrong, I regret doing it, thank you for the feedback.” I think if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have got out of there safely…
Worst modern trend?
I hate this idea that you can design art by algorithm. Everyone lately has been talking about Baby Reindeer, and I’ve heard producers and commissioners say, “We need something more like Baby Reindeer that will engage with the discourse.” I don’t think there’s any formula that you can follow to make something a success.
Worst thing about being a comedian?
The judgment. If you make a bad joke, there’s a judgment on your soul. It becomes a question of what kind of dark, twisted, messed up, immoral person must you be to attempt to joke about that? On social media, I tell younger comedians there are three areas you simply have to avoid: 1) Trans issues. 2) Climate change. 3) Everything else – don’t do jokes on social media at all because someone will be upset. Our nobility is connected to our playfulness, and I think that’s something that’s been eroded by the way the world is going.
It’s more difficult to navigate being a comedian than it has ever been. It used to be that if you could stand up in a room and make people laugh, you’d get £70 in your hand and move onto the next thing. But now there’s judgment which follows you forever if one joke goes awry.
The absolute worst
My belly. I have always struggled with having a belly. I was always a fit person, but somewhere in my 30s this tyre started forming around my stomach. I’m very aware of it every day, it crosses my mind every 10-15 minutes of every day. It might sound obsessive but that’s the truth. Being overweight is the thing I hate most. I know I shouldn’t hate it, I know I have to love it away and change my diet and my lifestyle, and I’m trying very, very hard to do that. I know for a man of my age, having a big belly is dangerous, it raises the risk of heart failure, it can take years off my life. But it’s an enormous terrible thing I just hate about myself.
Omid Djalili’s new tour, Namaste, runs at venues across the UK from October 7 2024 to November 21 2025