Background and career
Nathan Joseph Fielder (born May 12, 1983) is a Canadian filmmaker, actor, and comedian. He is known for his awkward, deadpan persona and his use of satire and surreal humor. Born and raised in Vancouver, Fielder was involved in his school's improv group as a teenager, which featured fellow comedian Seth Rogen. He majored in business at the University of Victoria, which influenced his later work. After attending a comedy course at Humber College in Toronto, Fielder began his career as a correspondent for CBC's This Hour Has 22 Minutes, which featured his own segment series "Nathan on Your Side" from 2008 to 2009. He wrote and appeared on the American sketch show Important Things with Demetri Martin (2011). Fielder co-created, directed, and starred in the Comedy Central parody reality show Nathan for You (2013–2017), in which he portrays a slightly more awkward version of himself, who offers advice to struggling businesses. After the show's conclusion, he executive produced the HBO docu-series How To with John Wilson (2020–2023), before creating, writing, directing, and starring in the HBO docu-comedy The Rehearsal (2022–present). He collaborated with filmmaker and actor Benny Safdie to create his first scripted series, Showtime's The Curse (2023–2024), in which he starred, alongside Safdie and Emma Stone. Fielder then co-directed his first feature film with Lance Oppenheim, the critically acclaimed documentary You Can See Everything (2026), which follows the disgraced entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes and her partner Billy Evans. His accolades include a Peabody Award, an Independent Spirit Award, and a WGA Award, as well as four nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award. In 2023, he was featured on Time's list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Nathan Joseph Fielder was born on May 12, 1983, in Vancouver, British Columbia. His family is Jewish. His parents, Deb and Eric Fielder, are both social workers, and he has a younger sister named Becca. He attended Vancouver Talmud Torah and Point Grey Secondary School in Vancouver. He was a member of the latter's improv comedy group, which included comedian Seth Rogen. He was also passionate about stage magic as a teenager, and worked at a magic shop in a shopping mall. Fielder initially studied science at the University of British Columbia with the goal of "[making] a lot of money" as a dentist, but grew dissatisfied with his coursework and transferred to the University of Victoria, where he studied entrepreneurship and marketing and graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in 2005. After university, he briefly worked for a brokerage firm in British Columbia, which he found "depressing" and overly concerned with money. Feeling unable to pursue a career he did not like, he quit the job in 2005 and moved to Toronto to see if he could succeed as a comedian, giving himself a year to do so. He joined Laugh Sabbath, a local comedy collective, and enrolled in Humber College's Comedy Program in 2006. During this time, he made "hundreds" of short films, which he presented at Laugh Sabbath's weekly shows.
Fielder received the Tim Sims Encouragement Fund Award in 2006, and took a job as an interviewer for Canadian Idol. Fielder's short films—mainly comprising short sketches involving him and his friends—were noticed on YouTube by Michael Donovan, an executive producer for the CBC comedy series This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Donovan hired Fielder as a field correspondent and developed his popular recurring segment, "Nathan on Your Side". In 2010, Fielder wrote and directed a number of sketches for Season 2 of Important Things with Demetri Martin on Comedy Central. He was also featured as a guest voice actor on the Season 2 finale of Bob's Burgers, "Beefsquatch", as well as the Season 6 episode, "The Land Ship". He played Jon Benjamin's boom operator in the 2011 television series Jon Benjamin Has a Van, and Bob Woodward in the "Washington, D.C." episode of Comedy Central's Drunk History.
In 2013, Fielder co-created his own show on Comedy Central, Nathan for You. He wrote, directed, and starred in the show, which is based on the "Nathan on Your Side" segments he did for This Hour Has 22 Minutes. The show's premise features Fielder, playing a persona loosely based on himself, providing advice for local small businesses. The show finished its fourth and last season in November 2017.
On the morning of February 7, 2014, a coffee shop called Dumb Starbucks Coffee opened in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. The shop said it was operating as a parody of the coffee chain Starbucks and used Starbuck's siren logo in its signage, cups, and other materials. In the episode, Fielder says his understanding of parody law is "based off what I read on Wikipedia". The shop sold items standard to Starbucks locations, such as Norah Jones CDs and drinks, by using the term "Dumb" in the names, such as "Dumb Norah Jones Duets" and "Dumb Iced Vanilla Latte". Beverages and pastries were distributed free of charge. A few days later, Starbucks announced that it was not affiliated and that it was "evaluating [its] next steps". The identity of the person behind the shop was not released initially, and various artists and comedians including Banksy and Tim & Eric were theorized to be involved with the prank. (The latter's production company Abso Lutely Productions had applied for a filming permit at the Dumb Starbucks Coffee location.) On February 10, 2014, the shop was closed by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health for not having the permits required to operate a coffee shop. Shortly thereafter, Fielder announced he was behind the parody and the Los Angeles Times noted the prank's similarity to other skits performed on his show Nathan for You. In 2015, Fielder guest-starred on the Adult Swim show Rick and Morty and appeared in the film The Night Before. In 2017 he co-starred in the biopic The Disaster Artist.
Fielder worked as a consulting producer, writer, and co-director of the Sacha Baron Cohen-created political mockumentary series Who is America? (2018). In 2019, it was announced that Fielder had signed an overall deal with HBO under which he would serve as executive producer for the John Wilson-created documentary series How To with John Wilson and star in, write, and direct a separate comedy series. In 2021, HBO announced the name of another new comedy series, The Rehearsal, starring Fielder, who also served as writer, executive producer, and director. The first season of The Rehearsal was released in 2022 to a generally positive reception and it was renewed by HBO for a second season. For the series, Fielder won the Independent Spirit Award for Best New Non-Scripted or Documentary Series. In Season 2 of The Rehearsal, Fielder satirized use of roleplay to train pilots on communication before and during flight. In response to the FAA's denial of the show's central claim that pilot communication is to blame for airline disasters, Fielder criticized them on CNN and said, "That's dumb. They're dumb." Fielder promoted the episode on aviation, during guest appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and CNN. Fielder employed John Goglia, an American aviation safety consultant and former member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), in a role as his advisor on The Rehearsal. Goglia accompanied Fielder on public interviews related to promoting Fielder's television show. In 2022, Showtime picked up the comedy series The Curse, created and written by Fielder and filmmaker Benny Safdie, and starring Fielder, Safdie, and Emma Stone. The first three episodes premiered at the 2023 New York Film Festival in Manhattan. The rest of the episodes aired on Paramount+ and were shown at Lincoln Center. Stone added Fielder to Time's "100 Most Influential People in 2023", calling his ability to "move fluidly between directing, writing, acting, and producing, all while editing The Rehearsal" a "staggering feat". In 2025, Season 2 of The Rehearsal aired on HBO, and received generally positive reviews. The show's central idea of rehearsing and performing social interactions resonated with many autistic viewers, who viewed it as an analogy for autistic masking. After the overarching subject matter of aircraft pilots on The Rehearsal, Fielder became an FAA-certified Boeing 737 commercial pilot in February 2025. As part of his comedy bit for The Rehearsal, he worked briefly in 2025 as a ferry pilot for Nomadic Aviation Group. On September 6, 2026, Fielder and Lance Oppenheim's A24 documentary You Can See Everything premiered in a surprise screening at the Telluride Film Festival in Telluride, Colorado. The film, which depicts Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes in the weeks before she began serving her 11-year prison sentence for defrauding investors, was released on October 16, 2026.
