Big Bang Theory's Kunal Nayyar on Becoming Buddies with Co-Star Jesse Eisenberg in London's The Spoils

Kunal Nayyar has acquired a vast following on the back of playing Raj Koothrappali on CBS TV’s ever-popular The Big Bang Theory, but the London-born Indian actor is spending his summer hiatus on the London stage co-starring opposite Oscar nominee Jesse Eisenberg in Eisenberg’s play The Spoils, at the Trafalgar Studios. Broadway.com caught the ever-amiable Nayyar for a chat as he was in transit to the theater one recent evening.

How’s the show going so far?
British audiences have really embraced the play. We were told they were going to be more reserved and may not laugh as loudly, but the opposite seems to have been true. They understand the jokes and are laughing every two or three lines, which wasn’t the case off-Broadway.

Do you think the production has deepened since New York?
Well, I know for me at least that there’s a comfort the second time that comes from knowing that you’ve done it once and it worked. Last summer was about trying to get it right and I worked and worked on it and trusted it, and now that we’ve got it right, you just think, ‘Let’s get on stage and see what happens every night.’ That freedom is what you’re looking for.

Is it odd having your co-star also be the playwright?
The beauty of working with Jesse as an actor-writer, which sometimes can be difficult, is that he didn’t make an issue with the actors wanting to be able to make sense of the words in their own cadence. That gave us the freedom to be able to explore moments, though every time I tried to improvise a line, it wasn’t as good as what was already there.

You play Kalyan, the Nepalese friend and roommate of Jesse’s privileged, often toxically outspoken Ben.
What’s interesting is that the part is based on an actual friend of Jesse’s whom I’ve never met. Since we opened, he’s been in Kathmandu, but Jesse has shared letters that the real Kalyan has written and talks about him a lot.

You and Jesse have a really palpable rapport on stage.
I think we’re just very lucky in that we picked up right away as friends. Jesse had never seen The Big Bang Theory, so he didn’t know much about me when I was brought to his attention, but we’ve since become very close—almost like brothers. I don’t think you can go through a process like this for 18 months and not have that happen.

Does that make it doubly painful in the play when Ben and Kalyan’s friendship goes south?
Yes, I’m not sure by the end of the play that their rapport will ever be the same. The comment I get most after the play is, ‘What happens? Will Ben and Kalyan ever hang out again?’ And in my head, I think there will come a time when Kalyan reaches out to Ben to check on him and see how he’s doing.

Is it hard to come down after a performance?
You do feel when you’re doing a play as if you are living under a rock, and Jesse had said before that it would be so nice if every day we could just do a matinee. I know that after my big scene, I go backstage and let it all out. I have to have a martini or two to wind down.

Was it tough to clear the decks in order to relocate for the run to London?
It was probably mid-March when this began to gather steam, by which point I knew what dates I had available and so it all became real. The second thing I had to do was ask permission from my wife to move my entire life to London, though there was not an iota in my body that didn’t know this was the right move. The only thing is that we miss our dogs!

You must know London reasonably well.
I was born here—in Hounslow [west London]—but we moved to New Delhi when I was three, so I’ve got British citizenship. I don’t think it’s out of the norm that we might one day make London our home. It’s a lot closer to New Delhi, for one thing.

A lot of your Big Bang colleagues have done stage work: do you guys sit around and trade theater chat between takes?
Ha! Yes, I have an MFA in Acting from Temple University, Jim [Parsons] went to the Old Globe in San Diego and has done Broadway and Johnny [Galecki] grew up in Chicago doing plays before turning to the New York stage. So, theater is a huge part of our cast, and we talk about how lucky we are that being on Big Bang has given us the opportunity to go out and do it without worrying if we’re going to eat.