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male speaker: sorry forthe delays, everyone. assif, the very goodboyfriend that he was, was not willing to leavehis girlfriend stranded on google campus. aasif mandvi:apparently, you guys have figured outeverything except parking. audience: [laughing] aasif mandvi: which i thinkis the next great google enterprise, how to getparking on this campus.
how are you guys? everybody good? great. well, thank you for coming out. male speaker: definitely. aasif mandvi:thank you for this. and my book's on sale overthere, for some reason, incredibly cheap. i don't know why.
much cheaper than it is inreal life, so get it now. male speaker:subsidized for google. aasif mandvi: yes, exactly. male speaker: so here we are inconversation with assif mandvi. i take it, many of you arefamiliar with his work. we're going to talk a littlebit about your book, "no man's land" today. aasif mandvi: "no land's man." male speaker: "no land's man."
aasif mandvi: startingoff really well. thank you very much, withthe wrong name of the book. male speaker: these notes arenot even worth their weight. aasif mandvi: no,"no land's man." it's a play on no man's land. it's called, "no land's man." so you flip it, and that'show i came up with this title. and now everyone gets it wrong. male speaker: and now, noneof you will ever forget.
male speaker: land's man. aasif mandvi: yes. male speaker: and well, whatdid you mean by that title? aasif mandvi: i meantthat i've grown up in many different places. i was born in india,grew up in the uk, and then spent my highschool and college years in florida and then new york. and so for me, it encapsulatedthat immigrant journey,
that immigrant experience ofliving in different places, having to be a constant. i think a lot of whati've done is involve shape shifting and adaptingto environments, different environments. it's probably why i becamean actor, on some level. but that's whatthe title is about. male speaker: mhm. aasif mandvi: shouldi be looking at you,
or should i belooking at the camera? because this is going livestreaming right now, right? male speaker: this isgoing live streaming. aasif mandvi: i can do either? i can go back and forth? male speaker: you want todeliver something, just deadpan. aasif mandvi: great. i can just do that.
ok, so it's like"the daily show." i'm talking to you, but then i'mtalking to the people at home. male speaker: webreak the third wall. i appreciate that. no, it's an interesting title. what were youhoping to accomplish by writing this book? aasif mandvi: i washoping to accomplish getting a really large amountof money to write the book.
no, i wrote it becausechronicle books approached me to write a book. and they said, would you beinterested in writing a book? and i had already beenwriting monologues, essays, short pieces. and everything i write prettymuch has to do with my life, because i'm incrediblyinteresting. and so i just decided, oh,this would be a great venue. i haven't actually everwritten a book before.
i've written plays,i've written movies. but to write a bookfelt like a challenge that i hadn't taken on. and it was an incrediblyfulfilling, hard, lonely experience. but i'm very proud of it. and i feel like i gotto tell a lot of stories about things that happened notjust about me, but on a larger, cultural context,hopefully saying something
about the immigrant experience. male speaker: right. no, it's interestingthat you got asked to write the book in thati think most authors don't have that liberty ofjust saying, hey, i'm sure you havesomething to say. aasif mandvi: right. well, i think it hadto do with the fact that i was in a little showcalled, "the daily show."
male speaker: probably helped. aasif mandvi: andi think they were like-- everybody on "thedaily show" writes a book, and so you shouldalso write a book. no, clearly therewas a public platform there that i thinkthey felt like maybe i had something to say,which i hope i did. male speaker: but it wasn'treally like a treatise that you would expect some"daily show" author to come off
their politicalpedestal and tell you how politics should be done. it was a series ofvignettes about your life and these kind of short stories. almost sedaris-like,in some sense. i hope you take thatas a compliment. aasif mandvi: i do. i'm a huge david sedaris fan,and to be compared to him in any way at all isa huge compliment.
but that's what iwanted to write. i came from atheatrical background doing theater, and goingto drama school, and all that stuff. so for me, the personalis the political. and all stories-- thebest stories are personal. and the greatest playsand the greatest movies all have to do withsome form of family. and so that is what i attemptedto do in this book, which
is really talk about myjourney, talk about my family, talk about that, and hopefully,resonate on a larger level. was there a styleyou were trying to emulate with thestructure you went after? or is this just how it came out? aasif mandvi: maybepeter benchley's "jaws." but i think i failedmiserably in that. male speaker: ithink i sensed that. aasif mandvi: itwas a whole story
about how i gotattacked by a shark that i took out becauseit was completely made up. no, i guess peoplelike sedaris-- i really just wanted-- i hadwritten a play years ago, a one-man-show called,"sakina's restaurant," which was a series of also vignettes,but done in a monologue performance style. and i wanted to take thatand turn it into a narrative, into a book form,into a prose thing.
but it's dealingwith the same subject matter and thesame general world, but just different stories. so i really was writingthe way i write. and so hopefully, peoplewill like it and enjoy it. male speaker: ithoroughly enjoyed it. i promise we'll get to thecontent in just a moment. aasif mandvi: you don'thave to, it's fine. i'm totally happyto sit here and talk
about other people's books. male speaker: just the structureof the book, if we could [inaudible]. aasif mandvi: "great gatsby,"it's a terrific book, if you haven't read it. male speaker: no, actually,it was interesting. it doesn't read likean autobiography. aasif mandvi: no. male speaker: it reallyhas a sense of sequence,
but also a sense ofjust trains of thought. i just found itwonderful to read. it was an absolute pleasure. aasif mandvi: oh, thank you. thank you. i cringe at theword, "biography" or "memoir," orwhatever, because i don't think of it that way. i also don't feel likei'm at a place in life
where i'm like, (old, croakyvoice) i'm writing my memoir. i just feel like they arestories inspired by my life. and they're entertaining,and humorous, and sometimes a little bit sad. so i think they're justvignettes and little snapshots of things in a person'slife that hopefully we can relate to. and i deal with some realissues of race, and religion, and stuff like that asseen through the eyes
of a little brown kidliving in a white world. so you can relate, right pal? yes. indians in thefront are like, yes, brown people in the white world. yes, we know. male speaker: brownpeople in a white world. but also, one that doesn'tnecessarily relate to-- aasif mandvi: althoughhere, it's sort
of white people in abrown world, isn't it? i mean in google, kindof a reverse thing there. male speaker: yeah. race, religion, identity--these are all definitely very prevalenttopics in the book. male speaker: sowere these things that you were working outas you were writing them? or did you have somethingto say about them, and you wanted to find theright stories that captured it?
aasif mandvi: it was acombination of things. i started off wantingto say something, and then realized iactually had something else that i was saying, andthen went down that. it sounds really,(old, croaky voice) i discovered a great deal aboutmyself as i wrote this book. but that's what happenswhen you write stories about yourself, and your life,and things that have happened to you that you hopefullygain a level of insight.
otherwise, why the fuckare you writing it? because then, you can sharethat insight with others, and hopefully they gain a levelof insight into their life. and that's how art works. male speaker: mm. aasif mandvi: that'show art works. and that is one to grow on. male speaker: do you have anyspecific examples of things that you learned?
things where you wrote it, andyou were like, oh, yeah, that was profound. in those words. aasif mandvi: ithink it's dangerous whenever a writer is sitting infront of his computer writing and then stops and goes, yes. now, that is profound. most of my experience ofwriting was more like, what the hell am i doing?
why am i sitting herewriting this thing? no one cares, thatkind of stuff. but yes, there weredefinitely specific things where in talking about myimmigrant journey from the uk, to the us, and the transitionsthat happened there, and coming to new yorkas a young actor trying to get work and then evenon "the daily show," talking about the experience of beingon "the daily show," as, at the time when istarted, which was in 2006,
and w was still president. and we were very muchentrenched in this war. and oh, wait-- itsounds like today. but you know what i mean? so definitely,there were insights that came out as i wrote that. hopefully, that is whathappens when you write. male speaker: absolutely. it was interesting to hearfirst person perspective.
you struggle withso many concepts about, especiallyreligion, feeling like your skin islabeled like a muslim. but you don't really have that. but your parents are that,and yet you connect with it. male speaker: a lotof back and forth. aasif mandvi: yeah. i definitely tried to be honestabout my personal relationship with my struggles with islam.
i say in the book thati've been in more bars than mosques over thecourse of my life, and i'm no representationof a muslim, by any means. but yet, i somehow got hired asthe senior muslim correspondent on "the daily show," to whichmy parents were completely flummoxed. they were like, whywould he hire you? you don't even knowhow to do salaam. but that is the outside versusthe inside, and who you end up
being, and sort of theshapes that you end up taking in order to beaccepted, especially as a kid. i grew up inengland in the '70s, and there was a lot of racism. and i went to a boarding school. and i dealt withthe racial stuff that was going on there, and theclass stuff, and all of that. and then i talk about thedifferent-- like in the uk, it doesn't matter howlong you've been there.
as a kid growing up in the uk,as an immigrant, indian parents in england, it doesn't matterhow long you've been there. i felt like you alwayswere a foreigner. you would always feel thatsense of being a foreigner. and in america, it was theopposite which is true, which was that youarrive in america. and people are justlike, ah, we're the thousand years of cultureand history and religions. but forget that,you're an american now.
pledge of allegiance to theflag, you're an american. in fact, we're goingto put american before we say who you are. so you are now anamerican, indian america. but the thing here,i found, was that because-- whoa, what's going on? yeah, we're doing aninterview here, pal. male speaker: [laughing] aasif mandvi: ofcourse they're indian.
(indian accent) whatis going on here? is there free food? oh, there's freefood everywhere! it's ok. that's why there'sso many indians here, because you have free food. what was i saying? male speaker: i thinkabout struggles, and religion, and so forth.
aasif mandvi: anyway, yes. when you come to america,there's that sense of, you just get absorbedinto this americana. there's a line inmy book actually, when i say americans think aboutthe rest of the world the way new yorkers think aboutthe rest of america. which is, they don't. male speaker: you talk a lotabout your acting influences going back to childhood.
male speaker: you talk aboutbeing inspired by omar sharif. male speaker: can you talkabout why he inspires you, and what that didto your career? aasif mandvi: well, omarsharif was, at that time, before we had aziz ansari,we had omar sharif. and omar sharif wasthe first brown face that i saw in a hollywood movie. and so for me, as alittle kid, watching that, my heroes were thefonz, or whatever.
and i would watchamerican television shows, and i would wantto try to be that. and i liked the fonz, becausehis real name was fonzarelli, and my name wasmandviwala and i figured, we both had really dorky names. and yet, he seemed tohave transcended that, and become really cool. so i thought therewas hope for me. but then i saw omar sharif.
and i rememberthat sense of, oh. here's the first brown person. and i was taken aback. and so there was a weirdhope in terms of, oh. there's a possibilityof actually being an actor inhollywood, or being an actor, if you'rea brown person. because i didn't reallygrow up with bollywood and all the indian actors.
all of my acting heroeswere caucasian men. so he was the first that wasn't. male speaker: well, and fastforward to recent time-- really with this, now, itsounds like you actually inspired quite a few varioustypes brown americans, muslim americans, indiandescent, whatever. and so it's almost as ifyou've, to some degree, come most of the full circle. do you feel like this book isa bit of an homage to that,
hoping to inspire otheryoung aasifs out there? aasif mandvi: that's atough question to answer, because you never really feellike you've come full circle. you just end up feeling you'resomewhere on the treadmill trying to figure it out. but yes, i amalways proud when i feel like there areyounger south asian writers, performers, whatever,who have been inspired by what i've done, or have readmy work, or whatever.
so yes. when i wrote,"sakina's restaurant," i grew up-- so as a youngactor, you go to auditions, and you would have to doa monologue, and whatever. and i would alwayshave to do something from like, "deathof a salesman," because there were no playswritten for brown characters. there were no parts. and so when i wrote"sakina's restaurant," one
of the personallymost fulfilling moments was thatbecause i created these charactersfor brown actors-- because there werebrown, indian characters, a kid came up to me one timeand said, i got into grad school using one of your monologuesfrom "sakina's restaurant." which was pretty cool for me. outside of everythingelse, that was really cool. because i was like, oh.
you actually had a characterthat you could personally relate to instead of doing biff. you could do thisbrown, indian character, and actually get intograd school with it. so yes, that feels good. actually, so yousaid, there were no roles writtenfor brown people. but on a much moredepressing level, and one that you'vewritten on, there
were plenty of roleswritten for brown people given to white people. male speaker: and you calledit-- "whitewashing," i guess, is a term probablyused in hollywood more. aasif mandvi: yeah,there were, yes. it's happened across- it'snot just brown people, but anybody whowas not caucasian was often, in earlyhollywood, especially, mickey rooney in "breakfastat tiffany's," of course,
is the most famous case ofwhitewashing that there is. but even in the '80s,you had fisher stevens playing an indian guy in "shortcircuit," and stuff like that. so when they actually startedto hire kal penn, it was cool. when "harold and kumar" camealong, it was like, oh, ok. now, we see a brownguy and an asian guy in the leads in a film. so things havechanged since when i was auditioning to be a snakecharmer for a commercial, which
they ended upcasting a white guy. male speaker: i thinkyou refer to that in the book as potanking. aasif mandvi: potanking. so potanking is a word that mygood friend, sakina jaffrey, who you might all knowfrom "the house of cards." oh, there's whole bunchof people over here. i have not evenbeen looking at you. hi , how are you?
audience: good, how are you? aasif mandvi: nice to see you. so she came up with this term. and we used touse this term when we were actors in new york. and it was potanking,which is basically when they want you to embodythe indian stereotype. and what it sounds like tothem is, (indian accent) potank, potank, potank,potank, potank, potank, potank.
so when we wouldgo to auditions, she would always sayto me, how'd it go? and i'd be like, great. and she's like, didthey have you potank? and i would belike, yes, they did. because they invariablywere always like, could you do-- nobodyknew that's what it was called except us. but that was our insidebeltway slang for it.
male speaker: although whenyou look back, certainly, the more notablethings you've done. i don't feel like you hadto put on that accent. so do you feel likeyou've been able to grow through that as an actor? or do you still feel like you'refaced with this constantly? aasif mandvi: well, no, iam faced with this still, to this day. and luckily, i have a little bitmore leverage now than i did.
in fact, talking of wheni did "the internship," i had to do the indian accent. and they wanted the characterto have an indian accent. and i remember goingin and auditioning, and meeting with vince vaughnand shawn levy, the director, who were very great. but then i got a call from oneof the producers of the film saying that warnerbrothers would like to hire a dialect coachfor you for the indian accent.
and i said, they knowthat i am indian, right, and i have indian parents. and they were like, no, no, no. they know. but they felt likeyour accent was not as strong as the otheractors that were coming in. and i was like, i know. that was for a reason. and so i had to pushback a little bit
and be like, thisguy, i'm not going to do him as some stereotypeof an indian accent. so i actually modulatedthe indian accent so that they wanted theaccent, but i gave them my version of what that was. and i remember sayingto them, do you know the way fareedzakaria sounds? and they were like, yes, we do. and they're like, that'sthe accent i'm going to do.
and they were like, welove fareed zakaria. we think he's great. i was like, there you go. that's it. that's not apu,it's fareed zakaria. male speaker: nice. aasif mandvi: fareed is watchingthis right now, (mocking fareed zakaria) he doesn'tsound like me at all. aasif mandvi: (falsetto)do i sound like the guy
from "the internship?" male speaker: that's hilarious. aasif mandvi: i don't know whyi just gave him stewie's voice. (impersonating stewie from"family guy") i say-- go ahead. male speaker: you wereraised in england. it's an interestingbackground, because i don't think anybodywould have guessed that. aasif mandvi: it'sa well kept secret. male speaker: well, your accentdoesn't tell that at all.
it's funny. sometimes peoplehear it-- i feel like i have one of thoseaccents where sometimes, people are like, once i tell themi was raised in england, then they're like, oh yeah. i totally hear it. and i'm like, no, you don't. you think you do now,because i just told you that. but i grew up in thenorth of england.
so i had a very thick northernaccent, like that, really-- [grumbling] (northern british accent)right, where are you going? oh yeah, great. like i sound like that. and imagine if isounded like that now. but i think, again, going backto the whole idea of adapting to various, differentenvironments, i think i got toflorida and realized
that nobody knew whati was talking about. and when i wasliving in florida, the combination of anorthern, british accent with an americanaccent ended up making me sound like iwas from brooklyn. and so people thoughti was from brooklyn when i lived in florida. i'd never evenlived in brooklyn. and so it wasreally interesting,
because the way itmelded together. and you didn't justmove to florida, you moved to tampa, florida. aasif mandvi: tampa, florida. male speaker: it's the gem. aasif mandvi: which isthe armpit of florida. no, i'm kidding, tampa. love you, love you. no, it was great.
that was america to mewhen i got to tampa. i was like, america'sfull of strip clubs, really awesomestrip clubs-- like, the best strip clubs in-- no. and chik-fil-a's. it's chik-fil-a'sand strip clubs. but that was america, florida. i think i thought my lifewould be like i'd just be hanging out with adolphin all the time,
and living on a sailboat. but i ended up in thesuburbs of tampa, florida. male speaker: some of thestories were fish out of water to some degree. but also, you embracingit much more-- or rather, your father embracingamericanism to a degree. you're talking aboutbrunch, aren't you? male speaker: iam, a little bit. my dad, when he first cameto florida, he called us.
we were in england, and he cameout on a reconnaissance mission to see if he wanted tomove the family to florida. and he called us,and he was like, they have this wonderful thing here. it is called, "brunch." it is breakfast and lunch. they have a third meal, brunch. he thought it wasan in-between meal. he was like, there'sbreakfast, then there's brunch,
then there's lunch. and i was like, i don'tthink that's what it is. i googled it. no, i didn't. there was no google back then. people had dictionaries. he was obsessed with thisidea of this brunch thing. so i remember, that was oneof my first-- hello, hello. how are you?
they're just ontheir way to class. so it was one of thesefirst memories of america, was coming to america and thengoing to get brunch at ihop, or wherever. so i have a storyabout that actually, in my book, about how myfather was obsessed with that. male speaker: well,and he also addresses what he thinks to be the goldenrule of american consumption, which is like, eatas much as you can.
aasif mandvi: eatas much as you can. eat it all! because look, the idea thatamerica is the land of plenty. for him, he took that literally. and he was like, let's go toalbertson's and take pictures of huge jars of peanut butterand send them back to india to make them jealous. i don't know. but he definitelyembraced american culture
with open armsand an open mouth. male speaker: you alsowrote about your experience and your first star or leadrole with "the mystic masseur." aasif mandvi: yes,"the mystic masseur." male speaker: what did youlearn from this experience? what did that take away? aasif mandvi: again, when iwas doing "sakina's restaurant" off-broadway, which is theone man show that i wrote, a gentleman by the name ofismail merchant approached me.
and ismael merchant, for thoseof you who might not know, was the merchantin merchant ivory. and they made all these amazingmovies back in the '80s, like "remains of theday," and "howards end," and "room with a view," andwon a lot of academy awards. and they created an entiregenre of films, period films. and so ismael came up to meafter the play and was like, i've got a movie that i'm makingbased on v.s. naipaul's book, "the mystic masseur,"and i'd like
you to play thelead in this film. and so it was a tremendousopportunity as a young actor. i'd had like, two lines on"law & order," at that time. so it was great. but it was nervewrackingand terrifying. and he was a barnum& bailey type character, likelarger than life. i remember one time--well, when i first met him, he took me to this restaurantthat he claimed that he owned,
but none of the waitersknew who he was. but he was like,(indian accent) i love-- this is awonderful restaurant. i own this. and then we had this meal,and he gave me the book. and then he said, you mustread this book immediately. we are making the film. and it's going to be terrific,and blah, blah, blah. and then i didn't hearfrom him for a year.
and then, like a yearlater, he called me. and he was like, youhave to go to london for a costume fitting. and i was like, what? i don't even know ifi'm doing this movie. i haven't talkedto you in a year. he was like, ofcourse we're doing it! and he really offended. and so he was like, of course!
why would i-- and i was like,because it was a year ago. and so then heflew me to london. but the crazy thingwas, he was literally one of the cheapest people. the man has passed on now. and god bless him,and i loved him. and he was like a crazy uncleto me, and gave me this amaze-- but he was one of thecheapest people in the world. anthony hopkins oncesaid that ismail merchant
will steal the cream out of yourcoffee if you don't watch out. and he sent me to londonfor a costume fitting, and he refused to give mewhat's called "per diem." so per diem is basically foodmoney to eat, and take cabs, and whatever. so i was going to be inlondon for the weekend, and he wouldn't give me lodging. he wouldn't give me a hotel. he was basically like,you'll stay in my flat.
and then my managerat the time was like, you have to givehim some money to eat. and so he got frustratedand called me over to the merchant ivory offices on57th street, where i walked in. i walk into this room wherethere's bafta's, and oscars, and pictures of him withanthony hopkins and hugh grant everywhere on thewalls, and stuff. and he's screamingat james ivory, who was the other partof merchant ivory,
about how harvey weinsteinis an uncouth pig. which, you know. he's not the first orthe last to say that. but he was screaming about this. and then i sat therefor about 10 minutes while he was on the phone. and then he finally looked up. and he said, ok. your manager istelling me that you
have to have money to eatwhen you are in london. so here's what i'm going to do. so he takes outa piece of paper. and he writes on it,dear mr. khan-- oh no. he says to me, he goes, there'sa wonderful indian restaurant down the street from my flat. and he writes, dearmr. khan, please let my friend, aasifmandvi, eat whatever he would like on the menu whenhe comes to your establishment.
signed, your friend,ismail merchant. and he rolls it up,puts it in an envelope. gives it to me, and says, yougo to this indian restaurant. he will give you whateverfood you require. that means i literally onlyhad to eat indian food. and then he's like, but whenthe bill comes, remember, he's supposed togive me 50% off. so he wanted a 50%discount on this free food. so that was him.
but he was crazy. and then he accused me of havingsex on his chair when i was-- house was like the insideof sotheby's or christie's. everything was fromrajasthan from the 1600s. he had the raj, and he hadthese antique chairs, i guess. and they were in his diningroom, and i sat on them. and they broke becausei was leaning back, because the tv wasin his dining room. so i break the chair.
he has a dinner party. some woman sits on the chair, itbreaks because i had broken it. and i tried to put itback together with glue. and then he proceeds totell the entire dinner party that me, his guest,had been having sex on his antiquechairs and broken them. and i'm standing there. and everyone looking at me,like why would you do that? that's a terriblyimpolite thing to do.
and i'm like, what? male speaker: well, you'vementioned "sakina's restaurant" a couple of times. i do want to talk about that. because it really onlyshowed in new york, or maybe in newyork and chicago. aasif mandvi: well, actually,we played in a couple of places. we played in newyork, and then we toured it around a little bit.
we brought it to la. we took it to london, tothe bush theater in london. and for a couple years, i wastouring around with that show. but when we did anoff-broadway in new york, it was the first play abouta south asian family written by a south asian that was doneon the mainstream new york stage. and so we got quite abit of attention just from that perspective.
and then we made it into afilm called, "today's special," which is available on netflix. and it was good. it was good to do. male speaker: so your rootsare really in dramatic acting. aasif mandvi: really, yeah. i went to drama school. the whole "daily show" thingcame out of left field, and has changed mylife, and has been
a tremendous opportunity for me. but my love is reallytheater, in the same way that john oliver goes backto do standup in the clubs where he grew up. i grew up doing theater. and also, in dramaschool, you don't think of comedyversus-- in hollywood, they're like, you cando comedy and drama? what?
they're amazed by that. but in drama school,you do it all. you're doingchekhov and moliere. aasif mandvi: a littlechekhov, moliere drop, boom! male speaker: so howprepared were you for this "dailyshow" opportunity? i couldn't get thesense of how much standup or comedy experience. aasif mandvi: i hadcomedy experience.
i'd been in asketch comedy group. i hadn't really done standup,but i'd done more improv, sketch stuff. and when "the daily show" camealong, the great thing for me was specifically, john wasnot looking for a comedian. because i think they often goscout comedy clubs or places like that. he was looking for an actor. and so when i came in toaudition for "the daily show,"
it really was fora one-off gig where they had written this middleeast correspondent character and realized, oh. we don't have a middleeast correspondent. so they had to audition people. so i came in, auditioned,and he actually offered me the job that day. like i basicallycame in and was like, i don't know whati'm doing here.
i'm just going to do my beststephen colbert impression. and so i did this impressionof stephen colbert. jon turned to me, said,welcome to "the daily show." and i was on that night. and the weird thingwas that i went out-- it was the weirdestday of my life. so i walk out onto thestage at the rehearsal. because we usually rehearsearound 4 o'clock, and then we tape at like 6:00.
and at 4 o'clock,i go out there. and usually, in theaudience, there's a few producers, and someof the writers, and stuff. and everything's changing,and they're writing. so i go out therefor this rehearsal, and i look out in the audience. and there's a guy sittingthere with a baseball cap. and he's just hanging out. and i'm looking at him.
and i look a littlebit more closely. and it turns out thatit's bruce springsteen. and of course, my firstreaction is, holy god, bruce springsteen worksat "the daily show!" but he didn't workat "the daily show." he was just visiting. and so then i do the show,and then bruce springsteen comes back. so not only did i meetjon stewart the first time
and was on "the dailyshow," i also met the boss who came backstage, andtold me that i was very funny. and i him, you'rea very good singer. you're good at singing. what can i say? male speaker: yeah, youmentioned that they hired you, and you were on that night. i was going to ask, is thatprotocol for "the daily show?" i think i'm theonly person that's
ever been hired that way. because i washired as a one-off. it was just going tobe for that one night. and then jon, godbless him, kept calling me back andjust saying, hey. you want to come back andhang out and do another piece, and whatever? and so i just kept coming back. and eventually, after about fourmonths, what i realized was,
that was my audition period. that was my trial. and then after four months,they offered me a contract. and then i was there until now. male speaker: so iwas going to ask. i've had a fantastic run there. i know that correspondents comein and out of "the daily show." aasif mandvi: i've actuallybeen away from "the daily show" for the last sixmonths because i've
been doing an hbo series called,"the brink," which comes out next year with jackblack and tim robbins, and a whole bunch ofreally great actors. and it's a halfhour comedy staying in the geopoliticalsatire world. but it's a half hour comedyabout the end of the world. not specifically theend of the world, but like a huge global crisis. so if "24" or"homeland" was a comedy,
this is what it would be. so it's great. and i'm very excitedabout it, and hbo's very excited about it. it comes out next year. so i've actually been awayfrom "the daily show." so i've actually now am morepart time on "the daily show." i gave up my office. and now, i'm just going tojob in whenever they need me,
or whatever i'm free. male speaker: so nowthere's an open role for senior muslim correspondent. aasif mandvi: it is. it's great. and again, jon has been thegreatest boss, because he's let me go off and domovies and other things, and then come backand always have a home at "the daily show."
and so this one,he was like, look. you're going to begone for six months. why don't you just-- becauseit always feels like i go off and do other stuff. and he was like, ratherthan that, why don't we just have you come inwhenever you need to come in and do stuff? so you'll stillsee me on the show, i just probably won't bethere on a full time basis.
male speaker: i see. yeah. you've had some prettygreat correspondent names, as they are good at it. my favorite is probably seniorforeign-looking correspondent. aasif mandvi: lookingcorrespondent, yes. that's my favorite too. male speaker: you said youstarted out as stephen colbert. i've got to imagine, youreally molded this role
into something. so when did you envisionyourself on "the daily show?" aasif mandvi: i never did. this is a tough question. because other people,i've always been like, oh, your persona on"the daily show" is so-- and the thing is, ican't think about it. if i become aware of that,then i am dead in the water. because for me, i just go outthere and try to be funny,
and communicate, and try to hitthe jokes, and do the thing. and my persona is something thatjust has developed organically over time. i think all of that, allof the correspondents have their veryspecific persona. but it comes, hopefully,out of an organic process. and it took a whilefor it to evolve. but i don't try to thinkabout it that much. because otherwise, itwill go away or something.
so i don't worry about it. male speaker: interesting. i have many favorites, interms of scenes from your show. and you've got acouple that you've made quite a mark on the worldat large, in terms of influence that your work hasactually had on the people outside of "the daily show,"and thinking specifically of the politicianfrom north carolina-- aasif mandvi: oh right, yes.
male speaker: --where you mayhave just let him say things. male speaker: whatwas that interview? aasif mandvi: that has becomemy most famous interview now. and it was primarilybecause-- we do interviews like that a lot. and people say crazythings all the time. i think what happenedin this instance was, here was a gop guy innorth carolina saying the n-word and other thingson national television
at the same time as thegop was trying to reach out to african american votersin that same county. so what was sad about itwas the gop fired him. but it almost feltlike they fired him because they were like, listen. you're not allowedto say that out loud. we are trying to getblack people to vote. but it was like that. but anyway, once he got fired,then it became national news.
and rachel maddow, and cnn,everyone was talking about it. but that was one ofthose situations where you don't realize the impact. you never know. you just basicallygo in there, and let people-- stephen colbert, again. i go back to stephen colbert,because he said to me when i firststarted at the show. he said, when you put acamera in someone's face,
they get a lobotomy. and you want to take advantageof that as much as you can. and the other thingis, use the silence. when you don't speak, theywill continue to speak, and they will fill the silence. and eventually, they willdo the thing which i call, i fucked the chicken moment. they will say, ifucked the chicken. and once they say, i fucked thechicken, you have your piece.
then you can just be like--(mumbling) i think we're done. we're good here. oh, we've got everything. you pretty muchfucked the chicken? yeah, i fucked the chicken. so sometimes ittakes a long time to get to the i fuckedthe chicken moment. and sometimes, they say, ifucked the chicken right away. but eventually, hopefully,if the piece goes well, they
will say, i fucked the chicken. i'm just going to seehow many times i can say, i fucked the chicken. male speaker: is thatat all a reference to jon's favorite news clip he'dpicked up where someone's like, keep fucking that chicken. aasif mandvi: keepfucking that chicken. and it is exactly that. it is like, whenthey say that thing
that they or their lawyerswish they had never said is when you have the piece. and that's what happened withdon yelton, where he basically started on this whole, oh,i'm making fun of obama. he had a cartoon ofobama as a witch doctor, and he said he was makingfun of obama's white half. which first, didn'teven make any sense. and so once hewent on that roll, i knew that i just hadto stay out of the way.
now, my job was not toencourage or discourage. it was just to stepback and let him go. and that's what happened,and sometimes those things work out really well. so do you have anypersonal favorites that you look back on? clips that you were just-- that one is obviouslya favorite of mine. i also loved the timei asked governor rick
scott to pee in a cup. we were doing apiece down in florida about mandatory drug testingfor people on welfare. it was a valid piece. but what was greatabout it was, rick scott was having a press conferenceto announce his budget for the upcoming year. and we thought itwould be great. because what we realized is thatlike, a lot of these people who
are advocating thislaw, their reasoning was that welfareis taxpayer money. and therefore, thetaxpayer should know where that money is going. and so these peopleshould be drug tested. but surprise, surprise. the people whoare also lawmakers in the state of florida aregetting paid by the taxpayer. and so why should they notbe drug tested, as well?
so this was our premisethat we went in with, and we thought we wouldtake it to the highest level in florida, whichis the governor himself. and so we interrupted apress conference of his with about as manyjournalists as there are sitting in thisroom right now, and asked him if he wouldgive us a urine sample. and i had the cup right there. i said, you can do it right now.
we'll all turn around. you could just giveus a quick sample. and he was not happy about that. i think at first, hewas trying to be polite. but eventually, hewas like, i'm running this press conference,not you, ok? sit down. and so even though hegot mad and shut us up, we had the moment.
and what was great about it was,when it aired-- first of all, before it aired-- becauseevery media outlet in florida was in that room. meanwhile, none of them made asound while i was doing this. they were justgobsmacked and sat there, afraid to laugh,afraid to do anything. because they want toget in that room again, and i don't give a shit. you know what i mean?
so they're all like, we want tobe invited to this party again. we are not going tomake fun of the host. so they all sat there. but the minute we walkedout, they came upon us. and they were literallylike, that was amazing. we wish we could do that. and then it was in allthe florida newspapers, it was on all the local news. and my parents, who livein tampa, of course,
my dad calls me. and he just answered the phone. i'm like, what? he's like, what did you do? and he had heard it on theradio and on the local news. and then when the piece aired,i realized how much floridians hate rick scott, and theywere so happy that happened. so that's one of mypersonal favorites as well. ok.
well, we are at thetop of the hour. since we starteda little late, i wanted to give us a fewminutes for questions. male speaker: ofcourse, aasif's going to want to get lunch after this. we've got a book signing. make sure you grab a book. i think they take credit card,perhaps even google wallet. who knows?
so we didn't have-- aasif mandvi: you're putting$10 with a credit card? just, come on. you just give him the $10. male speaker: so anyquestions from the audience? right here. male speaker: repeatthe question for-- aasif mandvi: ah, yes. so she said, why do peopleagree to do interviews
when they are going to get,i think you used the term, "hosed?" i think peoplehave things to say. people are passionateabout what they believe. and, look. sometimes, we'retalking to people that no one else iswilling to talk to. let's face it. but sometimes, i think it'shonestly that people really
do feel passionatelyabout certain things. and going back tothe don yelton thing, i don't think he realizedthat he was being racist. i think he thought he wasbeing honest and revealing some real honestyabout the whole thing, not realizing that he wascoming off as a complete racist. and so i thinkpeople don't always realize how thethoughts in their head sound when they comeout of their mouth.
and i talked to a woman oncewho tried to convince me that one in fivemuslims was a terrorist. and then she said, do the math. and so i did. and it would make about500 million terrorists. and i thought tomyself, why the fuck has it taken us so long then? if we have that manypeople working for us? jesus, we are the worst!
but things like that. and then she was amazedthat she was getting threats from people whenthat piece aired. and not from muslims, fromlike liberal white people who were like, you can't say that. that's just not true. so i think people justdon't realize sometimes. yeah? how the work?
well, i think theater is a greatgrounding, base level education in terms of actingand [inaudible] now. even in "the daily show." for example, people alwaysthink, oh, aasif mandvi-- you're just yourselfon "the daily show." but i'm actually not myself. i consider myselfplaying a character who happens to have myname, and a whole team of jewish writers who cantravel with him wherever he goes
and a greenscreen thathe walks around with. but the thing is that itwas a great education. theater was a greatplace to start. because if youcan do theater, it teaches you everything about howto be on television and film. you can't alwaysdo the other way. you see film actors or tvactors trying to do theater, and they fail. but from theater totelevision, i think often,
it gives you the tools. and playwriting, just interms of how a scene can work, and what makes. and it's great. because on the brink, i'mactually a co-producer and a writer onthe show, as well. and so it's beenreally great to be able to work with thosewriters on a tv show. and a lot of those guysare playwrights as well,
who have transitionedinto television writing. in fact, a lot of thegreat television writers today started as playwrights. lewis black startedas a playwright. not a lot of you knew that. that's one to grow on. there you go. yes? audience: hi.
is this working? hello? so i had a questionabout "the internship." i was actually agoogle intern, and i want to say that it'swildly inaccurate. aasif mandvi: good, good, good. audience: and iwas wondering how-- aasif mandvi: i didn'twrite it, by the way. audience: has thatchanged your opinion?
like being here todayalso, how has that affected your opinion ofwhat google is, and did you like think ofit differently? aasif mandvi: i don't seeanybody doing a lick of work on this campus. aasif mandvi: here'swhat i've seen. i've seen volleyball. i've seen people stuffingtheir faces with food. everyone's got a takeoutcontainer, wherever they go.
and i've seen people justriding their bicycles. it's like a daycamp. it's like a retreat. audience: it's like aplayground for adults. aasif mandvi: it is, yes. i have not seen oneperson coding, nowhere. male speaker: yeah, you toldhim to shut his computer. aasif mandvi: of course,the one overachieving indian is like, i was coding!
i've been coding all day! you were on facebook. you were tweeting, i'm sittingin [inaudible] right now. no. but what did you say? has it changed my opinion? not one iota, no. it was a movie. and so obviously, therewere wild inaccuracies
needed in it to tell the story. but did you guys allhave to watch the movie? was it a mandatory thing? they were like,now, we will again, have our next screeningof, "the internship." you will get an f for thesemester if you don't watch it. audience: so you had saidthat when you came to the uk, you obviously were nottreated equally like others. did you feel like youbecame equal at some point?
or did you have to come toamerica for you to feel equal? aasif mandvi: did ifeel like i became equal when i got to america? you haven't been in americavery long, have you? look-- from my perspective,there is much more representation of southasians in the media, and on television, andin general out there. do we still have a longway to go in terms of that? look, at the end of theday, hollywood still
prefers white people. they're easier tolight, apparently. you don't need allthose gobos and things. but look, we are a technologicalmilestone in the history, and this place isfull of indian people. so i consider that alittle bit of a victory. audience: i don'tmean as a group. aasif mandvi: right,you mean personal. audience: i mean you.
aasif mandvi: here's what i did. i got on tv, and then thatis the great equalizer in terms of having a platformto be able to say things. even the fact that you guys arelistening to me talk right now. but in a largercultural context, do i still deal with racism,and all of that stuff? yes, absolutely. but i think,hopefully, now what i do is, i just show themmy "daily show" card
and get right through security. yes, right here. so i'm also a childof immigrants. aasif mandvi: yes, good. good. audience: trinidadianimmigrants. so west indian, not east indian. aasif mandvi: well, "the mysticmasseur" was set in trinidad. audience: yeah, naipaul.
aasif mandvi: and ihad to do a trinidadian accent for that movie. audience: did you? aasif mandvi: do youdo a trini accent? audience: see, don'tput me on the spot. aasif mandvi: come on. audience: i can't do it. aasif mandvi: i'll domine if you do yours. audience: i can't do that.
i can't do it. aasif mandvi: (triniaccent) ya don't like to do that trini accent? no? come on! audience: (triniaccent) oh, well now. aasif mandvi: (triniaccent) oh, now. audience: ok, ok. i see it.
aasif mandvi:(trini accent) never call, you never call tosay, cat, how you is dog? audience: (triniaccent) you can't do a trini accent like me. aasif mandvi: nice, nice. audience: and i alsomoved around a lot once i moved to america. so i was wondering,did you ever reconcile all of those differentpieces and parts of yourself
into one single identity? or do you still thinkof it as, well, there are just multipleparts to my identity. aasif mandvi: i thinkthe multiplicity becomes the source of where yourcreativity comes from, where your power comes from,where all of that stuff comes from. i'm jealous of peoplewho are one thing and can identify withthat one thing as them.
i've never felt that. so the multiplicityand the shapeshifting has always been my sourceof power and creativity. so it took me along time to realize that was a positive,and not a negative. but once i got there, i realizethat now, that is what i do. good question, good question. see now, those are the kindsof questions we're looking for. no, i'm kidding.
anybody else? audience: there'stime for one more. aasif mandvi: right there. audience: i was wonderingwhat your thoughts were on colorblind casting. i know that "grey's anatomy's"a show that they've mentioned. it's a thing i waswondering if you think it's thefuture of casting. aasif mandvi:colorblind casting?
like you mean anybody, anyethnicity can play any role? audience: yeah,so they don't have a typical lookfor the character. aasif mandvi: listen, that is, ithink, the tapestry of america. i don't think we'regoing to get to a place where we will have-- unless,maybe they could probably do it if they were adopted. i was going to say, brownparents with white kids. but you could do thatin a certain scenario.
but i think in terms of,there are roles out there that anybody canplay, in terms of, it doesn't matter whatethnicity you are? i don't think we are there yet. but there are still moreroles for white people than anybody else. and there's always that onerole for the brown person. i was just having thisconversation earlier today with someone whereit was like, there's
one role for a brown personand 50 roles for white people. so that still exists. and hopefully, that will change. and shonda rhimes issomeone who is actually pushing the boundaries ofthat, pushing the envelope. and this is whyi've always said, we need more ethnic, or atleast minority immigrant, whatever you want to call it--writers, producers, creators out there, and people who areshaping the culture in the way
that google is. because ultimately, thosethings get reflected back into the media and into thelarger society as a whole. let's face it;one of the reasons i was cast in "the internship"as the head of the google intern program, andi'm south asian, is because you guysare here at google. and so that representationneeds to be shown. if that movie had beenmade 20 years ago,
there would have been no google. but if it was amovie like that, it would've been a whiteguy in that role playing the boss, as it were. so i think that, for me,personally, was something that i benefited fromin terms of the larger cultural visibility. male speaker: a greatmessage to end on. we are out of time.
but we do have a book signing-- aasif mandvi: we do. male speaker: --for"no land's man." male speaker: i think it's goingon sale within a couple days. we've got some earlyadvanced copies. aasif mandvi: you've gotsome advanced copies. it actually goes officiallyon sale on november 4th. if you don't get onetoday, you can preorder it on wherever preorders happen.
male speaker: and then whendoes "the brink" come out next season? aasif mandvi: "the brink"comes out next year. male speaker: next year? so they'll all beon hbo next year. and then i'll be back on"the daily show" this fall. male speaker: let's hearit for aasif mandvi. aasif mandvi: thankyou very much. [applause]