Today is Danny Pudi's 35th birthday, and is there a better way to celebrate the day of someone's birth than through the wonderful innovation of GIFs? Danny Pudi, of course, is best known for his role as Abed Nadir on the cult-hit Community. I love the show, obviously, and over the years have grown to love and understand Abed more as a character. He's still not the character I relate to most of all (#AnnieEdisonForLife). Sometimes Abed he frustrates me. Sometimes I feel sorry for him. Sometimes I'm baffled and impressed by his extensive knowledge of pop culture. But what I love so much about Abed is the way that he's portrayed by Danny. This is a character who, at the hands of any other actor, would not - I feel - be as beloved as Abed is on this show. Danny has such an amazingly nuanced way of portraying this pop culture-defined character. He is able to convey deep, meaningful emotion through the dead-panned delivery of a line or the slight tilt of his head or a mere stare. Danny and Abed are vastly different in personality. You can tell that through the way, of course, that Danny speaks in interviews and functions off-set that he is nothing like his character. But the most impressive thing about Danny Pudi and why I know that he is a fantastic actor is that, in these interviews, he really and truly understands every layer that there is to know about Abed. He's still growing as an actor as Abed grows as a character. That's amazing, to me. What I love really about Community and why I think the actors are so fantastic is that each one of them really and honestly understands what makes their particular character tick. Danny knows what scares Abed and what motivates him and what confuses him and how much he has grown over the course of five years. And when an actor gets that - when they REALLY get that - it translates beautifully on screen.
So to celebrate Danny's birthday, I thought I'd post ten of my favorite Danny Pudi/Abed Nadir GIFs. Are you ready? Then let's do this!*
* None of these GIFs are mine. I'm not talented enough to do things like make GIFs, to be honest. I'M GIFTED IN OTHER WAYS.
