In some ways for many years I was off the hook.When my niece was born after that their attention was focused on that and she did that. You know, that was in our family that's what she did. I went off and chased this dream and this career that very other few people in our, you know, in my family, but even culturally were doing.
Aasif MandviNow the bigots have to get creative. Good luck coming up with slurs for Chechens. Go back where you came from, Ushanka head.
Aasif MandviI think one of my favorite pieces I've ever done on the show which was about Hezbollah Israel conflict in 2006 and it was very pointed. It was a beautifully crafted piece of satire and it's a weird thing to say but it had a joke in there about 9/11 and I remember the audience sort of laughing but also kind of not knowing how to respond to that joke and it was just so - and I remember the tension after we did this joke on the air and there was this palpable gasp in the audience, but they were also laughing. And I thought oh, wow, that is something that is not being said in the Zeitgeist.
Aasif MandviI grew up on American pop culture so everything that I fantasized about to get out of this sort of humdrum world of Bradford was about America. So when we decided to move there I was on the plane.
Aasif MandviEngland has an interesting relationship with the Indian subcontinent because the years of colonization and the history between the two places.
Aasif Mandvi