After securing his breakthrough function as Rajesh Koothrappali in The Large Bang Principle, Kunal Nayyar shortly rose to fame, incomes a staggering $1 million per episode on the top of the present’s success and changing into one of many highest-paid actors on tv ever.
Earlier than strolling into the audition that will change his life, Nayyar’s days appeared worlds away from Hollywood stardom. He spent his early years in America scrubbing bathrooms, instructing appearing, and hustling by a string of facet gigs—all whereas racing towards a ticking visa clock and competing towards a sea of different hopefuls.
“I simply did any job I might. I cleaned bathrooms in my first 12 months in 1999, I used to be within the housekeeping division. I did each and something I might,” the 44-year-old actor recollects in an unique interview with Fortune. “There was no job that was beneath me.”
“I wanted to e book one thing large for me to have the ability to apply for a everlasting resident card, after which I auditioned for Large Bang, after which the remainder is historical past.”
“However I solely had one 12 months left on my visa, as a result of whenever you graduate as a global scholar, you get one 12 months’s free work. So I used to be up towards it when it comes to timing.”
From bathrooms to tv stardom—right here’s each odd job Nayyar held in between
Whereas he chased auditions, Nayyar labored any job he might discover, usually pulling 16-hour shifts, to juggle faculty along with his facet gigs. At one level, he even coincidentally obtained work expertise in a lab like his well-known character—or extra particularly, he labored as the varsity’s laptop lab supervisor.
“I taught appearing. I’d receives a commission to do some comedy for company occasions. I used to be a waiter,” he says. “I had an amazing job on Sundays; I’d wash the home windows of this church in Portland, Oregon.”
To provide himself the perfect shot of touchdown a breakout function, the British-Indian actor moved from Philadelphia, the place he was learning his grasp’s diploma to LA.
“I did some commercials, I performed a terrorist on NCIS, I did a bunch of kind of smaller appearing jobs, and was auditioning on the identical time.”
Immediately, he has an estimated $45 million web price. He’s starred in lots of extra roles on our screens, written a e book, and has a string of ventures to his identify, together with Good Karma Productions and most just lately, a doc storing app, IQ121.
However wanting again, he says these odd jobs alongside the best way weren’t only a technique of survival. They grounded him.
“It was only a very joyful time, a easy time,” he says, including that it taught him humility. “Nobody is greater, nobody is decrease. We’re all simply attempting our greatest.”
That lesson, he explains, caught with him even when fame arrived. “There’s an amazing quote from a really previous non secular instructor: We’re all simply strolling one another residence. That’s how I felt. In all these jobs had been all on this collectively. It taught me group and likewise allowance for different individuals in my life who I’d not have come throughout on this journey.”
Handwritten notes obtained him seen by Hollywood’s inside circle
Whereas expertise and exhausting work opened doorways, Nayyar turned to a private tactic that his father taught him, to make a long-lasting impression on hiring managers—or in his case, casting administrators, producers, and Hollywood stars.
“If I met a producer or somebody who I believed would assist me, I’d all the time write them handwritten notes, all the time. It doesn’t matter what,” he says.
These weren’t simply perfunctory thank-yous. He’d usually embody a significant postcard or a photograph that linked to their interplay. “One thing that I believed would make me consider them throughout a gathering,” he provides.
He’s not satisfied the small gesture made him stand out for jobs within the early days, per say—however it’s had a long-lasting impact on his profession. “I simply thought that was a pleasant approach for individuals to recollect me,” he says, including it helped flip informal encounters into lasting relationships.
“I’ve cultivated deep relationships with individuals who, on the time, weren’t even in excessive positions, and now are,” he provides. “I’ve been doing this 18 years now, in order that’s 18 years of goodwill within the business. And now these individuals are my pals that I’ve identified for a very long time.”
