Vir Das is obsessed with hats

0:00Vir Das: If you'd like to join the Obsessed community, head over to joincampsite.com. We'll give you updates on episodes, some behind-the-scenes access, and a whole lot more. That's joincampsite.com. Hope to see you there.

0:15David Greene: Campsite Media.

0:21Vir Das: Welcome, everybody, to David Greene is Obsessed, another episode. And I'm going to start out with a confession today. I wish that I were obsessed with hats. It is a style statement that I have always craved. It's been aspirational. I hate worrying about my hair. I feel cool in hats. But years ago, I was trying on hats with my wife, and she laughed. And I asked why she was laughing, and she wouldn't tell me. And then she finally delicately said, You look kind of like a nerd. And I was like, okay, like, is that bad? No, no, no, it's not bad. It's fine, honey. Like, you just look a little nerdy. And, like, just the shape of your nose and the shape of your face when you wear a hat, it just changes and you look a little nerdy.

1:12Vir Das: I disagree. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. But she said that. And I would try fedoras. I would try cowboy hats with her. I would try, like, trucker hats. And she would always give me this look that it was like a look of I'm definitely not going to have sex with you if you continue trying to wear headgear.

1:30David Greene: I feel like this is telling me more about your wife than it is about you. I appreciate that.

1:34Vir Das: So it's really sad. So I've always wanted to love hats, but have never felt like I could be free to wear hats, which is why I'm so excited to be sitting in the studio in New York with comedian, author, actor, Veer Das, who does love hats. and we're going to talk about hats quite a bit in just a minute.

1:58Vir Das: All right, we're back with David Green is Obsessed. Virdas, comic, author of a new book, The Outsider, a new memoir. Congratulations. Thank you so much. It's great. Can't wait to talk about it. Want to start with hats, though. Done. You said that this says more about my wife than me, the fact that she thinks I look like a nerd in hats. Please make me feel better.

2:22David Greene: Okay, so A, I think you would do well with what's called a pork pie hat. Pork pie? Yeah. Okay, like pork the food. Yeah, so it's like a shorter brim and it goes up on your forehead instead of covering, you know. Oh, this is nice. So a lot of guys who do the hats, especially in America, kind of do like the, everybody tries to look like Johnny Depp from that mafia movie. Yeah. Do you know the one I'm talking about? I forget what it's called. Yeah.

2:47Vir Das: No, it's that look. It's that iconic Johnny Depp look.

2:49David Greene: Yeah, the Christian Bale Johnny Depp. Not a very good movie, but... But a good hat. But a good hat. But if you do it up, then... Wait, like it slants upward or what? Yeah, like a little bit of hair. Okay. And then the hat just about here. I feel like she's not going to go for it. You're in jazz territory. You're in comedian territory. You're in... I'm a poet territory. Oh, I like that. You know, I'm in the village in 1962.

3:14Vir Das: to your endorsement might be might be everything i need she definitely she definitely unless your

3:19David Greene: wife thinks that all those three guys are nerds in which case then i i can't know she thinks johnny

3:24Vir Das: deb is sexy so i mean this this could be going in the right direction there you go but the pork

3:28David Greene: pork pie hat yeah wish it had a different name that's it's it's from do you remember um country fairs in america yeah and the guys would wear those straw hats of course right and they were kind of just like really cylindrical yeah and they had a thing flapping off the top yeah right so those now became kind of cooler hipper hats and that's the way to that's the way to do it yeah

3:49Vir Das: like county fairs my wife loves county fairs all right i'm gonna go for the county fair pork pie

3:53David Greene: look what is your what is your favorite style of hat i like like a really short brim high up top fedora like a velvet fedora but like a beatnik poet is is the look that i go for you know you want to be a beatnik poet i i i like the look of of the beatnik poets and i kind of like the look of um in england in like the 40s and the 50s there was there were bigger hats that gentlemen could afford and then there were uh hats that you know the lower levels of society could afford and those kind of were worn working man's hats and those were kind of worn higher and and not quite so fashionable and I like those as well.

4:36David Greene: Do you have one favorite hat? I have a favorite hat. Tell me about it. It's a Bailey's Milo is the model. That's the brand. That's the brand. And the model is called Milo. And it's kind of a brown, heavy feathering, goes with anything. The lovely thing about a hat is nobody cares about your fashion if you're wearing a hat.

4:57Vir Das: Well, they care about the hat, right? I mean, isn't everyone focusing on that? But nothing else matters.

5:00David Greene: Nothing else matters. Nothing else matters. You can wear anything under a hat. nothing under a hat that's the beauty of it

5:06Vir Das: yeah what is it about this this Bailey's Milo that you love so much

5:10David Greene: I just look like I don't give a shit

5:12Vir Das: when I wear it that's what we're going for not giving a shit that's what we're going for in life okay

5:15David Greene: I mean I do very deeply but you don't want to look like you do but I don't want to look like it

5:20Vir Das: you're not wearing a hat today though

5:22David Greene: I'm not wearing a hat today you don't have the

5:23Vir Das: I don't give a shit look

5:24David Greene: because I have a show at the Lincoln Center and you know you want to show them the Indian hair a little bit

5:29Vir Das: does the hat mess up the hair the hat messes up the hair okay so once you put the hat on you're done for the day like it has to stay on

5:35David Greene: there's a you know Matthew McConaughey once said he's like you can't look like you want it

5:41Vir Das: yeah

5:42David Greene: you gotta look like you're just kind of passing through and if it shows up it shows up yeah that's the spirit you want yeah and a hat can get you there pretty quickly

5:49Vir Das: okay

5:50David Greene: I think

5:50Vir Das: so you how many hats do you have close to 75 hats oh I thought you were gonna say like 7 ,000 or something like that no I'm not wishful

5:59David Greene: you know what I mean 75 hats is but again hats hats like not a baseball cap not a but like just proper hats so I have like hat trees in my house like a you know like a hat stand which just looks like a banyan tree

6:13Vir Das: a hat rack one but you call them I mean they're trees they're like hats everywhere yeah they're hats everywhere so yeah

6:18David Greene: in my study

6:18Vir Das: okay and you have some custom made all of them custom made

6:22David Greene: I have a couple of them custom made there's a a guy called Gunner Fox out of LA actually he used to be on Sunset Boulevard

6:29Vir Das: see a haberdasher haberdasher is a haberdasher working a haberdashery? Yes, I think so. And he,

6:36David Greene: that might be the most expensive hat I ever bought. What are we talking? Like$1 ,300,$1 ,400. Okay. Which is a lot for a hat. It's a lot for a hat. You know, and he kind of presses it in front of you, like irons it and fits it to your head and it was kind of vintage-y, you know, so it distressed as well and, you know, looked pretty cool.

6:56Vir Das: How's that process work? You go into a haberdasher and you say, I'm going for a I don't give a shit look. This is what, This is the style I'm in the mood for today.

7:05David Greene: And then he's in a hat, so he doesn't give a shit either. And then you're just kind of passive aggressive with each other until somebody buys a hat. No. Usually enthusiastic, but he's kind of a leather craftsman, right? So it's one of those, it's pretty much Americana in a shop. Do you know what I mean? And you go in and he's like, let me measure your head. And then, you know, everything that he uses to measure your head is like 60 years old. Yeah. You know, nothing is new. There's probably more modern technology, but they don't want that. There's definitely more modern technology, but it's 60 years old.

7:35David Greene: And, you know, the press, like the iron that he uses is one of those thick-ass steam irons, but it looks like it has coal inside it. You know what I mean? I'm pretty sure there's a new steamer that's been invented since 1965, but he uses that.

7:49Vir Das: But this guy needs to use this one.

7:50David Greene: This guy does that. And, you know, stitches, like put stitching into it live, and you go into a room where there's just feathers, and you pick out the right feather for it. It's a process. It's a bespoke experience. It sounds that way.

8:03Vir Das: And how long does it take then for your custom hat to be produced and ready?

8:07David Greene: I bought off the rack, and then he had to fit it to my head. It was like an hour. It was custom fitted.

8:12Vir Das: Okay, this wasn't like a designed hat.

8:15David Greene: I'm pretty sure he can, but I was just passing through. I try and, as we spoke about earlier, I try and pass through L.A. very quickly and get back to New York as quickly as possible.

8:25Vir Das: Yeah, you don't like L.A. I never know what anyone's thinking in L.A. I mean I live there I don't I guess I don't show off what I'm thinking does that make me an Angeleno? I don't know we smile a lot we smile isn't that showing people are happy the weather's great

8:38David Greene: sure but every meeting I go to in LA people are like oh my god I love that love it love it I'm in love and I'm like I'm never seeing this person again in my life

8:46Vir Das: that's true I've had a lot of ideas die with smiles it's like oh you want this film or you want this podcast idea like that's great

8:54David Greene: you know say what you would about Mumbai when we hear an idea we'd be like so very bad You're very honest. Just honest. You're honest very quickly. So, yeah.

9:01Vir Das: So, what does the hat obsession say about you?

9:05David Greene: I grew up on Chaplin and World War II movies. Huh. And so, I think that's where it comes. That's where you saw the look for the first time. Do you ever feel like you have an inkling of when your past life was, if you believe in past lives?

9:20Vir Das: Yeah, yeah. I think I was, like, from an era, I don't know, 1920s maybe. It's like the roaring 20s.

9:29David Greene: I was definitely alive in World War II. I think that's my, I'm obsessed with World War II. And so those hats and that kind of time, I feel like that's where I lived last. Why do you feel a connection to that era? I'm fascinated with the idea of the entire world experiencing one emotion across continents. You know, and... Unifying. It's unifying. and maybe COVID is the last time that really happened where there was a collective global experience where we all had the same context.

10:00Vir Das: Yeah. Really. And didn't we think it would lead to everyone getting along? Yeah. Because we were all...

10:04David Greene: For sure. Empathy would have been in abundance,

10:07Vir Das: but instead it divided everything.

10:08David Greene: But I think World War II was the last time before COVID where the entire world was just like, yo, this is messed up. Yeah. And none of us have enough. Let's share this cigarette and let's hook up while we can because maybe there's tomorrow, maybe there isn't. I like that spirit of, you know, this lovely documentary I like called, I think it's Britain and the Underground and it's the culture of, you know, when the air raids were happening on London, people would just go down to the underground and they would sleep in tube stations, right? And it was a party. It really was, you know, there's people with guitars and there's people sharing canned meat and rolling each other cigarettes.

10:54David Greene: There's something to that. There really is something to that. I remember in COVID in Mumbai, Mumbai had a lockdown, lockdown, lockdown. Even worse than we had here, you think? Much worse. And a much tougher second wave, right? And so we live on the ground floor of this apartment complex, but behind us was this couple that was Parsi, Zoroastrian, and they were 75, 80 years old. So they're not going outside at all. And we're buying their groceries for them. And then we had a couple upstairs who was young and had a baby. And it was a young guy and an American girl who had a three-month-old. And there was a sense of, oh shit, I got Ferrero Rocher chocolates today at the shop.

11:44David Greene: you know and two gotta go to the Parsis and two gotta go to the Americans you know because oh shit we got these chocolates you know and of course we're gonna share them and of course we're gonna share them right because we're all going through this thing yeah when's the last time you had that you know across the world so I still look back at like we've moved since but I look back at that experience of here are two 80 year olds a scared American with a baby who's just married an Indian man and has moved to Mumbai for him and us with an elderly bulldog. And we're all excited about these chocolates and we're just kind of standing six feet away from each other with like two pieces each.

12:25David Greene: And that's kind of nice. You know, there's something romantic to that.

12:28Vir Das: Was there any of the divisiveness that we saw here? Or was, you know, obviously India is a country that has a lot of societal problems and challenges, but did it bring people together in a way that we didn't really see here in the US?

12:41David Greene: It did. In terms of the two things that I saw that were very beautiful is we are as politically divided as America is in terms of ideological silos. And I saw people crossing silos, you know, because in a city like Mumbai, for instance, there is such a massive income gap, you know, between the educated and the uneducated and between the haves and the have nots. so it was nice to see halves of every political ideology and religion be like oh it's not about us anymore so we have to raise money for PPE kits we have to raise money for all of these things etc etc so that was kind of nice and I think with food something that's I don't think it's unique to my culture but it's definitely omnipresent in my culture is if we know you you're not going hungry that's intolerable and this is at every level of income in India if you walked into a farmer's house who had nothing and who lives in a in a shanty shack he's sharing half his food with you you know so that was kind of nice I saw a lot of people feeding each other during COVID

13:55Vir Das: I think so your new book is called The Outsider and there's a lot here to talk about one of the things you go into is a real personal reflection on what might have been the hardest time in your career, which was when you gave what is this, you know, now famous six-minute monologue at the Kennedy Center talking about two Indias. I just listened to you reflecting on that country now during COVID and how much you appreciate it. And I think, you know, the fallout from that was, you know, and that the canceling in India, if we call it that, That was people believing that you didn't love your country.

14:41David Greene: Yeah, I mean, and not to say it with any sort of boastfulness, but cancelling is a gentle word compared to what one went through. You were called a terrorist. Yeah, you know, so the context is I did a six minute bit at the Kennedy Center and it was new material. I wrote it that afternoon. Perhaps the lesson is don't use the Kennedy Center as your open mic for new material.

15:02Vir Das: Although the reception was great in the moment.

15:04David Greene: Reception was great in the moment. We got a wedding photographer to shoot it last minute and put it up. And it's one of many videos on my YouTube in that vein. But for some reason, the zeitgeist of that time and coming out of COVID and all of that stuff. And it was, ended up getting, I think, collectively 35, 40 million views. I was the number one trend in the country for two weeks. I was on every news bulletin and then it led to 14 police complaints.

15:32Vir Das: And to set the context, I mean, you were trying to say that there are two different versions of India.

15:36David Greene: Yeah, there's a duality to India and we need to remember the light.

15:39Vir Das: Some aspects of India are very dark.

15:41David Greene: And some aspects of India are very dark.

15:44Vir Das: Socioeconomics and treatment of women.

15:45David Greene: All of that stuff, right? But to remind us to steer back to what makes us great. Because it still exists as much as what doesn't, but it's drowned in the noise. And, you know, it just went like wildfire. We were blindsided by it. had to turn our phone off for four, five months because of lots of threats. And there's a ton of legal processes to go through. And the long story short is, you know, shut my phone off, wrote jokes about it, and turned that into a show. That show did the Edinburgh Fringe. It ended up doing a world tour, and it turned into a Netflix special, and that turned into an Emmy.

16:29David Greene: And so the, and what I love about my job is it's kind of alchemy. It turns bullshit into golden statues. You know what I mean? Which is, it just takes time. Yeah.

16:41Vir Das: It's material. It's material, but... But you wouldn't say, I mean, I'm not saying that in a way that's sort of inauthentic.

16:46David Greene: But no other job gets to do that. Like a musician gets canceled, that's a while. An actor gets canceled, that's a while. But a comedian, three months from now, you could be back up reflecting on it, learning from it or just making people laugh from it.

17:02Vir Das: You know? Yeah. It feels like now you've moved into another chapter and you're trying to focus your content, your comedy like on more uplifting things than your plight and being cancelled.

17:13David Greene: I think so, for sure. I didn't do a single interview about it when it happened because I was like, I'm going to do jokes first. I'm not crying on Oprah or the equivalent of that in India. And it's kind of done. And I don't think controversy is long-term currency. It's short-term currency. And it is currency, don't get me wrong. You know, we put a world tour on sale after it and it's sold out in 15 minutes, right? But then the expectation is massive. And you can't chase controversy your entire life. You can't predict what's going to be controversial. If you try and reverse engineer that, it's never going to happen.

17:51David Greene: So for me, I've been kind of humbled by the love I received post-it. and kind of weirdly realized, oh, the audience is on the pedestal. And that's reframed my approach to stand up a little bit, where I'm like, oh, I have to do everything I can to send you home flying on a cloud. You Ubered, you got a babysitter, you bought tickets three months in advance. And the trick for me is to do that for you without pandering to you. That's a hard balance? It's a hard balance because the perfect show kind of meanders between stuff they want to hear and stuff you want to say. And if you do a 33-country world tour, that's tough to figure out what they want to hear.

18:37David Greene: So then your best bet is to just really be the joker and to dance and to be the ass in the room. But without making it easy or without making it hacky or, you know, broad. So it's a tough one. A work in progress.

18:52Vir Das: You've mentioned a journalist who was working on a profile of you and seemed to be focusing too much on your plight and what you went through with that canceling. And do I have this right? He said to you, my audience is huge and they'll sympathize. And that seemed to really hit you that he was making that kind of argument for why you should do this interview. How did you react and what was your response to him?

19:20David Greene: Well, let me set up context. Yeah, please. We were, it was a good piece. And, you know, the American agents and the American publicists were like, oh my God, it's a profile in the blah, blah, blah. Right. And.

19:33Vir Das: Fear's gone through hell through this thing. And like, let's talk about.

19:35David Greene: So we're gold. Right. And we did the first round of interviews and it was all right. And then a couple of interviews in, they were like, do you think you'll get arrested again when the special comes out? can we be there on the day the special comes out to see what happens

19:52Vir Das: like to cover your arrest yeah and I was like

19:54David Greene: I don't think I will be I think I've dealt with most of this stuff already can we talk to your lawyer sure spoke to my lawyer and my lawyer called me back and she's like he really wants like juice you know what I mean

20:06Vir Das: yeah

20:07David Greene: can I talk to the policeman sure and then at some point I was like the I think first I was like does he not believe me in which case let him talk to everybody because this has been on the news for a month you know so it's pretty well documented in that sense sometimes comedians will say things to get on the news I'm trying to get off the news you know what I mean it's a different journey but then at some point he said that we went into a squabble where he was like you know I'm just trying to understand you know your democracy vis-a-vis hours. And I'm defensive, you know, so I was like, with due respect, your president just refused to accept the results of an election, and there was a riot at the Capitol, so...

21:00Vir Das: Oh, you were teaching

21:00David Greene: him that American democracy might not be perfect, yeah. Or that your democracy doesn't exist vis-a-vis mine, and mine doesn't exist vis-a-vis yours, they just kind of exist. Right? And then he said, you know, our audience is huge, and I think they're going to really sympathize with this story and i said i but mine will empathize and it's much smaller and i i don't think sympathy is currency either you know there's a line in my special where i say sympathy is a porn video that you watch for your pleasure but empathy is an orgy we get screwed together you know um so it feels like you're writing this so that your readers can feel better about where they live and i'm not interested in being some sort of poster boy for Eastern oppression.

21:44Vir Das: Yeah. And I pulled out of the piece

21:47David Greene: very respectfully. And a lot of people in time didn't understand why I did it. But I kind of stand by it. What message do you want us to

21:58Vir Das: hear from you about empathy?

22:00David Greene: I've said this before, but here's what I think freedom of speech is. We're on a train together. Right. And some dude has his junk out. on the train. Got that image. Maybe we can't do anything about the junk but we can make eye contact and laugh about it together because we both have to look at his junk. You know, and that's empathy. You know, you're on a New York City subway and there's some dude furiously pleasuring himself in the corner of the car and you and I look at each other and we're like,

22:35Vir Das: Yeah, this is not cool.

22:36David Greene: This is not cool or this is nuts. Right. that's empathy. You know what I mean? We're sharing a moment, an experience. We're sharing a moment which is messed up and wrong. There's no arguing that. But my God, can we laugh about it in a second?

22:52Vir Das: Yeah. You know? I think I hear what you're saying. Particularly about the journalist trying to get you to be the poster boy for oppression and then feeling good about ourselves here. What could have happened there is like two people talking about their own experiences in different democracies and sort of where there's overlap and shared reflection.

23:17David Greene: And also, I also must take onus of being defensive on the gaze on my culture. You have to understand I come from a background where rightly or wrongly, the portrayal of my culture can sometimes be skewed in one of two directions. it's either ultra privileged so my god look at the Indians who are Harvard CEOs heads of hospitals etc etc or it's slumdog millionaire binary it's been tied but India lives in the middle of those two things you know and I don't see that represented very well I don't see a 28 year old Indian boy who smokes a joint and has a girlfriend and maybe doesn't know what he wants to do with his life.

24:07Vir Das: Might not be that rich, might not be that poor. Might not be that rich,

24:09David Greene: might not be that poor. He's figuring it out. Maybe just bought a motorcycle. You know, man, I'd love to see that guy. You know, represent it a little bit because that's, we have the youngest population in the world. We have the largest working population under 35 on the planet. We have the largest smartphone audience in the world. Like, where's that?

24:29Vir Das: Yeah, we should understand

24:30David Greene: the culture. So if you're going to write the big story about India, I'm going to be all right. Right about that guy.

24:39Vir Das: So your book is called The Outsider. And you've spoken a lot in your comedy and elsewhere about, you know, growing up in Nigeria and coming to the United States and being an Indian, literally feeling like an outsider sort of wherever you are. Do you still feel that way today in 2025?

24:59David Greene: Very much so. Now I'm just kind of owning it, you know, because I'm 46. I don't know if it goes away or not. I have three things that make me feel like home, which is Shivani, who's my wife, and my two dogs. And last night I was at the Lincoln Center and it's a weird experiment, right? Because you're sitting in a room which has 50 % Indians and then 50 % the tastemakers, quote unquote, of New York, right? So they just saw the opening of Ragtime at the Lincoln Center And so you've got 20-year-old college kids at NYU sitting next to, you know, a 60-year-old white lady. And I'm going to tell Indians about studying in Montgomery, Alabama.

25:48David Greene: You know, and I'm going to tell Americans about my first time on a Bollywood set. And it's a weird alien experience for both of those people.

26:00Vir Das: and that they're hearing this from you yeah because you could have gone to a show that spoke

26:04David Greene: to everything that you knew and here you are in the room with a complete stranger telling you this random story of this global upbringing and uh at some level you just kind of have to go oh that is my story and i need to kind of share it loud does the i mean this our show is about

26:22Vir Das: obsession um and i i wonder as i was you know reading the your book is is this outsider identity does it become an obsession at some point that you kind of feel in every aspect of your life

26:34David Greene: for better for better or worse yeah it makes you suspicious of a bubble you know what i mean so i'll do a movie a year or maybe sometimes two acting projects a year and you know the minute I feel like I'm hanging out with actors too much and I've had more than three conversations about protein shakes I'm like I need to I need to get out of here and go to a stand up comedy club you know what I mean so what that means is you will never fully make friends in Bollywood or Hollywood because you're not really one of them and you could do three acting projects and spend nine months of your life doing that but you're like no no I'm I'm here but I'm also that guy

27:20Vir Das: but does that become a self-fulfilling prophecy sometimes where you end up not being able to feel a sense of community like you close yourself off to that

27:28David Greene: but it serves your material in what way in that I think the more on the inside you are the less you get to write about a thing you know have you ever you ever watch a comic and he's like so I was in Boise Idaho last week and a woman said this and then he's probably like saying that in Chicago and then he's like so I was in Chicago last week and blah blah blah and airlines and gas stations. And you're like, oh, he's so in it that life isn't happening to him or her. And you need to stop doing this for a year and go away and pack a bag and go see the world and come back with something new. To keep your material fresh,

28:11Vir Das: being constantly on the move and not being...

28:14David Greene: To get off the hamster wheel as such. So I think the more you enter a bubble, your material suffers at some level you gotta have arm's length a little bit

28:24Vir Das: you've talked about the relationship between you and your audience who gets more out of your comedy you or the audience

28:36David Greene: that's an interesting question I would hope it is my audience I my approach is to have them on the pedestal there's a line in my special where I say if I could put everybody up on stage, I think you'd understand why people like stand-up. Nobody's watching the comedian. They're listening to the audience. They're listening to laughter leave their body. Because joy, when not protected, but joy projected is hope. It's strength.

29:06Vir Das: So you're creating the joy in the room, but we're feeling it from other people in the audience.

29:11David Greene: I don't even think I'm creating it. I don't even think I have anything to do with it. I'm just kind of saying words and you tell the truth the audience and you're listening to the thousand people around you as much as that's doing more for you than I am for you you know I'm at best a conductor of what is a beautiful orchestra huh and what is the power of that laughter do you think? that joy it's everything I think it's one of two or three unfakeable human responses you know it is a very honest human response it tells the truth I really think laughter is truth you know if I was to if I was to say hey man I think Eric Adams had a real shot at mayor you know what I mean on the street some people would laugh right and I just said something but they told the truth.

30:18Vir Das: The reaction was the true meaning of the moment.

30:21David Greene: You know, like if I come out and I'm like, Zoran Mamdani, he's not controversial at all, huh? And somebody laughs. They're telling the truth. I'm not telling the truth.

30:32Vir Das: I love that. I want to ask you about Bollywood because that's part of your life and the book. interestingly you told us in your book that Bollywood is not a term that a lot of people in India like should I not be using the term Bollywood

30:49David Greene: yeah you can say the Indian film industry that's you know it's easier you know it's Hollywood

30:54Vir Das: here for the film industry I know but it feels like

30:56David Greene: we are derivative of Hollywood and with all you respect we are triple the size of Hollywood you know what I mean we release three times the movies on a weekend than Hollywood does it's the equivalent of calling Hollywood Marvel Town You know what I mean? Oh, that's bad.

31:11Vir Das: No, we can't do that. It cheapens. I mean, no offense to Marvel. I'm a big fan, but like it... It reduces it. Yeah, it reduces it. Oh, interesting. Okay, so I should be careful. Use Indian film industry.

31:21David Greene: I mean, we'll love you either way. You know what I mean? Yeah. But yeah, I would like to see that term used less and less.

31:29Vir Das: Back to fashion, because we started with hats. It sounds like style and fashion, absolutely part of the culture, like in a way that I mean we all know it from seeing videos and seeing paparazzi but like you can't be a part of Bollywood and be in movies like you were without constantly thinking about what you look like

31:50David Greene: agree but then you can get to a point where you kind of do it on your own terms and you have your own relationship with it like I and by the way I in no means want to oversell my presence in the film industry I'm middling Mumbai Salsa I mean that's yeah that movie was So I've been in 14 movies, which means I've been in two good movies, right?

32:14David Greene: But I'm middling at best, right? So it's not like you're talking to a movie star or anything like that. I'm an actor, right? But I got to a point where I kind of said, okay, I'm no longer working, for instance, with new designers. right so i went to the emmys and i just put a post out on instagram and said hey there's a fashion student who wants to design my red carpet look for the emmys come on i'll pay you we'll buy it and you'll get the exposure that you need and a great thing keep in mind there are 40 000 designers at the top level who for the emmy awards would kill it for free but you wanted to give

32:58Vir Das: someone else a chance.

32:59David Greene: Yeah, because I believe in underdog energy. I'm five foot eight and a half from a small town and this is insane. With the same height. I want to embrace that. There you go. Five eight and a half.

33:07Vir Das: Can I have underdog energy?

33:09David Greene: That's what I'm going for. So I think if you stand with underdog energy with an outfit that combines that, I think it compounds that underdog energy. Yeah. You know. So right now, everybody that works with me on a movie knows, oh, he knows nothing about fashion and he couldn't care less. So we kind of have to have his back. a little bit. So I just co-directed my first movie and I'm the lead in it. And it's a spy. You know what I mean? So I'm, you know, I had to build up a little bit and I had like two love songs and all of that stuff. And you would just see our head of costumes be like, I have to get this right.

33:51David Greene: Just because his fashion sucks. It's such a high level. I want him to be in one movie or appearance where people are like he looks good good and she kind of had my back so it was nice to to hand it off to her and like you know and be like I have no idea I will wear what you tell me and if this screws up it's your fault completely you know but yeah

34:15Vir Das: alright I'm gonna be right back with Veer Das and we're gonna do a little lightning round of other obsessions when we come back

34:27Vir Das: We're back with David Green is Obsessed. I am in a studio in New York City with Veer Das, whose new memoir is called The Outsider. We talked about your obsession with hats. We were talking a little bit a minute ago about Bollywood. Sunglasses are another obsession of yours, I think, or at least you carry sunglasses around with you.

34:47David Greene: I only wear Ray-Bans.

34:50Vir Das: Only?

34:51David Greene: Yeah, so I don't buy expensive sunglasses because I lose them in every hotel I've ever been in. So Ray-Ban Wayfarer is black.

34:58Vir Das: That's it. But I saw you talking about once like putting sunglasses on in the airport to try and act like a...

35:05David Greene: That's like an early star move where you, you know... Early star move. Yeah, like I think when you start doing movies, you're allowed to lose yourself and become a douchebag for three years. And then you gotta... Three years is the limit. So you get to have like two cell phones and wear sunglasses in an airport and have five assistants for no reason. so definitely did that

35:24Vir Das: don't tell the assistants

35:25David Greene: now I have one cell phone and I travel alone but you get to do that a little bit but I guarantee you half the people who wear sunglasses in airports are watching people watch them

35:37Vir Das: interesting I don't know the douchebag factor with sunglasses indoors it's I like how I look in sunglasses and so I kind of want to do that I don't know I don't feel licensed to

35:50David Greene: the sort of clear semi

35:52Vir Das: sunglass thing yeah

35:53David Greene: but that's kind of porno-ish a little bit

35:56Vir Das: it feels that way yeah thank you for pointing that out yeah it feels a little it feels a little douchebaggy yeah okay so I saw you you did a GQ video about the things that you carry with you everywhere you go that feels a little obsessive to me not a bad way yeah but sunglasses hat that you like picture of your picture of your dog

36:17David Greene: of my late dog may your dog rest in peace yeah and a bluetooth speaker that bluetooth speaker that i have like one boast bluetooth speaker which helps me sleep all over the world because it sounds the same no matter which city

36:32Vir Das: i'm in huh you need that speaker like you can't you can't plug your phone with the sound that you like into a hotel no bluetooth no i need that at the right volume with the same playlist to play

36:43David Greene: through the night okay so then i can sleep what are you playing is it like white noise it's apple music sleep playlist sleep play apple music makes a playlist to just sleep through it's just uh it's kind of like ambient sounds hang on it's just

36:59Vir Das: I use an app like picking brown noise or green noise or white noise should be

37:06David Greene: uh where's sleep I should have downloaded it it's just it's literally just this oh

37:15Vir Das: that's lovely

37:22David Greene: right that's everything right so just it's that for that's beautiful for seven hours yeah okay

37:28Vir Das: i want that um you have a lozenge situation to help you with your voice when you're doing lots

37:33David Greene: of comedy these are i don't even these guys should pay me some money at some point it feels that you're yeah about it's called vocal zone and these are kind of sugar-free licorice lozenges and you pop one in the corner of your mouth and it lasts about an hour.

37:48Vir Das: Okay. You do this like before a show?

37:49David Greene: Before a show. Okay. And before this podcast, I did one as well. You did one? Yeah. And it just kind of keeps you happy. It opens it up? Yeah, it opens it up. Okay.

37:57Vir Das: You have a spray that you carry around?

38:00David Greene: Yeah, it's called Entertainer's Secret and it's like a throat spray that you put on. Entertainer's Secret? Yeah.

38:04Vir Das: Okay.

38:05David Greene: And you get it on Amazon.

38:06Vir Das: How have I been on the radio for like 20 years of my life and have never done these things? I would do like hot water, lemon.

38:11David Greene: Yeah, sure.

38:12Vir Das: Maybe a tiny bit of bourbon, depending on if it was covering any important stories. Lemon's not great, by the way.

38:16David Greene: Because that causes acidity. And so you shouldn't be doing lemon. Just do honey. Or just do hot water.

38:22Vir Das: No lemon.

38:23David Greene: No lemon.

38:23Vir Das: That's a lesson.

38:25David Greene: I mean, who knows? Doesn't this change every... Remember we were all told to drink milk as kids, and now milk is death, apparently. Yeah. So, I don't know. Oat milk is now the healthy obsession. I remember in three years of college, I don't think I drank water once.

38:44Vir Das: That's not healthy. That's not good.

38:46David Greene: Were you hydrating in other ways? I don't know, but I don't... Do we need to hydrate as much as we hydrate? I mean, not drinking water for three years sounds problematic. Yeah, but do we now each need to be drinking like five liters of water a day? This feels incredibly excessive.

39:02Vir Das: Yeah, and I also don't have time to have to need a bathroom every five minutes. what else is in your travel bag?

39:12David Greene: I have shorts and sneakers so I can work out I usually fly this is going to sound so privileged but okay anyway I fly Emirates because that's a nice airline to get to the US on it's not like you're flying

39:30Vir Das: your own plane if you're about to tell me I'm a pilot and I fly my own plane around the world

39:35David Greene: I make the perfect size notebooks on Emirates.

39:38Vir Das: Okay.

39:39David Greene: So I will steal those every time I'm on those flights.

39:42Vir Das: The perfect, like not too small, not too big.

39:45David Greene: Yeah, like you know, like moleskin notebooks, right? Yeah, of course. And for stand-up comedians, those are life, right? Yeah. And Emirates just makes the perfect size ones. So if I'm ever on a plane, I'm like, hey, do you have any extras? And they typically do.

39:56Vir Das: So you get on a flight now and they're like, Veer, we got your notebooks.

39:59David Greene: Yeah, so I'll get like five notebooks from the crew. Nice. So I always have an Emirates notebook in my bag. for some reason.

40:06Vir Das: Okay, little lightning round. What is an obsession that you have never told anyone but your partner about until right now sitting with me?

40:20David Greene: I'm into Lego recently. Lego? Yeah. Like building Lego stuff? In my mid-40s. Okay. Never touched Lego my entire life. And now you have started. Now I've started. My therapist was like, you need something to do to shut your brain off. And Legos is the thing. And Lego is minimal focus. It's micro focus.

40:42Vir Das: Wow.

40:42David Greene: And so just do that. What do you build? I'm currently building the Notre Dame Cathedral. You know, I started small.

40:52Vir Das: Wait, do you buy that set? You buy a Notre Dame Lego kit?

40:55David Greene: And it's like a thousand different bags with each a piece of Notre Dame and then, you know. How's it going so far? What stage are you on? I have the porch. done

41:06Vir Das: that's great okay what's an obsession that scares you

41:12David Greene: I'm afraid to lose touch with the pulse of my country because I've traveled too much

41:19Vir Das: wow that's deep see we were talking about this before we got in the studio you comics are often you know we think that doing an interview with you we're going to be laughing the whole time but you get really thoughtful and well I mean think about

41:30David Greene: the condition right my identity is built on being for India from the world. From India for the world, forgive me.

41:37Vir Das: Right.

41:38David Greene: But then you travel the world for eight months. So then you haven't spent eight months in India.

41:43Vir Das: Yeah. So then you come back home after eight months

41:47David Greene: and it's like, oh, all the restaurants I love have closed down and all these new political things have happened, et cetera, et cetera. So I'm obsessive about checking in with India and keeping it in my veins.

42:01Vir Das: it's so interesting to hear you say that after we talked about being the outsider and like how that identity pushes you away from a bubble and it sounds like india is a bubble that you want

42:10David Greene: to make sure you but but i've not been accepted enough in that bubble uh i hope to you know i keep saying i've written five shows about my country and i'm hoping i'll write that one show where they're like all right you're indian enough um but the thing is what's beautiful about my country as well is it's the most diverse place on earth you know it's just a bunch of other places joined together so there'll never be one version but you could spend a lifetime trying to capture every other place um which has weirdly been the arc of at least my artistic obsession

42:53Vir Das: all right last question what is one thing you do obsessively whenever you come to new york city

42:57David Greene: When I come to New York City, I obsessively go to public libraries and will be there. You'll find me there as soon as it opens and just writing. I love books and just kind of that energy. I love a public library. So that's where I go.

43:16Vir Das: Well, I don't want to keep you from going to a public library. Veer Das, his new memoir is called The Outsider. Thanks so much for spending time. This was fun. Thank you, man. Really fun. Really appreciate it.

43:33Vir Das: David Green is obsessed as a production of Campside Media. It is hosted by me, David Green. Our senior producer is Lane Rose. We are mixed by Ewan Leitrimuen. The executive producers of Campside Media are Vanessa Gregoriadis, Matt Scherr, and Josh Dean. Special thanks to our operations team, Ashley Warren and Sabina Mara. If you have an obsession you would like to share, hope you do, you can send us an email. The address is obsessed at campsidemedia.com. That's obsessed at campsidemedia.com. And hey, if you enjoyed the show, please rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. Really appreciate you listening.

44:13Vir Das: The Fall Line True Crime is a deep dive podcast focused on cold cases that could be resolved if the public knew about them. You'll hear about missing people whose families have been searching for decades, John and Jane Doe cases from across the country in desperate need of public attention, and unsolved homicides that never made the national news. The Fall Line digs deep, interviewing the families, law enforcement, and experts closest to the crimes to bring you cases you've never heard of and help you realize what can be done today to solve them. Find The Fall Line wherever you get your podcasts.

44:54So, everyone. Love to notifications. Get it from theicz过-diskChrist VIPs from the 있나? I got married to Dr. Sourizana and the