Nathan Fielder

Early life and education

Nathan Joseph Fielder was born on May 12, 1983, in Vancouver. His family is Jewish. His parents are Deb and Eric Fielder; they are both social workers. 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 studied business at the University of Victoria, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in 2005. After university, he moved to Toronto and enrolled in Humber College's Comedy Program in 2006. He worked briefly for a brokerage firm before quitting to start his comedy career.

Career

2006–2012: Early work

After receiving the Tim Sims Encouragement Fund Award in 2006, Fielder worked as a writer on Canadian Idol, where he was noticed 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 "" episode of Comedy Central's Drunk History. Fielder has also guest-starred on the Adult Swim show Rick and Morty. He appeared in the 2015 film The Night Before and the 2017 biopic The Disaster Artist. Fielder also has a YouTube channel, mainly comprising short sketches involving him and his friends.

2013–2017: ''Nathan for You''

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 global coffee company and coffeehouse chain Starbucks and used the chain'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 mocked items standard to most Starbucks locations like Norah Jones CDs and drinks by using the term "Dumb" in front of the names, such as "Dumb Norah Jones Duets" and "Dumb Iced Vanilla Latte".

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 started a not-for-profit company called Summit Ice Apparel after learning the Vancouver-based company Taiga published a tribute to Holocaust denier Doug Collins. Summit Ice produces soft shell jackets and was featured in Season 3 Episode 2 of Nathan for You.

2018–present: Career expansion

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, write, and direct in 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 critical acclaim 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 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 "100 Most Influential People in 2023". She called 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 with a focus on aviation safety, receiving critical acclaim. The season'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 737 commercial pilot in February 2025. As of 2025, he works as a ferry pilot for Nomadic Aviation Group, a company that transports empty planes around the world.

Influences

Some of the comedians Fielder has named as influences include Chris Morris, an English comedian, and Stephen Colbert.

Personal life

Fielder was married to a children's librarian and they divorced in 2014. He is incorrectly listed as a female on his U.S. green card. While filming Season 2 of The Rehearsal, he lived in a neighborhood outside the Strip in Las Vegas. As of 2022, he lives in Silver Lake, Los Angeles.

Activism

Holocaust awareness

As a student, Fielder attended a speech hosted by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC) featuring a Holocaust survivor. The experience led to his longstanding relationship with the center.

In 2015, he founded the not-for-profit company Summit Ice Apparel. It produces soft shell jackets while focusing on raising awareness of the Holocaust. It had close to $500,000 in sales in the first three months, with all profits going to VHEC. As of 2025, Summit Ice Apparel claims to have earned millions in direct support of youth education surrounding "intolerance, racial bias, and genocide."

Fielder was inspired to start the company after learning that Taiga in Vancouver, an organization he previously supported, published a tribute to Holocaust denier Doug Collins. In 2017, Fielder hosted a 1-day pop-up shop in Vancouver where customers were able to trade in their used Taiga clothing for Summit Ice Apparel products.

The second episode of Nathan For You's third season, which featured Summit Ice Apparel, was removed by Paramount+ worldwide as the German division of the streaming service expressed concerns of antisemitism in the wake of the Gaza war. Fielder expressed disappointment with this decision in the second episode of The Rehearsal's second season, calling Summit Ice Apparel his "proudest achievement."

Aviation safety

During a guest appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2025, Fielder revealed that he had been following airplane crashes for "almost 20 years." That led him to notice a trend of pilot miscommunication in the cockpit and publicly express concern for the state of pilot training. In an interview with CNN, he said, "I went through the training [as a 737 pilot]... someone shows you a PowerPoint slide saying that if you are a copilot and the captain does something wrong, you need to speak up about it... they don't do anything that makes it stick emotionally."

In Season 2 of The Rehearsal, Fielder uses roleplay to train pilots on effective communication before and during flight. In response to its denial of the show's central claim that pilot communication is to blame for airline disasters, Fielder criticized the FAA on CNN and said, "That's dumb. They're dumb."

Fielder has a working relationship with John Goglia, an American aviation safety consultant and former member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) who plays a significant role as Fielder's advisor on The Rehearsal. Goglia has accompanied Fielder on public interviews related to aviation safety.

Filmography

Film

Television

Awards and nominations

References

References

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