I really related to that experience of being what we call the 'bridge generation' and always trying to navigate your more traditional growing-up experiences with wanting the latest Air Jordans or whatever it is: Trying to explain to your parents why, and they just, like, don't get it.

Nahnatchka Khan

Experience Your You

In comedy, it's so subjective; there is no right or wrong.

Wrong T Subjective

The family sitcom has been around forever, since the advent of television. I don't need to reinvent it. But if you take something and you do it in a way that you haven't necessarily seen before, that's right where I live.

Nahnatchka Khan

Family You Where

I was Persian-American, but I hated bringing Persian food to school. I just didn't want to stand out in that way. I wanted to be like everybody else.

Nahnatchka Khan

Food Way Wanted

You can be a successful woman and also be vulnerable, and that's important to show people.

Nahnatchka Khan

Success You Woman

Norman Lear was talking about everything in the '70s... race, sexism, all of it. The network comedy really stayed away from that in the 1980s and 1990s.

Nahnatchka Khan

Work Way Very

Not everybody can see every moment of their life displayed by one set of people. It's just not going to happen.

Nahnatchka Khan

Mom Men Life

Some people don't have a sense of humor about certain things, and other people do.

Nahnatchka Khan

Humor Things Thing

In the writers' room, the challenge is always to tell interesting stories in unexpected ways, so we try to never limit ourselves in how we accomplish that.

Nahnatchka Khan

Writers Writer Write

Sometimes you can feel the gears shifting in scripts, like really trying to make something work that feels sweaty for whatever reason. I really enjoy reading material that just flows - it's definitely a skill to make something feel effortless.

Nahnatchka Khan

Work Time You

The more visibility, the more opportunities for Asian-American actors to play great roles. It goes to the studios opening up roles they might not have considered Asian actors for. The talent is there. I don't think there needs to be one superstar, but having more roles open up, that's the way changes happen.

Nahnatchka Khan

Great Change Way

This is going to sound weird, but when I was a little kid, the Iron Sheik was really big in our house.

Nahnatchka Khan

Weird Use Us

I went to USC and got my first break writing for a kids' show called 'Pepper Ann.'

Nahnatchka Khan

Writing USC Us

Using humor as a wedge into different kinds of stories is my go-to. I think anything I do would have some sort of streak of humor in it.

Nahnatchka Khan

Humor Would Wed

Find like-minded people who are on the same page as you, and then lift each other up.

Nahnatchka Khan

Age You Who

If I waited to write only for a Persian lesbian, I'd still be waiting. But I can write for straight white men because those are the jobs.

Nahnatchka Khan

Men Write White

Having a range of perspectives allows you to tell stories through a different lens and approach things from fresh angles. If you're straining everything through the same filter, you're always going to wind up with the same product.

Nahnatchka Khan

You Wit Wind

I love women who don't apologize.

Nahnatchka Khan

Women Men Love

Sometimes you can't really control the language around you. All you can do is follow your voice and your path - dedicate yourself to stories that matter.

Nahnatchka Khan

Time Age Yourself

When you take stock, there are so many more choices and points of view that are necessary.

Nahnatchka Khan

You View Take

Special things happen when you center people who haven't been centered before.

Nahnatchka Khan

You Who Things Happen

You can be layered and more than one thing - you can exist outside of the box.

Nahnatchka Khan

When you start out as a TV writer, you get a lot of pressure from outside forces to fit into what they think people want.

Nahnatchka Khan

Writing in another person's voice is a skill you have to develop when you're working on someone else's show. But if you can maintain your perspective, that's what will make you stand out.

Nahnatchka Khan

I never had a backup plan. I've only been good at one thing. I admire people who are jacks-of-all-trades. That's not me.

Nahnatchka Khan

I've always been passionate about movies, TV, and writing, and I've been working so hard at it for so long. There were lots of setbacks, but I loved it so much, there was no alternative.

Nahnatchka Khan

'Fresh Off the Boat' will be syndicated. This show and these characters will live forever in the pantheon of classic family sitcoms.

Nahnatchka Khan

For immigrant families, television is what connects you to American culture, but it's also what makes you feel like an outsider.

Nahnatchka Khan

When we were growing up, the only person we saw on TV that vaguely resembled us was the Iron Sheik - the pro wrestler whose signature move was the 'Camel Clutch.'

Nahnatchka Khan

Comedy always benefits from different points of view and even tension. It can never be satisfied.

Nahnatchka Khan

I think a lot of quote-unquote 'comedic actors' really go for the laugh and are overly straining and sort of trying.

Nahnatchka Khan

There's some actors that go easily between drama and comedy because they play the naturalism of the role, and they just have natural timing.

Nahnatchka Khan

If you try to describe NASCAR to anyone, you sound crazy.

Nahnatchka Khan

I really related to that experience of being what we call the 'bridge generation' and always trying to navigate your more traditional growing-up experiences with wanting the latest Air Jordans or whatever it is: Trying to explain to your parents why, and they just, like, don't get it.

Nahnatchka Khan

Networks love data. They love to be able to look at numbers and try to predict what they think will work.

Nahnatchka Khan

I love strong female characters.

Nahnatchka Khan

It's cool to be able to use comedy as a way to make people feel like they're a part of a bigger collective rather than as a way to divide.

Nahnatchka Khan

My family never took vacations growing up. It just wasn't a thing.

Nahnatchka Khan

It's something that's almost taken for granted in sitcoms about white families. Like, 'Oh, we're going on a summer vacation!' As if that's something that everybody does.

Nahnatchka Khan

I've read many great samples, both of existing shows I liked and original pilots, and definitely hired the writers - or, at least, tried to!

Nahnatchka Khan

If you take a step back, you realize that the TV landscape really has been... There have been some amazing shows in terms of representation, but not for Asian people.

Nahnatchka Khan

My parents certainly didn't understand TV comedy. They wouldn't turn on 'Married... With Children' and laugh.

Nahnatchka Khan

Whatever I do - whether it's directing, producing - I just come at things from characters, from stories, from jokes and scene rhythms. I'll always have that at the epicenter, I think.

Nahnatchka Khan

You don't have to be just one thing. I think that applies to women in front of and behind the camera.

Nahnatchka Khan

With 'Always Be My Maybe,' this has to be funny; this has to be entertaining. And then, when we stop for these moments with the characters that are emotional, you kind of feel it more because it's a little bit unexpected.

Nahnatchka Khan

I personally feel like the end product is always better when you can make a collective. It's like a band. You can have a bunch of individual great musicians, but when you come together, there's a sound that it creates that you couldn't do on your own.

Nahnatchka Khan

In terms of leadership, you've got to allow for people to be amazing and to contribute in a way that's meaningful. You can't hold on so tight that people don't get a chance to do what they do best.

Nahnatchka Khan

Stuff starts to feel stale comedically when you're just rehashing things, so putting together a writers' room where the majority is made up of people who have not been the focus of the story, it flips everything around.

Nahnatchka Khan

Cable shows do 13 episodes. I get that. I can wrap my head around 13 episodes. You make them all, you post them all, and then you get to air them. The network cycle is way more intense. There's more episodes.

Nahnatchka Khan

Women behaving badly has always been funny, to me personally, so I knew I wanted to do something like that.

Nahnatchka Khan

Randall Park and Ali Wong, they are so many things; they're not just one thing, they're bigger than just their identity.

Nahnatchka Khan