Kumail Nanjiani gently skewered a room full of Hollywood heavyweights in his opening monologue at the Directors Guild Awards, taking aim at the Epstein files, runaway production, the extended running times of many movies and the fact that the guild’s top award was named in honor of director D.W. Griffith until 1999.
He quipped that the DGA kudos, which are part of a marathon of industry precursor awards events leading up to the March 15 Academy Awards, represents “Hollywood’s biggest night — Excuse me, Vancouver, Budapest and sometimes Atlanta,” he said. Looking out at the ballroom at the Beverly Hilton, with tables packed with directors and their teams of assistant directors and unit production managers, Nanjiani observed, “It’s like if a movie was just the credits.”
Nanjiani noted that as a native of Karachi, Pakistan, his gig as host marked a first for the Directors Guild Awards: “You don’t have to know where I’m from to know I’m the first person from there to host this show,” he said.
Nanjiani delivered a 20-minute opening in front of a room that included DGA president Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg and DGA nominees Ryan Coogler, Paul Thomas Anderson, Chloe Zhao and Josh Safdie. He closed on a heartfelt note that was then punctuated with a final joke about Griffith, whose 1915 film “The Birth of a Nation” presents an abjectly racist vision of post-Civil War America, with the Klu Klux Klan presented as a heroic organization.
Nanjiani lauded “the power of filmmaking” and told a story about the first movie he saw in a theater as a kid growing up in Pakistan: Spielberg’s 1993 smash “Jurassic Park.” Nodding to the director, who is a DGA board members, Nanjiani stated, “You made an audience of people on the other side of the world explode with laughter.” He made oblique references to DGA nominees “Sinners,” “The Pitt” and “Marty Supreme.”
“This is why what you all do is so important right now. We are in a moment where people are focused on the differences between us, but your beautiful art reminds us that we have all have much more in common than we don’t,” Nanjiani said. “I can watch your work and know what it feels like to be in a juke joint in the Mississippi Delta or to try to patch up people in an ER in Pittsburgh. You even made me give a shit about ping pong. I’m kidding. I’m Asian. I have always given a shit about ping pong.
“In this challenging moment is more important than ever, and I genuinely, sincerely thank you for doing it. You remind us of our shared humanity while also celebrating our differences, because our commonality may make us human, but our differences make us beautiful — and that is what D. W. Griffith represents,” Nanjiani said.
Among Nanjiani’s other zingers:
“I’d ask you to keep your speeches short but I’ve seen your movies we all know that’s not going to happen.”
“Every bad guy in ‘Sinners’ is a white person, which makes it the most realistic movie of the year. No offense to almost everyone here. No film has so effectively captured the true horror of white people dancing.”
Nanjiani riffed on the fact that “Sinners” star Michael B. Jordan shares a first and last name with the NBA legend: ” ‘Sinners’ starred Michael B. Jordan and his brother Scottie B. Pippen. For those who don’t know, Michael Jordan was a basketball player, and Scottie Pippen did as much work as he did for a fraction of the praise and money. He was like his first AD.”
Nanjiani returned his focus to Spielberg when he noted that the filmmaker has made films in the past (2002’s “Minority Report,” 1993’s “Schindler’s List” and 1982’s “ET the Extra-Terrestrial”) that have predicted the tumult and technological and societal disruption of modern times. He also worked in a jab at President Trump, albeit not by name.
Spielberg “is not only perhaps the greatest filmmaker of all time, he’s also clairvoyant. He’s made movies about everything we’re talking about right now: AI, Nazis, the government coming after harmless aliens. It’s like you’ve predicted the last 10 years of our lives. Steven, can your next movie be about an 80-year-old on the Epstein list who gets shot into space?”
Nolan, the most prominent director brand in Hollywood today, addressed the challenges that Hollywood’s creative community is facing amid the great contraction in film and TV and consolidation among its largest players. Hollywood’s three key creative unions — SAG-AFTRA, Writers Guild of America and DGA — are heading into a new contract negotiation cycle that begins Feb. 9 when SAG-AFTRA sits down with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
“In 2024 our employment was down about 40% and that was followed by another decline in 2025,” Nolan said. “The complicated part of this is that we as directors have to talk to our employers, talk to the people who run our business, and really get to grips with that the amount of money that people spend on our work, on entertainment, is very, very steady. Audiences are invested in us. We have to be sure that we are able to repay that investment.”
Nolan continued, “We are the storytellers. We are the people who have to innovate on the screen. And it’s very, very important that as our industry progresses, new technologies and new forms of distribution come along that we are always sensitive to. How are our voices being put across? How can we get our messages across? How can we engage with that audience and repay that investment that they continue to give us?”
