Kumail Nanjiani and Christopher Nolan address Job Crunch at the DGA Awards
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, the runaway production, the extended running time of many films and the fact that the guild’s highest award until 1999 was named in honor of director DW Griffith.
He joked that the DGA Kudos, part of a marathon of 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 at the ballroom of the Beverly Hilton, with tables full of directors and their teams of assistant directors and production managers, Nanjiani noted, “It’s as if a movie is just the opening credits.”
Nanjiani noted that his performance as host, a native of Karachi, Pakistan, was a first for the Directors Guild Awards: “You don’t have to know where I’m from to know that I’m the first person to host this show,” he said.
Nanjiani delivered a 20-minute opening speech to an audience of 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 by a final joke about Griffith, whose 1915 film “The Birth of a Nation” presents an abjectly racist vision of post-Civil War America, presenting the Klu Klux Klan as a heroic organization.
Nanjiani praised “the power of filmmaking” and told a story about the first film he saw in theaters as a child in Pakistan: Spielberg’s 1993 hit “Jurassic Park.” Nanjiani nodded to the director, a DGA board member, and said, “You made an audience of people on the other side of the world explode with laughter.” He made indirect references to DGA nominees ‘Sinners’, ‘The Pitt’ and ‘Marty Supreme’.
“This is why what you are all doing right now is so important. We are in a moment where people are focused on the differences between us, but your beautiful art reminds us that we all have much more in common than we don’t,” Nanjiani said. “I can look at your work and know what it feels like to be in a juke joint in the Mississippi Delta or trying to patch up people in an emergency room in Pittsburgh. You even made me care about ping pong. I’m kidding. I’m Asian. I’ve always cared about ping pong.”
“This challenging moment is more important than ever, and I sincerely thank you for it. You remind us of our shared humanity while celebrating our differences, because our commonality makes us human, but our differences make us beautiful – and that is what DW Griffith stands for,” Nanjiani said.
Among Nanjiani’s other zingers:
“I would ask you to keep your speeches short, but I have seen your films and we all know that is not going to happen.”
“Every villain in ‘Sinners’ is a white person, making it the most realistic film of the year. No offense to almost anyone here. No film has so effectively captured the true horror of white people dancing.”
Nanjiani addressed 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 just as much work as him for a fraction of the praise and money. He looked like his first AD.”
Nanjiani turned his focus back 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 foretold the tumult and technological and social disruption of the modern era. He also worked in a joke on President Trump, although not by name.
Spielberg “is not only perhaps the greatest filmmaker of all time, he’s also clairvoyant. He’s made films about everything we’re talking about now: AI, Nazis, the government chasing innocent aliens. It’s like you predicted the last decade of our lives. Steven, could your next film be about an 80-year-old on the Epstein list being shot into space?”
Nolan, the most prominent directing brand in Hollywood today, addressed the challenges facing Hollywood’s creative community amid film and TV’s major downsizing and consolidation among its biggest players. Hollywood’s three major creative unions – SAG-AFTRA, Writers Guild of America and DGA – will enter a new contract negotiation cycle beginning February 9 when SAG-AFTRA sits down with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
“In 2024, our employment dropped by about 40% and that was followed by another drop 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 come to terms with the fact that the amount of money people are spending on our work, on entertainment, is very stable. The public is invested in us. We have to make sure we can return that investment.”
Nolan continued, “We are the storytellers. We are the people who have to innovate on screen. And it’s really, really important that as our industry evolves, there are new technologies and new forms of distribution emerging that we’re always sensitive to. How are our voices being conveyed? How can we get our messages across? How can we connect with those audiences and repay the investment they continue to give us?”
