Kumail Nanjiani Did the *Entire* Monologue From ‘A Few Good Men’ in 1 Take for ‘Only Murders in the Building’
Only Murders in the Building might be about Mabel (Selena Gomez), Charles, (Steve Martin) and Oliver (Martin Short) but Rudy, played by Kumail Nanjiani, stole the show—or at least a scene. How? When he launched into Jack Nicholson’s A Few Good Men monologue. Viewers only saw bits and pieces—more on why ahead—but, according to the show’s co-creator John Hoffman, Nanjiani performed the entire monologue in one take.
Nanjiani reciting the whole ‘A Few Good Men’ monologue wasn’t planned
On the heels of Meryl Streep and Melissa McCarthy’s living room brawl, the Hulu original series returned on Oct. 15, 2024, with the “Lifeboat” episode and a hilarious scene with Rudy and the Westies.
While confronting them about Dudenoff (Griffin Dunne), somehow Rudy launched into the famed A Few Good Men monologue. As Hoffman told The Wrap, Nanjiani went above and beyond for the scene during filming.
“When we got to that monologue, it was not scripted that he would do the entire scene. It was a different organization within the story,” Hoffman explained. “But he showed up the day before and said, ‘I have the entire thing memorized.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean the entire thing memorized?’”
The co-creator continued, explaining he never planned to have Nanjiani go through the monologue in its entirety. “When we were on set, we were not intending to do all of it. There were a couple of ways we were going to do it that we had scripted.”
It came down to a “just in case” scenario. “I said, ‘Just in case we want the whole thing done here in the room, could you get up and just do that?’” he recalled. At that, Nanjiani replied, “‘Yes, I would love to do that.’”
“And we rolled and it was letter perfect, the entire thing. Everyone applauded after and was dazzled. It was one take,” Hoffman added.
The entire monologue would’ve been too long for ‘Only Murders in the Building’
According to Hoffman, the reason why viewers didn’t get to see Nanjiani do the monologue from A Few Good Men all the way through was simply due to timing. Hence, the snippets that made the final cut.
“In the cut, we jump through because if we’d done the whole thing, it’d be five minutes,” Hoffman explained. “It was, like, three to five minutes straight through fully acting it out. So what you’re seeing is truly a cut-down version of what he did.”
Nanjiani was ‘nervous’ to work with Martin Short and Steve Martin
Nanjiani’s nerves didn’t get the best of him on the Only Murders in the Building set. During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! he confessed to being “very nervous” to act alongside Martin and Short after watching their movies as a kid.
Explaining that he felt like he had to play it cool, Nanjiani described their “vibe” as “so good.”
“I mean, you know, I saw Martin Short call Steve Martin, a white-haired a**hole,” he said. “I was like, ‘Wow, I’m really living the dream right now.’”
New episodes of Only Murders in the Building drop every Tuesday on Hulu.
