Nathan Fielder (INTP)

By the end of the first season of The Rehearsal, we were fairly confident in Nathan Fielder being an INTP. Although earlier in the show, we had been considering ISTJ. However, to verify, we checked out his other show, Nathan For You. Nathan Fielder’s character proved to be consistent between the two shows, and helped us to solidify our INTP stance. We’ll be using evidence from both shows in the article below.

Ti:

“This is a lot smaller than I expected, but technically, you didn’t specify the size of the free pizza. So this is fair. Thank you very much.”

In Rehearsal, Nathan fixates on creating a systematic way to understand and predict social or interpersonal scenarios. He essentially detaches from reality, to a certain degree, to create an isolated scenario (or closed system). In theory, this allows him to understand every nuance of the situation that he is helping his client prepare for. What he does is not extremely efficient. Instead, he focuses on gaining a complete understanding of whatever is going on around him. This is further exemplified when a child actor struggles to accept that Nathan Fielder isn’t actually his father.

Nathan fixates on what went wrong with how he dealt with the child. Rather than completing the rehearsal, he troubleshoots the issue, by recreating the scenes that may have contributed to the problem. He feels the need to try out different roles, so he can gain a complete, personal understanding. He takes a similar approach when troubleshooting his acting class. This seems to indicate a lack of Te, due to his lack of concern for reaching the end result, preferring instead to fully understand the process.

In Nathan For You, Nathan focuses finding on finding solutions that make complete logical sense. However, the solutions don’t always translate into reality, in a practical sense. He comes up with controversial ideas or tactics, usually failing to see how they might anger people. He naively believes that all will be forgiven once they understand the logic of his tactic. For instance, while working for a pizzeria, he suggests running a new promotion. Anyone whose pizza isn’t delivered within eight minutes gets a free pizza. He makes the window ridiculously small to encourage sales, and instructs the owner to prepare a bunch of tiny pizzas. He assumes no one will care once the delivery person explains that the promotion never guaranteed the pizza would be a specific size. Obviously, most people don’t end up being as “logical” as Nathan thought.

Ne:

“In life, a lot of great ideas sound insane or absurd at first.”

Nathan’s Ne initially looks bad in The Rehearsal, because he fixates on his inability to improvise in social scenarios. However, we later realized that this is actually a manifestation of his inferior Fe, because it’s limited to social scenarios, rather than reality as a whole. In his other show, Nathan For You, Nathan uses his Ne frequently, to come up with odd business ideas, that usually seem unrealistic or risky. For instance, the poop flavored yogurt to attract customers to the shop. He oftentimes seems more concerned with playing around or testing out his ideas, rather than sticking with safe methods that’ll ensure the client’s success.

In The Rehearsal, Nathan uses his Ne to speculate about all possible scenarios and outcomes regarding whatever scenario he’s helping his client rehearse. He believes that “if you plan for every variable, a happy outcome doesn’t have to left to chance.” This also ties closely into his Si, in his need to account for every little detail.

The extent to which Nathan gathers perspectives and plays out scenarios from every possible angle is actually Ti and Ne in combination. Ti wants to understand the logic, but the degree to which he gets lost in playing out scenarios from every possible angle points to Ne. At a certain point, he seems to detach completely from reality in the process of recreating it.

Si:

“Every detail was meticulously replicated this time.”

Nathan frequently fixates on the little details of scenarios and events. Nathan’s Si heavily influences the entire concept of his show, The Rehearsal. In it, he recreates scenes within reality, accounting for as many details as possible. He wants to make it as true to life as possible, so the person can have a true opportunity to play out their life before having to actually do it for real.

However, we find that he doesn’t always get everything right, and he still tends to be learning on the go. An example of this was demonstrated within the first episode. He makes most of the details of the client’s house correct, but messes up the chair he ended up sitting in. He later laments that this oversight made him look like a fool when he did the real life interaction. As a result, he compensates in future rehearsals by ensuring the tiniest of details, such as ripping the replica chair seats in the exact way as the original.

In another episode, he notices one of the actors in his class seems uncomfortable. This causes him to spiral into an analytical loop, where he scrutinizes each detail of the previous day, trying to figure out what caused the student to feel that way. He continues to do this until he gets to the point where he is living in his student’s apartment and mimicking the same assignment. This shows Ti and Si in combination. He does something similar even in conversations, by fixating on irrelevant details. In one conversation, a client likens him to Willy Wonka, and Nathan keeps interrupting the analogy to question all the ways he may or may not be like Willy Wonka.

Fe:

“Social interactions have always been a bit of a difficult thing for me. I think I have a natural tendency to make people not 100 percent super comfortable.”

“I’ve recently come to realize I’ve been neglecting one key component of every crucial life event: feelings.”

Feelings seem to be Nathan’s greatest struggle throughout both of his shows. He waffles between being completely oblivious of them to being inadvertently offensive, depending on the occasion. He struggles with interacting with other people and admits as much, saying he has a tendency to make others feel uncomfortable. This manifests in the uncomfortable positions he puts the people in when trying to help them, whether that means they will have to deal with confrontation or Nathan is being confrontational with them. He never seems to realize the emotional distress he puts others in until way after the fact.

When trying to help out a pizzeria in Nathan For You, he fails to understand how people would be angry about the free pizza claim when offered a very small pizza. He believes that people won’t get upset if they hear how it makes sense. He also expresses general confusion as to how his actors can channel other people’s emotions through them. This is a running theme with Nathan. He eventually confronts his emotional struggles directly when he takes over the parenting scenario, because he comes to the realization that he can’t express feelings for his pretend child. The show ends with him playing out the role of a mother, replaying her relationship with her child until something finally clicks for him emotionally.