Transcript: Aziz Ansari on This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #617

Because to me there’s so few people. I don’t have one. But I’m from South Carolina. I lost my accent. It comes out when I start talking to other people that have. Even the guy that picked me up at the airport, he was from Atlanta, and I started, and it started seeping in.

Yeah, but yours has stayed strong. Mine is gone. But I remember when I met Danny McBride, because there’s so few people that have Southern accents that are in our kind of acting, Hollywood comedian.

THEO VON: That’s true, huh?

AZIZ ANSARI: Strange.

THEO VON: I think right before our generation, it was more prevalent before.

AZIZ ANSARI: Well, there was the whole Blue Collar thing, right?

THEO VON: Those guys.

AZIZ ANSARI: Those guys, they had their run. That was there. They all had Southern accents.

THEO VON: Yeah.

AZIZ ANSARI: Larry the Cable Guy, definitely Southern accent.

THEO VON: Yeah. He’s going back on tour. I just saw.

Growing Up in South Carolina

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah. I remember when I was a kid, you know, I grew up in a small town in South Carolina called Bennettsville. There’s 8,000 people there. No one ever toured there or anything. And I remember some kids went and saw Jeff Foxworthy, and he came to Florence, South Carolina, which is 45 minutes, and we saw Jeff Foxworthy. That was the first time I’d ever heard of someone going to a live comedy show.

THEO VON: Oh, wow.

AZIZ ANSARI: By the way, I’m shivering a little bit because, so I, you know, I came from Chicago, and I had to get up at 5 in the morning, and you had a cold plunge. And your producer was like, if you want to jump in the cold plunge. And I was like, are you kidding? Are you serious? Because I’m a little tired and I didn’t really sleep yesterday. And I did it, but I’m a little cold. I’m shivered a little bit.

THEO VON: It’ll rattle you. Yeah, no, I’m glad you got in, dude. Yeah, I got in. I was in there earlier this morning. I get in now because I don’t want to. So I’m like, let me go do something that I don’t want to do to start my day. And I think it adjusts my attitude, which I need a lot.

And, dude, I just went to University of South Carolina. We met a chauffeur over there. His girlfriend had thrown fettuccine, like a hot thing of boiling fettuccine on him.

AZIZ ANSARI: What?

THEO VON: Yeah. And he had to be. Dude, it’s crazy.

AZIZ ANSARI: That story took a dark turn really fast. That’s the last thing I expected to happen to this guy in the story is boiling fettuccine thrown on him, bro.

THEO VON: 100%.

AZIZ ANSARI: And.

THEO VON: But he was actually.

AZIZ ANSARI: Wait, with the water, not. Yeah, okay. Because if it was just the fettuccine, that’s not too bad.

THEO VON: Yeah, water.

AZIZ ANSARI: Even the mix, too, though. That’s a crime.

THEO VON: Yeah. Oh, it was a crime. And his neck was dripping off of him and stuff. It was. He went through a lot, but anyway, met him. He’s a chauffeur over there.

AZIZ ANSARI: Stan.

THEO VON: He’s out of the Bronx originally, but we just had him come in. He was just kind of a unique character, so. But. Hey, Trev, will you cut the AC off just in case? I don’t want to f*ing lose Aziz.

AZIZ ANSARI: Am I looking crazy? Okay. I didn’t know if I was just sitting there, but.

THEO VON: No, I know what you mean. Sometimes if you get that in, that AC’s on. It’s kind of a lot. Dude, is it. Is this true? And thanks so much for coming in today, man.

Preparing for the Interview

AZIZ ANSARI: Oh, man, I really appreciate it. And, you know, I’m not really super familiar with a lot of podcasts, and I haven’t done a big press tour in a long time because, you know, the last time I had something come out was during COVID so that was weird. You didn’t really do the normal stuff. And then I’ve been working on these films for a bit, and so before I was like, they were like, oh, do all these podcasts.

I was like, well, I’m going to listen to episodes. And I listened to a couple of yours. I listened to the Bernie Sanders one.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah.

AZIZ ANSARI: Which I really liked, and to me, really connected with my film, because the stuff you guys were talking about, you’re talking about something that I hadn’t heard, where the number one cause of bankruptcy is medical bills.

THEO VON: Yeah.

AZIZ ANSARI: And in my character in the film, you’re never really given a clear explanation of what happened to this guy. The guy’s, you know, he’s lost his job, he’s sleeping in his car, but.

THEO VON: Oh, in Good Fortune, you mean?

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, but it made me think of that. Your conversation with Bernie Sanders. And I was like, oh, man, this is really in the same kind of realm. And then I loved your episode with Arnold Schwarzenegger. I’m always fascinated by Arnold.

THEO VON: Really?

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah. Because I think he’s so smart. And yeah, I don’t know why. I think you realize, the more you’re in this business, especially in the kind of movie acting world, to be an actor that’s kind of had a few hits, a lot of things have to come together, and it’s not an accident. You know what I mean? When these guys have this run of hits, they’ve got to be really sharp.

THEO VON: Yeah.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah.

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mini Donkeys

THEO VON: It was pretty fascinating, I guess. We went to his office, and there’s the Conan thing is in there. And the sword.

AZIZ ANSARI: Wait, did you meet that little donkey?

THEO VON: I don’t know if the donkey was there. There was some hair that’s in his house.

AZIZ ANSARI: This was at his office.

THEO VON: Oh, no. This was his office. Yeah. There was some hair on the floor, but I don’t know what it was from. I don’t think. Oh, my God.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, there’s a donkey.

THEO VON: Oh. Because I think he’s very Dutch like that or something. Oh, he’s very.

AZIZ ANSARI: Oh, my God. Yeah, those are mini donkeys.

THEO VON: They look mixed, too.

AZIZ ANSARI: I met a small donkey in Nashville once.

THEO VON: Oh.

AZIZ ANSARI: First off, I love Nashville. I go to Zany’s a lot when I’m working on sets.

THEO VON: Yeah. Oh, I think I remember. That’s what the last thing I remember. I remember hearing you came to Zany’s and did six or seven nights or something over there.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah. And one time, one of my favorite shows, the power went out, and I had to do the show. The power went out, and we were like, what do we do? And the staff there was amazing. They immediately brought candles out, and I was yelling my set. And then some guy brought a speaker and a microphone. It was incredible. Oh, dude.

The Power Outage Show at Zany’s

THEO VON: I think. Didn’t they. I think there was an article or something about that. I even remember. I remember seeing a picture about that, or at least just hearing about it in local lore. You know, one thing about Nashville is, dude, it’s a very small city. It’s small. It’s you. Something happens, you hear about it. It’s not like. It just feels like a huge town.

AZIZ ANSARI: How long you lived here?

THEO VON: A really big town? I lived here for, I think, almost four years. Where were you before the pandemic? I was in LA.

AZIZ ANSARI: Oh, okay. Yeah.

THEO VON: And I moved directly from there because during the pandemic, I remember seeing Kid Rock’s Bar, you know, and people are having a blast there. And meanwhile, my landlord is making us wear hazmat suits to get our fing mail and chickens. Everybody’s all paranoid and shit out there. And I was like, f this shit. I got to f*ing go.

AZIZ ANSARI: You know, I’ve always loved Nashville. I did a series for Netflix, and we filmed an episode here. And I always come here for stand-up. I did the Ryman. I’d never done the Ryman. I’d always done some other theater. I did the Ryman on this tour that I did a few months ago, and that’s one of the best places I’ve ever performed. Yeah, yeah. There’s that thing. Yes, that. Isn’t that so crazy? Yeah.

THEO VON: A power outage forced comedian Aziz Ansari to finish his set in the dark Monday night.

AZIZ ANSARI: Dude, that was cool. That was one of those cool moments. That was fun. But when I was here for that trip to get back to the donkeys, my wife, she’s Danish and she loves donkeys. And there was some fair here, and they had miniature donkeys.

THEO VON: Oh, beautiful.

AZIZ ANSARI: And we sought them out and we said what’s up to him. One of them, his name was Roger, and he was born October 4th. So Roger 10-4. So we met Roger and there was another little donkey named Lily, but she was a little big. I don’t know if she was a micro donkey. Roger was straight up micro. Lily was a little big. I don’t know if she was micro at that size.

THEO VON: I don’t judge their weight, to be honest with them. You know, I’m saying. Because the bodies. There’s already a lot going on. You know, it’s like. Yeah, I think. I think that. I mean, look. I think they’re beautiful. I remember I met the world’s smallest horse one time.

Tom Thumb: The World’s Smallest Horse

AZIZ ANSARI: When was that? And where?

THEO VON: And this is. His name was Tom Thumb, and I met him in Alameda, I believe.

AZIZ ANSARI: And how did that intro come about?

THEO VON: Well, people like, you got to go meet him and shit. And I remember I’d been in a bar.

AZIZ ANSARI: Alameda is where? California?

THEO VON: California? Yeah.

AZIZ ANSARI: Okay. So you were doing a show in Alameda, and then you got to meet the smallest horse.

THEO VON: No, we’d been out there for a. I was just. I think I had heard about it. I think I’d been in conversations about smaller animals. Animalia, generally the world’s.

AZIZ ANSARI: Whoa.

THEO VON: The one I met was Tom Thumb. And if you can also look up separately on Perplexity here, if you can just look up Theo Von Tom Thumb. I did a post on it. It was pretty fascinating.

AZIZ ANSARI: What’s Perplexity?

Mini Animals and Internet Discoveries

THEO VON: Perplexity is like a different AI. It does for me. I like it because it can help me edit and pull clips out of things. You can put something in it and be like, what clips do you like in this? What do you suggest? That sort of thing?

AZIZ ANSARI: It’s far beyond my, what? I don’t know any of this stuff, dude.

THEO VON: What are you talking about? Do people, how do your parents feel about that?

AZIZ ANSARI: That I don’t know Perplexity?

THEO VON: That you don’t know about the AIs.

AZIZ ANSARI: I mean, I know what it is. I don’t really use that stuff much. I don’t really use Internet or phone or anything very much. I try to stay off.

THEO VON: Oh, here we go. Right here. Let’s take a video.

AZIZ ANSARI: I am into this. How long you going to be here today for?

THEO VON: He’ll be here all day.

AZIZ ANSARI: How small is he?

THEO VON: And he’s alive too.

AZIZ ANSARI: That would be dark.

THEO VON: You don’t know what people are doing, dude. But yeah, so just to let you know, I guess we have a lot of symbiosis there in our love for the small horses.

AZIZ ANSARI: What are horses and donkeys? What’s that? Ask the AI. What is that called? That kind of animal? Horses, donkeys, the four legged kind of, they’re similar. There must be some group.

THEO VON: Yeah. What is that called?

AZIZ ANSARI: The Equus.

THEO VON: Yeah, the Equus. The Equine. The Equine. But dude, when you think that God took all the beauty of a huge horse and put it into a baby snicker of a horse. A little horse.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, there’s not, is there any other animals that have minis? There’s mini horses, there’s mini donkeys. What is it? There’s mini cows.

THEO VON: There are. Oh, wow.

AZIZ ANSARI: Oh God. That’d be a dark moment. You go to a steakhouse, they’re like, just so you know, these are all mini cows.

THEO VON: Yeah, it’s still.

AZIZ ANSARI: That’s too dark.

THEO VON: I’d have a little, you know what I’m saying?

AZIZ ANSARI: You probably could only have a little.

THEO VON: That’s true.

AZIZ ANSARI: It’s not like a 40 ounce mini cow steak. That’s not happening. It’s either one ounce. It’s like when you go to a sushi restaurant, they have that one little piece of wagyu. This is from a mini cow. Oh my God. They’re all furry. Maybe I’m going to finish this show and get addicted to the Internet. This is pretty fun. I never knew about mini cows. I didn’t know. I would have just been wondering about equines equus.

THEO VON: Well, look, dude, I think you could get your wife one of these. Let me see. Miniature horses rarely exceed 34 inches in height. Miniature donkeys also max out at around 34 inches.

AZIZ ANSARI: There’s mini micro pigs. Oh, wait, this is a whole list of everything. There’s mini horses, donkeys, pygmy goats. They don’t call them micro goats. They prefer to be referred to as pygmy goats. Mini sheeps, micropigs, micro pigs. I’ve heard of.

THEO VON: Imagine a mini sheep, though.

AZIZ ANSARI: You make a very small slider.

THEO VON: Yeah, you’re just sitting there. Oh, dude, we got to get some of these animals. But, dude, when I was a kid, they only had big dogs, and then the dogs started getting littler. A lot of this, I think, is crossbreeding and inbreeding.

You know, I grew up in a kind of animals, not an inbreeding district, but I grew up in the stray animal belt and the inbreeding belt kind of. They run across some of the same plains in America. And we would see a lot of, you know, people start getting smaller over time in the area because, and that’s when you knew, okay, people need to start walking farther or driving farther for sex, you know, because you just knew the inbreeding was heating up.

You know, the kettle, the kettle was getting a little warm, you know, when somebody have a baby and they could just put it on a key ring or whatever, it was like, that thing’s too small, you know. Good to see you, man. We’ve never really gotten to talk and it’s good to laugh with somebody.

Comedians and Connection

AZIZ ANSARI: No, I love meeting comedians that I haven’t met before. I was thinking this the other day when I was on tour. I bring some of the same guys out with me.

THEO VON: And who do you take with you? Sorry to interject.

AZIZ ANSARI: Will Sylvience.

THEO VON: Oh, he’s in the movie, isn’t he?

AZIZ ANSARI: Will’s in the movie. And Ricky Velez, they came out with me a lot earlier this year. And our tour manager, Beth, who I love, Will especially. Have you ever met Will? Do you know Will at all?

THEO VON: I don’t know him, but I recognized him immediately. This dude, I know him, but I don’t know him well.

AZIZ ANSARI: The hardest I laugh in my life is after shows, going to dinner with Will because he’s just the most ridiculous guy. And he just, he’s so funny. This is stuck. This is one of my favorite Will anecdotes. One time I told him, I said, I wanted to send him a playlist of some music. And he’s like, I don’t use Spotify. And I was like, what do you use? He goes, I use Amazon music.

THEO VON: Oh. Type s*.

AZIZ ANSARI: And I was like, why do you use Amazon music? He’s like, because I like to download the MP3s and burn them on the CDs. I was like, this is such a unique dude.

THEO VON: Yeah. I mean, it sounds illegal, but it also sounds like I respect it, you know.

AZIZ ANSARI: But I love comedians. Comedians are my favorite people.

THEO VON: Well, I think in the end, it’s like you have to realize how rare it is that people do it and that we do all have something in common.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah.

THEO VON: And it used to feel like a.

AZIZ ANSARI: Lot again, it’s like the Southern accent. It’s like when I see another Indian person, there’s something that pulls me towards them.

THEO VON: Yeah.

AZIZ ANSARI: It makes me comfortable. Yeah.

THEO VON: I think we’ll, some of that’s just tribe, you know, there’s a little bit of whatever’s built into us.

AZIZ ANSARI: What a specific tribe to. You know, because most people’s worst fear is public speaking, and it’s what we do for a living. So there’s something deep inside that’s a bond with all of us. Has to be.

THEO VON: Oh, we’re like Satan’s mini donkeys.

AZIZ ANSARI: Mini donkeys of self esteem.

THEO VON: Yeah.

AZIZ ANSARI: That’s why we need so much approval with laughter.

THEO VON: It’s like, if you pet me.

AZIZ ANSARI: Micro self esteem people.

THEO VON: Yeah. If you pet me enough, I’ll grow into a regular sized horse, you know?

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, yeah. We get enough laughs, we play enough theaters, or if you graduate to arenas, then we become both sized people.

THEO VON: This is enough. That’s hilarious. It’s almost like our Pinocchio story.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah.

Good Fortune: The Movie

THEO VON: Yeah, dude. I stayed up watching the movie last night. Good Fortune. That’s your, it’s a new movie. Yeah, dude. The amount of turns that were, that started to happen, I’m about like, I guess maybe 45 minutes in. The amount of turns that started to happen in the plot really were making it heat up.

AZIZ ANSARI: Oh, well, thank you.

THEO VON: It’s cool, dude. And Keanu Reeves, he’s like this, he almost reminds me of a surfer dude that won best in show at Westminster type of vibe. You know what I’m saying?

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah. There’s a little bit of California kind of. But he’s very sweet, like a little pup.

THEO VON: And his posture so good, it seems like he would win best in Show. He seems like he has very good posture.

AZIZ ANSARI: I never noticed his posture, but you didn’t. No, but, you know, I remember when we first started screening the movie, as soon as he came up on screen, I could tell there was something like, whoa, this dude’s a movie star. And it’s not just that he’s handsome. There’s something this other, you know, there’s this other thing that he has.

And he’s so funny in the movie. I mean, he just kills. And by the end of the movie, when I’ve watched it with crowds, he’s doing the smallest thing and just getting huge laughs.

THEO VON: Yeah, but you directed and wrote, and you’re in it, right? You wrote it too.

AZIZ ANSARI: I wrote it.

THEO VON: Dude, that’s awesome, bro.

AZIZ ANSARI: Produced, acted, everything too much.

THEO VON: So you have control issues, you think?

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, a little bit, but in a positive way as well. You know, Seth Rogen’s in the movie, and he does his show, the studio, and we’ve talked about that, about doing everything, because he does everything on that. And there’s something that’s kind of streamlined about it, you know, that I had this idea. This is, I’m going to write it.

And you kind of have, for me, whenever I’m writing something, I kind of have an idea in my head of how I want it to sound and look and everything. And directing is pretty much just conveying that to a group of people to execute it.

THEO VON: Yeah.

AZIZ ANSARI: So if it’s all coming from one person and if you’re one of the people acting, it does make things easier in a sense.

THEO VON: Yeah, man. That does make a lot of sense, dude. Yeah.

AZIZ ANSARI: And, you know, you have other people, like Seth and Keanu who, you know, they have iconic voices. So when I’m writing, I have their voice in the head, and then when they’re there, they do it even funnier than you think they were going to do it.

When you had in your head, they add something or improvise, and, you know, the goal is really you have the version in your head, and then you have this whole crew and cast, and you kind of convey your vision, and then they take that and then they give you something else that’s something from them, and it becomes better than you thought.

THEO VON: How long would you guys shoot for?

The Writer Strike and Keanu’s Injury

AZIZ ANSARI: Well, it was a little weird because we shot one or two days, and then the writer strike happened. We have to stop for a few months. Yeah. And then we came back, and this sounds crazy when I’m saying it out loud. So we came back after the writer strike, which was, I don’t know, seven months or something. It was a while.

THEO VON: And were pregnant and stuff. Was it different?

AZIZ ANSARI: No one got pregnant, but. Okay, no, everyone was still the same, but we shot for a couple of days and then Keanu broke his knee. He broke his kneecap on our second or third day back.

THEO VON: What was he doing?

AZIZ ANSARI: I mean, it sounds insane as I’m saying it out loud because this guy has done all the Matrix movies, all the John Wick movies. Never got hurt. Yeah, we filmed a scene in a Cold Plunge. And he was going back to his dressing room. He was all wrapped up in a robe and everything. And he tripped on a rug and fell on his knee and broke his kneecap. Yeah, they got pictures of him in the crutches here on Perplexity.

THEO VON: No, he broke his frickin kneecap. And you guys right there. Could you hear it?

AZIZ ANSARI: No, no, it was in his dressing room. So I just heard someone on the walkie, he’s like, oh, I’m, Keanu’s down.

THEO VON: He went through it alone.

Bill Murray and Being Mortal

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, he fell down and then they were like, he’s hurt. And then he came down. He was ready to film right away. His knee was bleeding like crazy. And we’re like, hey man, maybe you should go to a doc. And he was like, no, no, no, let’s shoot. He loves shooting. He just wants to shoot.

But anyway, we could film most of his stuff. He had a knee brace that we edited out with VFX.

THEO VON: He didn’t get that stupid one with the wheels on?

AZIZ ANSARI: No, he didn’t have the wheels. I always kind of mean to call it stupid, man. People are, this is something people got to use.

THEO VON: I saw some drunk lady and her husband, they were going down Broadway in Nashville.

AZIZ ANSARI: And I know the thing you’re talking about, it’s kind of like this thing.

THEO VON: Yeah, it’s like a mini scooter.

AZIZ ANSARI: And my friend broke his Achilles, Tory’s Achilles heel, and he had to use that for a while.

THEO VON: Yeah, it’s like the X Games of being crippled or whatever.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, it’s a little weird. Yeah, it seems a little silly. Yeah, but he didn’t have one of those. He just had a big knee brace. But we had these scenes where he had most of the stuff. We could kind of figure it out. But there was a couple of scenes where we needed him to dance. There’s a whole thing where he starts dancing cumbia.

And we were like, Keanu, we can’t shoot the cumbia stuff. So we came back after his leg healed and shot a few more days, but it was like a 30 day shoot.

THEO VON: Oh, wow, it’s fast. That’s a lot of work.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, that’s not too much, but it’s not too little.

THEO VON: Yeah, we just, I just, David Spade and I made a movie and I can’t talk about it anymore on here because we’ve talked about it a lot, but—

AZIZ ANSARI: How many days?

THEO VON: 23 days.

AZIZ ANSARI: That’s pretty tight. I mean, I don’t know the script or anything, but 23 is, you know, that’s a lot of work.

Filming Through the LA Fires

THEO VON: But over 30. Yeah, we probably had a few days off in between, you know, but it was a lot. It was like the fires that happened. So we had to move one scene that just happens to be fire in it. You’re like, okay, well, this has to be part of it because you’ve already set up for the day and whatever the space is going to be.

So one day, it’s crazy winds. The winds are like 45 miles an hour.

AZIZ ANSARI: I remember that. I was in LA right during the fires. I remember day four, there was crazy winds. I was like, what’s happening?

THEO VON: Okay, so we’re talking about kites. We wrote that into the script. Like, yeah, we should get some kites.

AZIZ ANSARI: You wrote it in afterwards?

THEO VON: Yeah, just to add, maybe we’ll get some kites after. You know, we threw in a line. It’s just trying to make things make sense, you know? Because you just have, you’re already set up. Everybody’s already driven there. The people are there. There’s a lady standing there with makeup. You know what I’m saying?

People have washed their bodies and got in their vehicles and gotten over there. People have put on deodorant. People have put on clean panties and men’s panties or whatever they’re called under.

AZIZ ANSARI: Men’s underwear, put on their undergarments and they showed up. And it’s crazy because, you know, you write these random things and then all these people get to work to do it. And it’s some silly joke about a pillowcase or whatever. It’s like, oh, which pillowcase do you want to use?

THEO VON: Yeah, sometimes it’s something as dumb as that. All these people will drive to one place just so somebody can be like, “Ricky’s a bh.” Okay, that’s lunch. You’re like, that fing took four hours. God. And Ricky’s not even a b*h anymore. He’s had a surgery by the end of the day, you know what I’m saying? So everything’s changed.

Stand-Up vs. Filmmaking

AZIZ ANSARI: It blows my mind that, you know, because it’s stand up. You do these things and you’re just on a mic and there’s people there listening. But when you write a joke for a movie, there’s all these trucks. Everybody showed up. It really makes you pause for a second. I don’t know if you had this thing where you’re like, oh, man, this is a lot of hope. This is worth it for these people.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah. I remember the first day we got to set. I was like, holy st. I thought this had just been a bunch of emails, you know, and it was all the emails that come together in real life. There was trailers, there was some guy got electrocuted.

But it was everything, you know, you were like, people are acting. There’s some guy practicing his things. They’re firing an extra. All the st was going on, you know? Some guys just, you know, I had bought the wrong peanut. Just all the st’s happening, you know, there’s no coffee. There was always no coffee when I got over there. It’s fine.

But it was just, it’s fascinating to see it happen. And it’s one of those things that has to, it’s so expensive to do that. You have to get it done on that day. It’s whatever elements come. If somebody breaks their leg, if somebody goes missing, you have to, for an hour, you have to shoot around it. Just all these little things that kind of go on, you know.

AZIZ ANSARI: I was telling someone, people always ask me, what’s the difference between doing stand up and doing a film? To me, doing stand up, it’s you’re running around a track and you go, hey, I’m ready to go. And then you go to all these cities and you run around the track and you’re done.

And a movie is you have to go to these people and go, hey, I want to climb this mountain. Can you give me money to climb this mountain? And they’re like, let me see your plan, which is your script. And they’re like, well, we can give you this much. Oh, that’s not really enough supplies. And then they’re like, well, can Brad Pitt climb the mountain with you? Can you get, you know, these other famous, can you, you know.

And then if you’re lucky enough to even get to start climbing the mountain, then people just start throwing boulders at you. Hey, here’s the writer’s strike. Hey, there’s the fires in LA. Oh, wait, Keanu’s broke his kneecap.

THEO VON: And it is a positive blood test. You’re like, oh, that’s rough.

AZIZ ANSARI: It’s all just, you’re just trying to avoid all these different disasters. And if you’re lucky, you make it to the top. But it’s so much harder. There’s so much more that’s out of your control.

THEO VON: Stand up is so in your control.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah. There’s something so pure and beautiful about stand up. I like doing both, but there is something so pure and beautiful about stand up where it’s just literally a person talking in a microphone. It’s kind of such a pure and direct art form.

And filmmaking, there’s so many other things that are out of your control and is a lot more complex, but it’s rewarding in its own way. I mean, I think about how, you know, I’ll, I’m working on other scripts now and I’ll have some joke and it’ll be like, well, this will be maybe years from now before I’ll see this joke play in a theater and hear a crowd of people laugh.

And then a stand up joke, you know, you or I could think of something tonight and go to a comedy club and try it and hear it get a laugh. And that’s so satisfying. But there’s also something crazy about, I remember I started writing Good Fortune probably in the pandemic. I started writing it on and off and there’s jokes I wrote in.

And then years later, it’s I’m in a theater in Burbank and Keanu Reeves is saying the joke and, you know, a crowd full of people goes crazy. And they’re both amazing, but in different ways.

THEO VON: Yeah, that’s so wild, dude. Is there a movie that you’ll never get to make, but you think it would be cool? It’s so ridiculous. Has there ever been something like that?

Being Mortal with Bill Murray

AZIZ ANSARI: Well, I mean, right now, it’s so hard to get any movie made. They all feel like, oh, man, I hope I can make this. You know, I’ve got two movies that, two other scripts that I’ve written. I had this movie with Bill Murray that I was doing that got shut down. I want to finish that.

THEO VON: Why? What happened?

AZIZ ANSARI: Oh, well, Bill Murray was part of this movie we did called Being Mortal. Being Mortal is a book by this gentleman named Atul Gawande. It’s all about end of life issues. It’s about stuff, you know, that people my age are dealing with, with their parents. You know, maybe not all people. My people older, but, you know, they’re getting sick. You got to put them in retirement homes, and you got to figure all this stuff out.

Very, you know, very interesting book. And it’s a book. Very highly recommend this book.

THEO VON: Have you met Atul Gawande?

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah. Yeah. I had to talk to Atul to get rights to the book. And when I decided to turn into script, he helped me. And there he is, very cool, very smart guy. And so I thought, okay, this is, the book is not a fiction book. It’s nonfiction. But I was like, oh, man, if you turn this into a story, there’s things that are funny even though it’s dark.

You know, there’s things that are funny about, you have to go take your parents to all, or your mom or dad. You have to take them to all these different retirement homes. And they, you know, all these people in his book, they’re always like, “I want to be in here. Everybody in here is old.” It’s, that’s people’s perspective. It’s kind of funny.

And just how out of depth you are talking to these doctors. Doctors talk to you like, you know, these super complicated things. They’re like, anyway, so what do you want to do? If you do this, you know, he might be paralyzed, but if you do this, you know, you’re like, wait, what?

THEO VON: Yeah, but if you do this, he might be able to do a backflip.

AZIZ ANSARI: And you’re like, well, that’s a—

THEO VON: That’s a mixed bag.

Life Before Smartphones

AZIZ ANSARI: It’s so you’re just immediately out of your depth. But anyway, I read the story and read the book, and you notice these patterns, like the parents. I was like, no, I’m fine. I’m fine. And then they drive their car to the house or something, and then you’re like, we got to take you to home, man. Yeah, you know, that kind of thing.

THEO VON: But that’s really how it happens, though, for people.

AZIZ ANSARI: It’s really how it happens. And I was like, well, if you did a story about this and the guy was Bill Murray, that could be really funny and really poignant because he, you know, I think about him in Lost in Translation or Broken Flowers, and he’s one of these. He’s got this rare ability to be so funny, but so grounded and touching and sincere.

So I wrote the whole thing with him in mind, and there was no like, oh, I’ll get another guy. It was like, this movie only works in my head. If it’s Bill Murray, I can’t think of anybody else. I wrote it. And he’s famously the hardest guy to get a hold of.

THEO VON: You can’t even get him.

Working with Bill Murray

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, I knew him a little bit socially. I had his number. I call him. He answers the phone. I said, hey, I have a script that I wrote. You know, I said, hello, whatever. And we talked for a minute, and I said I was calling because I wrote the script and I think you’d be great. And he said, oh, that’s wonderful. You know, mail it to my house.

THEO VON: Very old school.

AZIZ ANSARI: He’s like, print it out. Send it to my house. So I sent it to him. He calls me a couple of weeks later. He’s like, yeah, I like this. Can you send me the book? I sent him the book. He was really into the book as well. And we eventually set it up. Seth Rogen plays his son. Keke Palmer is playing Seth’s wife. And we shot for three weeks. And then something happened on set where Bill is inappropriate with someone that was working on the film.

THEO VON: Oh, I remember something about.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: Was it real or was it fabricated? Who knows?

AZIZ ANSARI: I mean, something really happened.

THEO VON: Okay. Something occurred. Their ways about it.

AZIZ ANSARI: Right. Yeah. I don’t want to get into it too much because it’s not my story to tell.

THEO VON: So something happened on set, something that shut the movie down.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, he had a mask on, a Covid mask. And this is, from what I understand, he had a Covid mask on, and he was trying to be funny, and he was kissing this woman that he was friends with with the mask on, trying to be funny, but this woman didn’t like this and was upset. And eventually it turned into this whole thing and they shut the whole movie down. Yeah, there’s the Wikipedia page. But, yes, this is what Bill said at the time. I did something I thought was funny. It wasn’t taken that way.

THEO VON: The company movie studio wanted to do the right thing, so they wanted to check it all out, investigated. So they stopped the production.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, the whole movie shut down. And sorry. We shot half of it. But anyway, I can’t remember how we started on this, but that. Yeah, I’d love to finish that at some point, you know, if we can. Because, you know, it was very special.

THEO VON: But, God, you know, must have been. I mean, it’s been heartbreaking for everybody.

Processing the Shutdown

AZIZ ANSARI: It was, but it was one of those things. It was so crazy. I don’t think I ever fully processed it. I mean, you want to know some crazy? I remember the week it happened. I was getting married that summer, and my friends had. They wanted to plan some sort of bachelor party for you. Not like, I’m not like, hey, let’s go to the strip club kind of guy. They were going to. We were going to go to a restaurant, go to the spa or something like that. A very silly kind of thing.

THEO VON: A mathathon or something.

AZIZ ANSARI: What’s a mathathon?

THEO VON: Would you like Mathias?

AZIZ ANSARI: Is that a real thing, or did you just make up that word?

THEO VON: I don’t know, but I could see for some reason, I just.

AZIZ ANSARI: You think I’m. That’s what I’m into? No, I’m not into math. Wait, it’s a real thing. It’s a fundraising event where you do math. Wow.

THEO VON: Yeah, it is. Zuckerberg was a mathlete. Andrew Wang was a mathlete. No, Alexander Wang was a mathlete. A lot of those tech bros were mathletes, dude.

AZIZ ANSARI: Alexander Wang, the fashion guy?

THEO VON: No, there’s a new one.

AZIZ ANSARI: A new Alexander Wang.

THEO VON: That guy died or something, I think.

AZIZ ANSARI: I don’t think he. This is a different guy. Oh, this is a Gen Z billionaire. This Alexander without the E. A Wang.

THEO VON: They call him in the streets. Boy.

AZIZ ANSARI: Whoa. He’s 28 years old, in the tech.

THEO VON: Trenches, deep in the motor screen with.

Life Without the Internet

AZIZ ANSARI: The guy, looking stuff up. With you around all the time, or just when you do the podcast, that would be so great, because I’m the opposite of this. I never look anything up. You know, I don’t. You know what my wife said to me yesterday? I don’t have. I don’t keep a smartphone on me. I don’t. I blocked all s* on the Internet. I don’t really use the Internet, so sometimes I’ll just ask my wife stuff the same way you’re asking this guy.

And she’s like, you know, I’m not the Internet. I’m your wife. Because what I’m secretly asking, without asking is like, can you look that up for me? Because I can’t look it up. And she was like, I’m not the Internet.

THEO VON: Dude.

AZIZ ANSARI: It was a dark moment.

THEO VON: You married? You married just to have the Internet?

AZIZ ANSARI: I just needed to have a smartphone without having one. So that’s why I got married. Dude, she said that to me. I’m not the. She loves me very much. We’re just texting about how much we love each other, but.

THEO VON: Sounds like you. Look, we believe all that.

AZIZ ANSARI: It’s tough, man. It’s tough. I mean, I’ve, you know, I’ve gotten lost and had to call her and been like, hey, where.

THEO VON: Where are we?

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, I can’t find them because I live in London and, you know, there’s.

THEO VON: You live in London?

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, most of the time I’m there because we met in London. We lived there and.

THEO VON: Oh, your wife is London.

Living in London and Danish Terms of Affection

AZIZ ANSARI: I pull up the ex girlfriend. She’s in. Some of these are old. They’re old. But anyway, we live in London. We met there and, you know.

THEO VON: Does she speak Danish as well?

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, she speaks Danish. And I love languages, but Danish is pretty tough.

THEO VON: Is it?

AZIZ ANSARI: It’s tough, yeah.

THEO VON: Is it romantic? Is it considered a romantic language?

AZIZ ANSARI: Oh, this gets. This is back to the donkey thing.

THEO VON: Okay.

AZIZ ANSARI: So she said that I was like, well, what’s a Danish term of affection? Maybe we can use that. And she said it was like, skit. And I was like, that sounds harsh. That doesn’t sound very sweet. And we were somewhere where we saw a donkey, and I said, what’s the word for donkey? And she said, essel. And she said it was her first word and that she loved donkeys.

And I was like, why don’t we call each other that? And so we started calling each other that. Yeah. And now I have. You see that ae, that’s here on this chain’s ae. And that’s what led to us being the little mini donkey in Nashville, where we are now. Boom.

THEO VON: God did.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah. Yeah.

THEO VON: Oh, you’re my little ahole.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, exactly. But, yeah, it’s pretty close. Yeah, that’s it.

THEO VON: Pretty close.

AZIZ ANSARI: No, you said it right. You’re actually saying it better than I do. You’re doing the ae, the combined ae. Yeah, that Danish is. You know, it’s like, wait a second now. Now we’re coming up with new letters. You’re combining the A and E. You know, I can speak Italian. Okay. My family speaks Tamil. It’s an Indian language. I can speak that a little bit. Well, yeah, but Danish is a tricky one.

THEO VON: Well, a lot of our mixed are CIS and bigender. Now, some vowels are. There’ll be a vowel that is trans.

AZIZ ANSARI: Now it’s changing identity.

THEO VON: Yeah.

AZIZ ANSARI: It’s like, what’s the other one? They.

THEO VON: A, E. How do we even pronounce you, bro? That’s all we want.

AZIZ ANSARI: We just want to show you respect and do it right.

THEO VON: Do whatever you want, but just tell. We just need to know how to use you in a word. And some vowels now are like, I don’t want to be in your fing words or whatever. And we’re like, bitch or sir. Just be in the fing word, dude. You’re a letter. But that’s where it’s at now, man.

AZIZ ANSARI: It’s tough because we’ll be there.

THEO VON: That’s not a real thing.

AZIZ ANSARI: Which thing? The.

THEO VON: Isn’t that.

AZIZ ANSARI: Oh, with the circle.

THEO VON: Elon’s kid’s name.

Navigating Without GPS

AZIZ ANSARI: I don’t know. You’re saying it. That’s pretty good pronunciation. No, and whenever I. Whenever we’re in Denmark and I try to read a word, I’ll try to pronounce it right. And it’s just. I just don’t know the pronunciation rules. I get everything wrong.

But wait, how do we start talking? Oh, because I use her as a phone. Sometimes I’m walking around in London. In London, there’s a lot of maps on the street. So if I get lost, I can find the map and kind of make my way. But sometimes I keep walking around hoping to run into one of these maps, and I won’t run into one. And I have to call her and I’ll have to be like, hey, I’m over here. You got to tell me how to get to the tube station.

And I remember that even when I first came to LA, I don’t know, whenever you first came to LA, how long ago it was, but, you know, there wasn’t GPS and stuff. GPS was a fancy thing, if they had it at all. So I would print out directions on MapQuest. And I remember, you know, I would call my little brother. My little brother is a few years younger than me, he was still in South Carolina. And I’d call him, be like, hey, man, I’m on Cesar Chavez. How do I get back? Because we didn’t have the stuff. When you came to LA, was it like that?

THEO VON: Yeah, dude. People had maps, drawings. You’d have a guy who had directions tattooed on his arm of how to get home if he was an alcoholic or whatever.

AZIZ ANSARI: Oh, my God.

THEO VON: S* was definitely more primitive back then. People would just write on their dashboard how to get home. People had to remember. Remember when you just knew everybody’s phone number? Yeah. But also when somebody would give you directions, dude. And if you missed one of them or something and you were going to a party, you just drove around the neighborhood for an hour and then went home.

You would drive and roll your windows down and see if you heard a party from the backyard. Yeah, we were basically a bunch of Magellans, you know?

AZIZ ANSARI: And it’s strange to think there’s people that grew up without knowing that at all. And it really does seem nuts that we were able to be okay without it. You know.

THEO VON: Yeah.

AZIZ ANSARI: You know.

THEO VON: Well, it’s like, you imagine now it’s like we’re the airport and nobody’s going to go through TSA, right? Because that’s how it was.

Growing Up Different in South Carolina

AZIZ ANSARI: I barely remember that. Like, that you could go up to the gate and all that stuff. You know, all of my travel, I started doing comedy by the time I was touring and stuff, and traveling all the time. Like, we do that.

THEO VON: So you were already big touring when you started doing comedy?

AZIZ ANSARI: No, no, no. I’m saying, like, I didn’t start traveling a bunch, you know, touring and doing all this stuff until after TSA and all these kinds, you know, I barely remember traveling. I wasn’t on that many. You know, I wasn’t flying all the time. Like, you know, I do now. So I barely remember that time where, like, you could walk up to the gate, you know.

THEO VON: I might not even remember it, actually.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah. I mean, that all happened after 9/11. So it was after 2001, you know.

THEO VON: Yeah. Maybe a couple flights I’d taken, probably. But, yeah, dude, imagine if we went back to that now. Would you think, say, right now you go to the airport, there’s no TSA. Would you trust everyone enough to be like, okay, we’re all going to fly home together, guys. Does everybody promise they’re not going to cause any problems?

AZIZ ANSARI: I mean, I don’t know. It’d be, it’s wild times right now. I don’t know.

THEO VON: And they would ask you twice.

AZIZ ANSARI: I mean, I was in the airport these past couple days, and, you know, the government’s been shut down. Those people there, they’re working for free. I was like, hey, just so you know, guys, we’re working for free. And I was like, oh, my God.

THEO VON: That’s unbelievable.

AZIZ ANSARI: It’s wild.

THEO VON: Yeah. The government’s just turned into, like, a shitty vehicle. It’s like every now and then, it just f*ing shuts down or whatever, dude.

The State of Things

AZIZ ANSARI: I mean, you got to understand, for me to be in London and read about all the stuff happening here and then come here. Like, I was in Chicago yesterday and my friend’s like, wow, time to be in Chicago. I was like, what do you mean? They’re like, oh, the National Guard, they’re just grabbing Mexican people. I was like, what? When did that happen?

I’m just over here trying to tell people about good fortune, and they’re like, yeah, they’re grabbing Mexican people and the National Guard there. TSA. Oh, yeah. What are you getting on a plane later to fly to Nashville? Oh, yeah, the government shut down. Like, most of the air traffic people went home. Oh, great. Thanks. Yeah, I’m good. I’m going to fly to Nashville and then get on another plane back to New York same day. Cool weekend to be on all these planes.

THEO VON: Yeah, it’s just the Bad News Bears of TSA right now.

AZIZ ANSARI: You got all the people that are down to come and work in for free, dude.

THEO VON: You have just the militant guy. You have the guy who’s been waiting to get in the game. Like, no training, but just f*ing waiting to get in back today. This could be a really dark last interview snippet. And here’s the clip. Aziz predicts.

THEO VON: Oh, my God, bro, that’s so hilarious that there’s backup. Everybody’s back up right now. Like, the park wardens are like, bro, welcome to the park, bro. It’s just like the second string, dude. He’s like, dude, the owls are monumental right now, bro.

AZIZ ANSARI: Take all these people for granted.

THEO VON: That’s so true, huh? Well, the raids and stuff like that are crazy because they let so many people into the country, right? Without having a pattern of, this is an organized way to do something, right? Because I think they need to organize it. It needs to be organized, right?

Because it’s odd if people are here that they live in fear that they’re always going to be found out or something. And then it’s odd that there’s nefarious people here that don’t want to be found out, you know? So I think they need some organization of it.

But yeah, the fact that it gets where people are being ripped out of places and then you don’t know. Also, some of these days, I really believe you don’t know what’s real and what’s not when you see it sometimes. It could literally be a scene that was put together, like some of the Antifa stuff you would see in the park during the pandemic.

AZIZ ANSARI: And I watched that movie. You see “Civil War”?

THEO VON: Good.

Civil War and Reality

AZIZ ANSARI: It’s amazing, but it’s crazy because, you know, he wrote that movie a long time ago. And it’s like, I was in Chicago and I was like, d*mn, this is “Civil War.” Because, you know, in the movie, it’s very much like a military state. And the military is around going and doing this kind of stuff, and it’s kind of wild to do.

You know, he’s supposedly been working on a movie for 15 years or something. And it’s out now when this stuff is, you know, so top of mind. It’s so in there, you know?

THEO VON: Yeah. Eddington was really great. You see Eddington?

AZIZ ANSARI: I didn’t see Eddington, but I’ve heard it’s, they’re dealing with similar stuff. I need to see that.

THEO VON: Yeah. Just a lot of things happening at once. But I believe we’re headed to a surveillance state. You know, I believe that we’re, that’s why they’re trying.

AZIZ ANSARI: That happened a long time ago.

THEO VON: Drones, bro. I’m talking about drones in the sky. Surveillance. Like, that vibe.

AZIZ ANSARI: Oh, my God.

THEO VON: I mean, that’s where we’re heading. Dude, the movie I want to see. This is how I think it ends. Blacks versus drones, dude.

AZIZ ANSARI: Black what?

THEO VON: That’s how it ends, bro. That is. People are wondering, how does time, how does this all…

AZIZ ANSARI: Where do Indian people fit in this? Are we running? We’re just running the door. Okay, the right. Where do the Indians…

THEO VON: Okay, we need Kyrie Irving to move over to the… You just… Was he okay? No, I mean, I’m just thinking of a cool black guy, but yeah. But, dude, that’s how it ends. Everybody’s like, what’s going on in society? And these different groups and people bat and, you know, genocide, all these stuff going on, and you’re like, how does it all… And I think it’s blacks versus drones.

Coming Back to America

AZIZ ANSARI: I don’t know. As someone that used to live here and now comes here occasionally for work, every time I come back, it just feels wild and it feels, I think it feels wilder to me because I think for people that are here, it’s like, oh, they’re slowly seeing it get crazy. So they’re not going from one to a hundred like I do.

My time in LA, you know, I remember just seeing the amount of tents and all that stuff, you know, coming, you know, going to LA and in New York after Covid, because during COVID I was in London the whole time with my wife. So coming back to both those cities after Covid, I was like, whoa.

THEO VON: Yeah, it’s like a Slipknot tailgate out there now, you know? It’s f*ing crazy.

AZIZ ANSARI: You know, my wife loves Slipknot.

THEO VON: You’re lying.

Little Miss Denmark

AZIZ ANSARI: My wife has a PhD in physics. She’s a genius and she loves, it’s like she had this emo phase. And every now and then, I’ll just, I’ll just bring up that she loves. My two favorite facts about my wife. She’s going to hate that I’m bringing this stuff up.

THEO VON: No, it’s important.

AZIZ ANSARI: One is that she loves Slipknot. And the other thing is that she was Little Miss Denmark. That was a little competition for little kids when she was five, six years old. And she won two years in a row. And then they stopped the contest.

THEO VON: No.

AZIZ ANSARI: Because she kept winning.

THEO VON: God. They shut it down.

AZIZ ANSARI: They shut it down.

THEO VON: What? They don’t like somebody really stepping out of the…

AZIZ ANSARI: I think they were just like, we should, this is, we shouldn’t be doing these little pageants for these kids. And my wife, she said they would have, you know, the talent portion or whatever. And she would be doing her dance, whatever. And they’re like, all right, that’s good. She’s like, no, I’m not finished with my routine.

THEO VON: I don’t mean to be an ahole.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah.

THEO VON: But I’m about to win this btch for a third time, dude. Holy sht.

AZIZ ANSARI: Stop.

THEO VON: She’s like the Boston Celtics of those f*ing Danish competitions. Yeah. And then…

AZIZ ANSARI: And then she had her emo phase and got really into Slipknot. Rebelled against the pageant life.

THEO VON: You shut down a pageant queen like that, where they can’t even perform anymore. That is a direct avenue to Slipknot.

AZIZ ANSARI: Corey, understand, how else do you even…

THEO VON: Manage that sort of stress and strain? Where are you going to put those f*ing pirouettes, bro? You’re going to package those and put them into a Slipknot mosh pit.

AZIZ ANSARI: I didn’t think we’d get into Little Miss Denmark. My wife’s going to be thrilled.

Growing Up in South Carolina

THEO VON: Oh, that’s awesome. I’m glad that you found love out there, man. Did you, were you good with the ladies growing up? What was your energy like?

AZIZ ANSARI: You know, I grew up in, it’s weird because I grew up in South Carolina.

THEO VON: I remember every school in the south kind of had an Indian guy. Was it like that at your school or was there a big Indian group?

AZIZ ANSARI: There’s two versions of this. There’s, if you’re in Atlanta or something, there’s the Indian crew and they hang out. And then there’s what I grew up with, which is just me.

And when I was little, I kind of forget this sometimes. In first and second grade, there was this Thai girl and her name was Tisha, which doesn’t make sense. That doesn’t really sound like a Thai name. But her name was Tisha.

THEO VON: But they left kind of a black tie.

AZIZ ANSARI: It sounds like a black tie.

THEO VON: It sounds like a black tie affair.

AZIZ ANSARI: She was Thai, but they left and then it was just me as Indian. And it’s in the 80s and you know, it’s so interesting to look back. I was thinking about this and I had a conversation with my mom a while ago that really blew me away.

So, first off, you know, as soon as I tell people I grew up in South Carolina, they’re always like, oh, must have been so racist, all this stuff. And of course, there was. There’s moments where it wasn’t nice and…

THEO VON: People calling you almost N word or something like that.

AZIZ ANSARI: N word, not almost.

THEO VON: Oh, really?

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah. Yeah.

THEO VON: Well, most people are nearsighted or whatever.

AZIZ ANSARI: I still don’t.

THEO VON: That’s crazy.

AZIZ ANSARI: But there was also, I feel like, you know, there was a time I was writing something and I asked my parents to just tell me. I didn’t want to write stuff about people being racist to people. I wanted to write something positive. So I was like, tell me things you remember that were positive, like experiences you had, you know, being someone. Because, you know, my parents are there in the 80s.

THEO VON: Yeah. It was different, for sure.

AZIZ ANSARI: They don’t. People there didn’t even know what Indian people were. They didn’t see them in the culture. They didn’t see nothing. They didn’t understand it looks like a…

THEO VON: Black person that they didn’t finish the job on or whatever. Kind of, you know, no judgment that.

AZIZ ANSARI: Let’s just make sure that quote is attributed to you.

THEO VON: Sure, dude.

AZIZ ANSARI: But I think, like…

THEO VON: Because sometimes you do see that Indian dude. You’re like, is this a black dude?

AZIZ ANSARI: Or this is. But we’re joking. But it is what people were saying. They had never seen Indian people before, and they were not in the media or anything. And so my experience, you know, I’m talking about the positive stuff. First off, I skipped first and second grade. I did first and second grade in one year. So people were like, oh, my God, this genius little brown boy. And I was in a small school. There was 30 kids in my class. There’s 8,000 people that live in my town.

THEO VON: Yeah.

AZIZ ANSARI: But, you know, I was raised by my parents.

THEO VON: But first grade’s f*ing easy, dude.

AZIZ ANSARI: First grade is easy. My dad would show me the…

THEO VON: Fact that it takes a whole year. You’re like, what the f* are we doing?

AZIZ ANSARI: My dad would write little math problems and stuff for me. So I was really advanced in math and stuff.

THEO VON: So you can go back and look at it.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, no. Yeah. You should be able to teach your kid all that stuff before they get to school.

THEO VON: It’s an eavesdrop. You can tap into classrooms and watch. It’s like, this is so f*ing easy, dude. I wish you had a ring camera in there and just be giving the kids the answers and shit.

AZIZ ANSARI: What?

THEO VON: It’s yellow, ain’t. They had one of those ring cameras. You could talk in, a children’s class or whatever.

AZIZ ANSARI: I mean, back then, no ring camera. Just had my dad teach me stuff. So by the time I was halfway through first grade, they called my parents like, this is, you got to get him out of here. He’s got to go up to second grade. And so I went to second grade, and that was this big story in the school that some kid had skipped a grade.

THEO VON: Yeah, it’s like when LeBron left Miami.

AZIZ ANSARI: It was exactly like LeBron. I was like LeBron with very elementary math problems.

THEO VON: Yeah, LeBron.

Growing Up in South Carolina

AZIZ ANSARI: Yes, exactly. And, you know, when I was thinking back about my childhood and time, my parents and, you know, there was these two ladies that took care of us. First off, I was talking to my mom, and she was talking about how when she came to South Carolina, my dad had been in America. He was in New Jersey doing his residency. Then he went back to India, married my mom, and then they came to South Carolina, where my dad moved because he applied for these jobs all over the country.

And in South Carolina, they didn’t have a lot of the doctor he was. He was a gastroenterologist. So then they moved to South Carolina. My mom comes to South Carolina. Woman’s never left India like this. She’s in Bennettsville, South Carolina. Not like, oh, you’re in New York City. No, Bennettsville, South Carolina. And my dad brings her home and then he has to go to work.

And I asked my mom, I was like, you know, what was that day like? And she was like, and I put this in my show, she said, “Oh, I just sat on the couch and I cried.” And I was like, oh, my God, it’s so dark. It was like, so much braver than I could be, you know, I mean, this is, there’s no FaceTime, nothing. None of that. You’re really alone. It was hard.

THEO VON: Cable television.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, but I’m talking about to have a connection with your family or anything. There’s no way to communicate.

THEO VON: You’re just praying and lighting candles and putting those oranges in that little thing.

AZIZ ANSARI: There’s no even making a long distance call was a different thing back then.

THEO VON: Yeah, it was like $11.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah. It was not the way it is now where you could, you know, so she was really alone, but she used to go and do laundry all the time to just be around other people. And there was some lady there, an older white lady, that recognized that, you know, became, some saw her with me and became friendly with her and they called her Grandma. I don’t know the woman’s real name actually.

And I called her Grandma. And she would take care of me and looked out for our family and she eventually, I think she moved or something or whatever, but she couldn’t take care of us anymore. And this woman who we called Nana is what her grandkids called her, she started taking care of us. And then there was this woman named Ms. Beulah who would take care of us after school.

THEO VON: She had some tits on her, I bet.

AZIZ ANSARI: Ms. Beulah, rest in peace. I’m not sure she passed away.

THEO VON: My bad. I didn’t know that and I hope…

AZIZ ANSARI: Let’s not. But Ms. Beulah, as you might guess from the name Beulah, black woman from the south and would cook the meanest Southern food for us. So I would eat Indian food and Southern food. And so Nana and Ms. Beulah are part of my life.

Losing a Sister

And you know, I had a sister that passed away and she was a few years younger than me and she had a very rare, she had a, something called Hurler syndrome. It’s a super rare liver disease. Sorry, it’s obviously a little heavy for me. But so she, she passed away.

THEO VON: What’s her name?

AZIZ ANSARI: Her name is Nafees.

THEO VON: Nafis. That’s a pretty name, huh?

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah. And she passed away. And Nana, Nana passed away a few years ago when I was in college, a while ago now. And you know, I didn’t get a chance to, Ms. Beulah, I got to say a proper goodbye to. I went and saw her when she was staying in a retirement home. Nana, I didn’t have that same moment. I was in college. And it wasn’t the same kind of thing where I had that opportunity to say bye.

But my mom had told me that she went to go see, visit my sister at cemetery. And you know, my sister’s buried in South Carolina, in Bennettsville. And you know, that is a tricky thing because my family’s from a Muslim background and they wanted to do, they were asked in the cemetery, can we do the things we do for our culture? And the cemetery was like, yeah, of course, whatever you need to do. Which is, which is just so cool to me that they were open to that.

And the whole community, you know, were visiting our family and everything. And I remember even a priest came by to just, you know, even though we were a different religion, he came and wanted to talk to us and stuff. And everyone was just so kind about it.

And my mom told me that she went to go see my sister at the cemetery, and she said, “Oh, and we saw Nana, too.” I was like, what do you mean? She’s like, “Well, Nana’s buried right next to her.” And I just, I melted as a human because I did not know that. And to me, heard that. And I was like, wow. You know, I was saying all the stuff about crazy this country is and how crazy it feels right now, but that story, that doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world, man. Those two people, my sister and…

THEO VON: This woman that befriended you guys.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah. Have that close a bond where she’s like, I want to be buried next to her. I mean, it was, I did not know that. And, you know, I, I don’t know why it popped in my head, but I’m so glad it did. And I got to share that with you because I heard that story and I was like, man, people need to hear that story because it’s not the…

THEO VON: Story people want to tell. It’s not the story that the media wants to tell. It’s not a story that…

AZIZ ANSARI: It’s a story that doesn’t really get…

THEO VON: The clicks, but it’s a story that’s probably, it’s the truth that most people, that the human part of us is what makes us special, and that’s the part that we should all try and lean into the most, is that we’re this special thing that can care about each other, you know?

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah. I mean, the fact that these people saw my parents and tried to forge this bond with them and I mean, and I hope we’re still a place where that kind of stuff can happen.

THEO VON: I think it happens a lot. I think you’re just right. I think it’s not the, it’s not the news, you know, but I think it is more common probably than we think. Thanks for sharing that, dude. It is an important story. That’s a great story.

AZIZ ANSARI: Sorry.

THEO VON: Did your sister have it the whole time when she was growing up? When she was from birth?

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah. It was one of these things where, you know, that life expectancy with that Hurler’s is not, it’s not very long. She passed when she was 6, 8 years old.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah. And was she…

AZIZ ANSARI: And it’s one of these days. I don’t really talk about it very much. And a lot of people even that know me don’t know I had a sister because people would ask me, oh, do you have any siblings? And I’m like, oh, yeah, I got a little brother and I had a sister that passed away. And I would say it like that. And people are like, it’s a very heavy thing to hear all of a sudden.

And so I was like, oh, I don’t want to make people uncomfortable. So I’ll just say, oh, I have a little brother. And then they’ll be like, what’s you guys gap? Oh, he’s seven years old. Wow, that’s a big gap. Yeah. I’m going to not go down this thing because I don’t want to bum everybody out because we’re all just hanging out at Chick-fil-A, right?

THEO VON: Just sitting there tapping her foot like, what are we doing here? No, dude, that’s, my sister was born with a rare liver disease, and she had to get a liver transplant when we were kids. So we spent most of our childhood, you know, she was always this thing that we couldn’t touch because she always had to have these surgeries and stuff.

So I think it just reminds me of a lot of that. Oh, man, that stuff, you know, I think it’s just interesting when you grow up with a sibling that’s sick, because I think it, I never even thought about it until you were saying some of this. It just, I don’t know, you have to adjust yourself, I think, to try and maybe, my sister got most of the care, right, but she needed most of it. So it was weird.

So there were times where I’d be like, I don’t, you know, later on in life, I’d be like, oh, I didn’t get this care, but it was like, I didn’t need it the most, you know?

AZIZ ANSARI: What was you guys age difference?

THEO VON: 2 years and she’s still alive. She ended up getting a liver transplant. She got one of the first liver transplants in, we moved to Arizona. She got it out there.

AZIZ ANSARI: That’s incredible.

Childhood Medical Experiences

THEO VON: But it was just this whole time when she was a kid, she was always being flown off to these places, and they sounded magical. Like Rochester, Minnesota. Just different places where there’s these big hospitals. And she’d come back like this, almost like this Build-A-Bear that somebody done a shitty job with. You know what I’m saying? Like, just all these scars and stuff.

But it was just—she was always this—it was weird because you couldn’t hold it. She was just like—it was interesting. Did you have any experience like that with your sister or what was it like?

AZIZ ANSARI: There wasn’t that kind of—there wasn’t all these things to try because the Hurler’s is pretty—they don’t really have a thing. You know, there’s, oh, you can maybe do a bone marrow transplant and—but it’s not really a thing they’ve made much progress on. So there was never anything like that.

And I don’t know, it’s interesting talking about this because you think about—it’s when you’re a kid, it’s so hard to understand what’s happening. You have no frame of reference. And when I look back on that stuff as an adult, I can’t imagine how hard it was for my parents to have a child that has something like that and then to lose a child. I can’t—it’s strange to step outside of yourself. And honestly, this is some of the most I’ve talked about it with anybody.

THEO VON: And I don’t mean to pry about it. It’s just—

Cultural Differences in Expressing Emotions

AZIZ ANSARI: Not at all. I don’t think prying at all. And I think it’s really interesting that you had something, your sister had something as well. But you know, there’s a thing with Indian families and maybe it’s a lot of families in that time. It’s like you don’t talk about stuff.

THEO VON: Oh, really? Is that an Indian thing?

AZIZ ANSARI: Kind of. I think there’s something of, oh, you’re not as open about your feelings and stuff and you’re just a little bit more closed off. I think so, yeah. With Asian families, Indian families, I think with emotional stuff like that, you know.

THEO VON: But you guys do reincarnation, so you’re probably just like, oh, we can have the feelings later. We can have this—

AZIZ ANSARI: That’s Hinduism. That’s a different thing.

THEO VON: Oh, really?

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah.

THEO VON: So you guys are one time only Islam, it’s—

AZIZ ANSARI: It’s the same as Christianity. It’s, you know, in terms of that stuff, as far as I know, I’m not a super religious guy. But yes, the reincarnation is just in Hindu culture.

THEO VON: So you guys are one and done, huh?

AZIZ ANSARI: I mean, so is a lot of people.

THEO VON: Okay. I’m just saying. Yeah, but yeah, man, this got really—

AZIZ ANSARI: We really went for a heavy turn after micro donkeys. This is—you’re teared up over here. I’m teared up, but it’s good to talk about the stuff. And you know, it’s so strange to think back about those times and—

THEO VON: Yeah.

AZIZ ANSARI: Everything my family went through, especially my parents. I never think about that.

Gaining Perspective on Parents’ Struggles

THEO VON: I always think about things. This is one place that I kind of struggle with. I think a lot of times I’ll think about certain periods and things that happen, and I only think about it as to how it affects me. And it’s like, man, to get into that place of where you’re even thinking, well, how did this affect my parents?

I was eating dinner with some friends yesterday, and in the background, she has these four kids, and they’re beautiful kids. They have the cutest kids, and they’re all going haywire. And there was the first time I thought, holy f*, my mom had four kids and nobody to help. There was—and it was—can you imagine what that would be like these days?

AZIZ ANSARI: That sounds impossible.

THEO VON: Impossible. And our parents were able to do that kind of stuff. But it was the first time that I even had a perspective moment like that that was that clear, you know?

AZIZ ANSARI: Oh, yeah. Just—

THEO VON: So for you to have that, I think is pretty cool that you think, oh, what my parents must have went through, you know? Because it’s like—yeah, it’s like, for us, it’s a sibling, but for them, it’s like, you know, it’s probably something that feels far greater, you know?

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah.

THEO VON: Anyway, I didn’t mean to delve into that, man.

AZIZ ANSARI: No, no, I’m glad we did. And I think it’s a really interesting thing to talk about. And for me, you know, I bet—

THEO VON: You’d be so proud of you.

Breaking Into Comedy: The Comic Strip Live

AZIZ ANSARI: You know, what I think about sometimes is there was—do you know the Comic Strip? Comic Strip Live in New York?

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, yeah.

AZIZ ANSARI: You know that club?

THEO VON: Yep.

AZIZ ANSARI: That was the first club I ever got passed at. And there was a guy, his name was Lucien Hold, and he was the guy that would pass you, you know. You’ve heard of Estee at the Cellar? He was like Estee at the Cellar. He was the guy.

THEO VON: Yeah, there’s always that person.

AZIZ ANSARI: There’s always a person that was a gatekeeper. And I went in there when I was 18. And what was cool about the Comic Strip was they had a thing where anybody could audition. You just lined up and then you could audition.

THEO VON: Isn’t that crazy?

AZIZ ANSARI: Which is—because, you know, I don’t know if this was your experience when you’re starting out, but was it like you just wanted a shot, right?

THEO VON: Oh, yeah.

AZIZ ANSARI: Just wanted a shot. And the idea that you could be a regular at the comedy—I remember I used to go to the Comedy Cellar and I’d just be like, oh, my God, could you imagine just getting spots here? Could you imagine just how amazing would be to get spots? That was my dream.

THEO VON: I know, you’re so right.

The Audition Process

AZIZ ANSARI: And so I went to the Comic Strip. They had this open call. You just had to wait in line. And then you’d pick from a—I believe what we do is you’d pick from a lottery and it would give you a date.

THEO VON: A date?

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, like they would do on Mondays. They’d have a certain number of people that were from this audition.

THEO VON: That’s cool.

AZIZ ANSARI: So I picked a date and then I showed up. And you went through this one woman, and if she said, okay, you can see Lucien, you’d audition for Lucien. And so I got through it and then I auditioned for Lucien. And you know, you wait around, you wait around, all these kind of things. Even SNL, you hear these stories. Be like, yeah, you didn’t just wait around. They just make you wait around.

And then he spoke to me at the end and he was like, you could start working at the club. And I was like—and I was terrible. I was not good, but I was very young and I was very comfortable on stage. And he told me, he was like, you know, when people your age come in here, he was like, you’re still at NYU, right? And I was like, yeah, yeah.

He said, you know, Adam Sandler was in NYU when I passed him, and so was Sarah Silverman. And I was like, oh, wow. I mean, I remember I said, oh, wow. It’d be amazing if I had a career like that. He’s like, I don’t know if that’s in the cards for you, but you could—he was the most straight shooting guy. I mean, there’s very few people that are honest like that that I’ve met in my 20-something years. He was the guy that was like that.

He was like, I don’t know if that’s not an impression of him, but he was like, I don’t know if that’s something that’s in the cards for you, but you could start working in the club. And I would do—you would do Late Night, which is they’d have the show, and then you could sign up to go on at the end of the show. So there’d be nobody there. I do that all the time.

THEO VON: Sure. But getting up on stage, even just walking up, when you’re coming up, if there’s six people there, it feels like a million people.

AZIZ ANSARI: You’re so excited.

THEO VON: The feeling that is the energy that—the fear and that energy and that nervous—it feels like a million.

The Thrill of Getting Stage Time

AZIZ ANSARI: And sometimes, I mean—and I’ll say this, and you’re going to light up because you’ll know this feeling. Sometimes someone on the bill that was supposed to be on it, like 9 o’clock, wouldn’t show up, and they’d pull someone from Late Night. And so you’d get to go on.

THEO VON: When people were still there.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yes. And I remember one time—

THEO VON: I’m going to show these bes. That’s what I would say. I had kind of an aggressive nature, but—

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, but it was like this kind of, oh, I’m going to get to prove myself a little bit. But, oh, one time, I remember Chris Rock dropped in and I went after—it went on after him. And everybody was—everyone’s like, oh, Chris Rock just went on. They just all started leaving. And I told Chris the story the other day. I was like, I forgot this. I forgot. I mean—and now he’s my f*ing friend. It’s the craziest thing in the world to me.

But Lucien, he had a disease called scleroderma. I don’t know why I’m saying the disease he had. But anyway—

THEO VON: Is he passionate? Is actually skin—

AZIZ ANSARI: No, it’s a skin problem. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know what it is exactly, but scleroderma. This dude stopped looking up stuff because it’s gotten too dark. The stuff we’re talking—he’s like, I’m not going to pull up this stuff on Wikipedia. It’s too dark. I don’t think it’s appropriate. I’m not going to—I’m just going to let this be. I’ll wait till they start talking about mini cows again. I can pull up those cute pictures.

THEO VON: He has a whole barrel full.

Lucien Hold’s Legacy

AZIZ ANSARI: You know, maybe I do bring it up, because if someone wants to donate to his fund or whatever. So Lucien had this disease, and we knew he was passing away, and I went and visited him. And it was like that movie Being Mortal, you know, it was like, I knew he was passing away. I knew this was probably our last conversation.

And dude, this dude passed away. You know, Chris spoke at his funeral. I think Seinfeld may have said something. I can’t remember. I remember I went to the funeral and I was a little kid. I remember I went and was crying in the bathroom and stuff because this dude was the first dude ever to genuinely believe that I could do something in our world. The first person to say, hey, I’m going to give you—it was like f*ing 10 bucks or whatever. But he was like, I believe in the idea of paying you to tell jokes.

And we had that conversation and I remember he said something to me and he talked about some comic that he used to know that went to LA and not a super successful guy, but a guy that did okay. And he was like, you know, he said this guy told him that he was in LA and he said that—that’s Lucien. Yes, that’s Lucien Hold. Yeah. But all—I mean, he’s—they love him. Yeah. And they remember him from back in the day. He was a character.

He’s the guy that passed, you know, Eddie Murphy. And the famous story of Chris Rock is Eddie Murphy was at the club and he asked Lucien, do you have any—do you have any black comics? And he said, yeah, I got one. I’ll put him up if you’ll watch him. And it was Chris Rock and then Eddie Murphy watched him and then put him in Beverly Hills Cop 2.

THEO VON: But anyway, dude, that’s so great though.

The Power of Early Validation

AZIZ ANSARI: It was. It’s a huge deal. It’s a huge amount of validation because it’s, I can’t really explain. It’s still like, when I think of all the things I’ve done in my career, it’s still, I was excited as about that. I mean, dude, it was like, I think it was like 10 years ago I did Madison Square Garden. It was a similar feeling to get past. Yeah. You know, and.

But anyway, he told me this story about some guy in LA and he said that guy told him, like, you know, there’s all these idiots in LA and if they’re able to do it, I can do it too. Something to that extent, like. And it was more, said it more eloquent than that. I’m not doing it justice, but. And he basically said to me, “you’re going to be okay.” And he left me with that. And it was really cool.

THEO VON: Lucien did.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, he said “you’re going to be okay.” Like, you’re a smart guy, and you’re going to be okay. And, I mean, I’ve been fortunate enough, and I think I’m, I mean, that was when I was a little kid, you know, I hadn’t done anything really. And, you know, I feel like I’ve been fortunate in my career to be more than okay and done a lot of great things. I never would have thought possible when I was, you know, interacting with Lucien.

And, you know, one of my, not regrets or, I don’t know, just one of my, oh, man. Kind of feelings is that like, oh, this guy. That was the first guy to believe in me, to see me. Yeah. Didn’t get to see that, how far I really went, you know, and weird. Sorry. I feel like I’m taking up too much of your time.

THEO VON: No, this is good. You’re a great storyteller. Realizing that’s honestly one thing I’ve realized sitting here. And I can see why you’re able to do what you do even more, like writing your movies and knowing, like. Yeah. Saying how streamlined it is. I’m enjoying it. So go on. Sorry.

The London Cab Driver Story

AZIZ ANSARI: You know, I was in a cab one time in London, and I was like, it’s weird because once you become successful, it’s weird when you drop into a comedy club, everyone goes nuts and everything’s a little sweeter because they’re excited because you’re famous. And I was in a cab with my wife in London, and someone was like, tell us about this thing or whatever. And I talked about this whole story of something that happened to us.

And when I left, the cab driver said, “hey, hey, you’re a really good storyteller.” And I was like, holy sh*t. That was like winning an Emmy for me. Because I was like, that guy has no clue who I am. And he went out of his way to tell me that. That made me feel really good.

THEO VON: Was he an Indian guy?

AZIZ ANSARI: No. Why would he be Indian, Theo?

THEO VON: Racism.

AZIZ ANSARI: He was, like, a black guy that was fully finished.

THEO VON: Okay, okay, okay.

AZIZ ANSARI: He was a fully finished black guy. He was a black guy.

THEO VON: I love. I mean, I love race stuff. It’s fun to joke about and think about because it’s so different and it’s fun, you know, that’s.

AZIZ ANSARI: I think.

THEO VON: But that’s. You’re right, man. Sorry. But, yeah, somebody telling you a great storyteller. It’s so funny.

AZIZ ANSARI: It’s.

THEO VON: Some of. It’s that one word or one thing. It’s like.

Staying Grounded in Success

AZIZ ANSARI: And you get it from someone that doesn’t know anything. Because sometimes you feel like, ah, man, like not like, oh, people. You feel like, I don’t know how much of this is sweetened up because of. And it’s very frustrating because I don’t think anyone that’s successful like that wants any of that. But you know, you get a little bit of that when you drop in and you’re working on material and you know, when you’re on stage for a while, eventually.

THEO VON: Good. That’s the worst part. You’re like, is this even good? And you’re like, are you just getting unfair reactions? But then hopefully, if you’re self aware enough and that judge inside of you, that little party that’s always hated you is still f*ing lurking, you got to have.

AZIZ ANSARI: That guy in there. That guy needs to be there. And if he’s there, you know, because, you know, all your people, oh man, it’s your best hour. It’s like it’s getting there, right? You got to have that little guy and you got to have that little guy and look, that’s, you know, whether it’s a movie or stand up show, like, you know, screening a movie, it’s like, yeah, people don’t lie. Eventually, like they’ll be sweet for a little bit, but eventually they are like, all right, come on. You know that drops after a few minutes. Yeah.

THEO VON: And if you start smoking your own bullsh*t too, that’s when it can get really spooky.

AZIZ ANSARI: Oh, that’s when you got to make sure you, you know, I’ve been around people enough to be like, oh, that. When you start having a bunch of people around you that tell you you’re awesome, that’s when the, everything starts falling apart.

Managing Ego

THEO VON: Have you ever had ego problems? You ever had anything like that? Like, are you able to check your own ego kind of type of things? Because ego is so dangerous because it can kind of grow in the distance. It’s almost like something that you don’t see growing. It’s almost like you’re standing there with your shadow and then your shadow gets bigger with you noticing it, you know?

AZIZ ANSARI: You know, I think the way I hopefully have been able to avoid that kind of problem is I’m not around all the time. You know what I mean? I kind of go away in a hole and work on stuff. This is like the most sh*t I’ve done. I haven’t been on your podcast. I haven’t been on anybody’s podcast. I haven’t done anything. I’ve just been working and, you know, being back out in kind of wild. Yeah. In the kind of press world, it’s been kind of a little overwhelming for me.

I get very overwhelmed whenever I finish, like, season one and two of my show. Like, whenever it came on Netflix, like, I left the country because I was just a little bit. It was just too much for me. Like, I went to Japan for a couple of months because, like, really, for months or not, he wasn’t there at the time. But, you know, I wanted to be somewhere where people didn’t really know who I was. It was. It felt a bit. It can be a little overwhelming. Like, that part of our jobs of red carpets and interviews. It’s a lot.

THEO VON: Yeah. I never done a lot of that stuff, so that part I don’t know about, but I can imagine.

The Work vs. The Promotion

AZIZ ANSARI: But, you know, I’m here and I’ve been doing all stuff. I love doing this because we’re just having a great conversation. Not everything is this fun, but, you know, I do it because I feel like it’s a part of the job, and I got to support the work in the studio that paid for the movie and everything. So I do it, but it’s not my. I like the work.

I mean, all I’m looking forward to is getting back on work. Getting back to work, doing, like, being on set with some people and being like, hey, do this, or, you know, I’m going back on the road for a little bit. Like, being on the road like that, that is a billion times more fun than some of the stuff you have to do. Excluding, like, this. And I actually like that podcasts are a thing now because I did Amy Poehler’s podcast. That was so fun.

THEO VON: So great.

AZIZ ANSARI: She’s great. I hadn’t seen her in a while, and I was like, oh, man, I’m just excited to be with you for an hour and change because I hadn’t seen you in so long.

The Tommy Story

THEO VON: Yeah, dude, thanks for making me think about. We had a guy named Tommy at the Comedy Store, and I. And he was like, the guy. And he’s like this character.

AZIZ ANSARI: I’ve heard his name. Yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: And people impersonated him all the time.

AZIZ ANSARI: And he really was.

THEO VON: He had this long hair, and he looked like a rock and roll guy. And I believe he was. I think he also played in a band and. And he made jellies and jams, and he would bring those. He was this very, like, eccentric type of guy.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah.

THEO VON: Yeah. But he took care of Mitzi Shore. But he would be the guy. And he’d sit there and he’d open little curtains of the little will call booth had little curtains on it. And he’d be like, “you’re doing good.” But I happened, I went to the Comedy Store one time, I was trying to find out how do they do sign ups. I remember, and I was buying a beer on the porch and he thought I was somebody else.

He’s like, “haven’t seen you around here in a while. You know, we miss you coming around.” And I was like, yeah, I. And he goes, “why don’t you come in, come back in on Sunday, man. I’m going to, I want to, I want to see you back up there.” And he f*ing had me confused with.

AZIZ ANSARI: Whoa. Did he do the other spot?

THEO VON: Yeah.

AZIZ ANSARI: And did you put your name down or.

THEO VON: No, I just, I didn’t think about that. And I just kept f*ing doing this.

AZIZ ANSARI: And how’d your set go?

THEO VON: And it went good enough where I got to keep going. But it was. But before that, for sure, I went and signed up and waited outside. And there’s like a guy that’s practicing juggling, who can’t even talk, and he’s telling his jokes through like, like bowling pins and sh*t. It’s like there’s all types of stuff. There’s somebody training a bird or whatever, and he’s barely trained it and he’s trying to train it really fast in the parking lot. It’s like, you cannot train a bird really fast.

Back to the Basics

AZIZ ANSARI: But this is the same thing I was talking about earlier. It’s so interesting to me that, you know, comedy comedians were all having, you know, this is a crazy moment to be a comedian and people are having such overwhelming amounts of success, but at the end of the day, like all of us started just wanting a room full of people, just a crowd and to be able to perform.

THEO VON: Yeah. Well, you know, one thing that was great about Good Fortune, dude, and I haven’t finished it, but I really, I like it and I’m excited to see the end of it.

AZIZ ANSARI: It’s not that long a movie, by the way.

THEO VON: But I didn’t get home last night until probably 11:30.

AZIZ ANSARI: No, I’m just saying for people that are worried that, oh, yeah, no, no.

The Reality of Struggling in LA

THEO VON: It’s an hour, it’s an hour and a half movie, but it’s good, dude. There were so many, like, there started to be some really good plot changes for me that I really dug, like right around the spot where I’m at where you think it’s going to go one way, and now it starts to change up, and then I don’t want to give too much of it away.

But one thing that was really amazing about it, and my friend was watching it with me, was that you felt of how tough it is that first year, too, in LA. You felt of, like, when your character is sleeping in his car, right? Or like, when there’s DoorDash delivery. And just like, the jobs you get when you first get to a big city to try to survive, the parking tickets and how you lose your car.

You just come out of a place, you barely had enough money to go get some avocados. It was the one thing you were treating yourself to this week. It was like, two avocados. I’m going to cut those bitches up and I’m going to eat those bitches, right? And then I’m going to go to sleep, right? You were so excited, and you come out and your f*ing car has been towed because you didn’t pay tickets. All that shit.

Dude, my friend and I slept in the McDonald’s ball pit. We would jump the fence and sleep in that f*ing ball pit because it was like, kind of some more space to lay out, right? Like, if you got under the balls, there’s hair in there, there’s coins under there, but it is. There’s a little bit more room for your body than, like, because we tried to sleep in his car one night, and it was just a nightmare.

But going through all of that. Yeah. And there is, the hair goes to the bottom, which I don’t understand how that works. That’s science. But, and yeah, they should do a, they should see what’s in the bottom of a lot of these. It’s not good, but, yeah, we would jump over the fence and sleep in one that, you know, that closed at 10. We’d get in and just get five hours of sleep or something, you know?

AZIZ ANSARI: Oh, my God, I’m so sorry.

THEO VON: I could relate. No, it was awesome. It was great. One night, we’re in there, dude, we’re talking to each other, laughing and stuff, and an Asian guy’s on the slide.

AZIZ ANSARI: He’s asleep. He saw the slide seem like he’s very, very exposed.

THEO VON: No, like in one of those high slides where there was room where you could kind of get, you know, it was encompassed. He was in the best spot.

AZIZ ANSARI: Oh, my God.

THEO VON: Yes. He was in one of the tubes.

AZIZ ANSARI: Oh, damn. That’s better than the ball pit. That’s a pro move.

THEO VON: Yeah. And even came up to the window. It was like a little hamster showing up. Pretty f*ing dope. But, dude, that was like, but I forget. You forget about all the pieces of the things and the moments that, like, were so big. And that was in LA, and that was in LA.

AZIZ ANSARI: And I think we all McDonald’s in LA.

THEO VON: It’s on Wilshire Boulevard. Like, Wilshire.

AZIZ ANSARI: And does that Asian guy have a podcast now, too? I hope he does.

THEO VON: I think it’s Ronny Chieng.

Comedy Cellar Stories

AZIZ ANSARI: You know, I was doing a, I was doing a one of those shows at the Comedy Cellar where people don’t know who’s going to show up. It was like, surprise headliner. And it’s just me working on stuff, and I walk by the line and some lady goes, “I hope it’s not Ronny Chieng.”

THEO VON: Oh, really?

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah. But then I found out that it’s because she’d been to another one of these and it was Ronny Chieng. And we talked about it in the show, but it wasn’t because she doesn’t like, all love to Ronny Chieng. I love Ronny Chieng.

THEO VON: I just got to see him last week. I bumped into him. I went into the Comedy Cellar.

AZIZ ANSARI: Okay, yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: Just stopped and he was in there. It was awesome.

AZIZ ANSARI: Dude, he’s great.

THEO VON: He is great. He got some great specials, too. If you haven’t seen him. If you haven’t seen him, I got to get him to come in and talk sometime.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, I know, he’s great, but I just thought it was funny to walk.

THEO VON: By and feel that. That’s so funny, dude.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah.

Good Fortune and Seth Rogen

THEO VON: But, yeah, that’s one thing I loved about Good Fortune. You and Seth Rogen are just, you guys are buddies, I guess.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, we spoke about this movie and, you know, if anyone listening is going to see the movie, please, you know, see it in a theater with the crowd. Because we were talking about these movies.

THEO VON: Like, I think it’s worth it for sure. It definitely felt like a real movie to me. It didn’t feel like some forced, you know, I know. Like, they’re like, like, you know, sometimes you get these movies and it’s like, you know, they’re getting felt, shit feels forced or too fake or like it’s not real. I didn’t feel any of that. I don’t think, like, any pandering for some, like, social causes or any.

AZIZ ANSARI: Just trying to be very real and, and very funny and, and, you know, good.

THEO VON: Dude, I’m fing excited about finishing it. Oh, because your character starts to get like, what the f? I thought he was great. And then he’s like, but you see the different parts of us that can come out and come to the surface when different things, like, are attached to us.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, but when we were making the movie, Seth and I would talk about, like, you know, how we’d go to movie theaters and see movies like Anchorman or Superbad or, you know, Pineapple Express. And you’d have like a room. It’d be like a stand up show, you know, like a room full of people erupting.

And, you know, it’s like what we feel when you do stand up. Like, if we did stand up and there was only like one person in the crowd, that’s not the same thing. Like, the people make a difference. So, like seeing a movie, a comedy in theaters, it’s something that’s kind of gone away after the pandemic and everything. And I hope we can bring it back.

I mean, we were just in Chicago last night and we screened the movie. We’ve been doing these, like, little secret screenings. And I’ve been sitting in a little bit and watching it. I’m like, I don’t even remember the last time I’ve been in a packed theater watching a comedy. So I hope the movie works and that people get to make more comedies and they get to see them in theaters because, you know, it’s something that I miss.

And yeah, I mean, especially because our movie’s like an original movie, a comedy theatrical. It, it’s tough to get it done.

THEO VON: I mean, I really am not even lying or joking or pandering to you or to our fans. I wouldn’t say that I think it’s worth going to see. I think if you took a date or a friend or your buddy, you guys would have a good time. It would be worth your money. It’d be worth driving over there and sitting in there so far, and I’m not even done with it unless it gets really bad.

AZIZ ANSARI: No, no, the back end. Oh, man, the back is great. We’d have to talk about it afterwards because it really relates to a lot of the things. Some of the stuff we were talking about earlier, some of the emotional things we were talking about in terms of just, just kind of seeing other people and seeing what they’re going through and just kind of giving them a look. You know, I was thinking about that when my mom was telling me that story, but.

The Drive to Do More

THEO VON: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was a great story, man. Do you feel like, why do you feel like you have to do so much? Because this is something I struggle with in my own life. Like, I, I think I need to.

AZIZ ANSARI: Have a kid or something, because I, I feel like as I’ve gotten older, you know, I do things like, oh, yeah, I, you know, I was, like, prolific.

THEO VON: You’ve done so many TV shows, you’ve written, you’ve directed. You’ve won, haven’t you won an Emmy before?

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, won two Emmys.

THEO VON: Damn, brother gang. Yeah, but I’m just saying, like, and sorry. I don’t know. I don’t know a lot about that.

AZIZ ANSARI: No, it’s fine.

THEO VON: But, but.

AZIZ ANSARI: But doing too much.

THEO VON: Why do you have, do you, do you ever know why you feel like you, because some people, they could do half of that and feel extremely accomplished, and they would be. But do you feel like, is it, is it financial? Which is fine. It’s definitely nice to have money and have security. Is it like, is there something that you find because.

AZIZ ANSARI: Not financial. Because doing movies, I, you know, I take would make way more money touring, like, losing money doing these movies, like, try to make a movie for theaters. It’s kind of like trying to be like, “Hey, I want to build a Tower Records.” Good luck, Aziz. It’s not, what’s the lucrative thing? You know what I mean?

Like, it’s interesting because my, like, heyday of touring and everything was probably, you know, 10 years ago when I did the Garden and all that stuff, I was touring like crazy. And back in that time, not many people were doing theaters and arenas. Like, there was only a few people. And now it’s like, f*ing everybody does.

And when I go on tour, I’m like, who the f*, who’s Alton Brown? The chef? He’s playing the DPAC center in Durham. He’s just chopping food up, and people are coming. Everybody’s on tour, dude.

THEO VON: There’ll be a dude julienning a carrot for 11,000 people.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yes. And you’re like, what, dude, Is It Cake? That TV show? Is It Cake? Is going on tour? I’m like, like, yes.

THEO VON: Who gives a f*? Yes, Is It Cake Tour? And you’re like, wait, that’s what I’m competing with.

AZIZ ANSARI: People in stands with binoculars trying to figure out.

THEO VON: It was not like this at 70 yards.

AZIZ ANSARI: It’s ridiculous.

The Touring Landscape

AZIZ ANSARI: It was not like this fondant. It was not like this. And in that time, there was a whole podcast boom. Everybody found an audience. You didn’t, you cut out the middlemen of Netflix or whatever. People are putting stuff on YouTube, and now all these people are touring, and there’s been this massive boom. And I, during that time, made my TV series, worked on these movies and have kind of stepped away.

THEO VON: When you come back, you’re touring again?

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, I’m touring again now. And it’s been so fun. And I have, I’ve had a great time, but I’m also like, damn, dude. The travel, it hits me in a different way. And like, I’m.

THEO VON: Yeah.

AZIZ ANSARI: You see October 23rd, I’m getting stressed. I’m like, I can’t go to Temecula. I got to cancel Temecula, San Diego. Oh, God. Modesto, Monterey. Oh, God. At least I can hub out of LA. Oh, no. Then I got to fly to Cincinnati on the 13th. Oh, God. Then we got to fly to Louisville. TSA is going to be closed. There’s going to be, like one air traffic controller. Then I’m probably going to go down on my way to St. Louis. That’s going to be delayed.

THEO VON: Indianapolis will be fun, dude.

AZIZ ANSARI: Then I go see my family in Charlotte. That’s nice. I love Asheville. Asheville is a great, great town. And Savannah is a great town.

THEO VON: Savannah’s beautiful, too.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah. No, I love the show and I love being in the different cities because, you know, when you tour, you form relationship with these cities.

THEO VON: Oh, you’re excited to go back. You’re excited to see, like, oh, look at this crowd. This one’s different. This energy. This place is. Yeah.

The Value of Live Stand-Up

AZIZ ANSARI: And what’s so cool is, and I think this is why people like to go to live stand-up, even if you watch a special, it’s not the same as that show in that town. And it’s really fun.

You know, for me, this tour, it’s been fun because I haven’t toured in a while, so it’s a lot of stuff that’s happened. You know, I’ve been married. Me and my wife are trying to have a kid and to go back to the thing we were talking about of doing too much like the movies, I feel like that comes from, I have an idea and I have this vision of—it sounds cheesy to say vision, but I have a vision of something I want to execute. And it’s something I’m really excited about.

And I’m racing to be on set to do, it could just be like, I’m writing something now and I have this one scene. I’m like, oh, man, I just want to shoot that scene. I think this would be—so I’ve got to get there. And it’s a long time to get there. Movies are so slow. You’ve got to work with so many other people. It’s a nightmare.

But I do it because I really love films and I want to make more films. But I do think I realized recently, I’ve got to calm down. I think I’ve overestimated my ability to work. And as I get older, you know, you burn out. I’ve seen friends that are burned out.

The Reality of Burnout

THEO VON: Oh, dude, you’re looking at one of them. We’re not even friends, but you’re looking at somebody that’s been burnt out. But we could maybe be friends.

AZIZ ANSARI: I mean, I hope so. Dude, we went deep here. This is deeper than I went on any other podcast. We talked about some heavy stuff.

THEO VON: Yeah.

AZIZ ANSARI: In a great way. I love it. I mean, I think this is so much fun.

THEO VON: A lot of this stuff on here, it’s important, you know, it’s nice to—

AZIZ ANSARI: I really like it. But no, that burnout feeling, it’s real.

THEO VON: I started shedding hair recently, dude. We had a retired Boston detective with some of the craziest stories, found a wiener on the sidewalk. And it was a real whodunit or whatever. Obviously, the person missing the wiener did it, but—so it was pretty kind of easy. It wasn’t like Knives Out, actually. It was like knives out. It’s a long story, but anyway. Oh, shit, I forgot I was talking about—

AZIZ ANSARI: We were talking about the burnout.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, the burnout is real. That happens, dude. Yeah, it started shedding hair, all that stuff.

Learning to Say No

AZIZ ANSARI: It’s tough to say no, too. Because, you know, you’re having a moment right now, and I’ve had a moment, and, you know, people start telling you to do all this stuff, and no one on your side of the business is going to be like, dude, you’ve got to chill. You’ve got to take some rest. No one ever says that.

They’re like, well, that’s a great opportunity. You should do it. And you’re like, well, that’s a great opportunity. I should do it. And when I was younger, I could do all that stuff. And I look back at schedules and stuff I did. I’m like, how did I do all this? I can’t do it anymore. At this age, it’s a different thing. And I’m married now. It’s like, I’ve been away from my wife a lot, and I don’t feel nice about it sometimes.

THEO VON: Well, look, I have a suggestion that’ll help you relax. Go watch Good Fortune. Go to your—go with your wife. I’m not even joking. Go sit and watch it. You’ll like it. You guys will laugh. You’ll get to spend some time together. It’s good. I do know it’s out October 17th. I do want to remind everybody about that.

AZIZ ANSARI: Thank you.

Living Away from the Circus

THEO VON: I feel lucky you get to be in London. One of my favorite musicians, James Blake, lives over there. Dermot Kennedy, he’s in the United Kingdom. He’s a guy that I really love. Who actually is coming in town soon. Yeah, I would love to get to live over there. Sometimes people feel very—

AZIZ ANSARI: It’s nice you’re a little bit—I mean, you probably feel this here, too. You’re a little bit away from the circus.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah. I feel totally good. And the circus is dissolved. The circus is—

AZIZ ANSARI: It’s a different thing. You don’t really need to be there anymore.

THEO VON: They’re finding new places. There’s new mini circuses popping up.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, yeah. But then, but, yeah, but is Nashville becoming a circus?

THEO VON: No, I don’t think so. Not too much. It still feels kind of small. There’s a lot of people moving here and a lot of stuff going on, but it still feels pretty small.

AZIZ ANSARI: No, I mean, I feel like that in London that I’m away from things. Whenever I go back to LA, I start feeling like, oh, my God, I’m falling behind. I need to do this. Because you hear about it, oh, I’ve just made this. I’m working on—I’m like, oh, shit, what am I doing? I’m not doing anything.

THEO VON: You’ve done so much, dude. I mean, from all—from television to—I know you had that series. I watched for a while on Netflix.

AZIZ ANSARI: It was just you. Yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: That was Master of None.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: The book that you wrote. I know about dating and struggling of love. You’ve done enough. You’ve done—let me tell you this, if nobody ever tells you, you’ve done enough.

AZIZ ANSARI: No, but finishing the movie is a big deal and I’m glad I did it because it took a minute to get it done. And I’m really proud of it and proud of the work that I did, my whole team did, all the actors did, and I’d love to make more, but—yeah, I definitely—I hear you. And it’s—

THEO VON: You’ve done a lot. That’s what I mean.

AZIZ ANSARI: I didn’t mean enough.

THEO VON: I didn’t mean enough.

AZIZ ANSARI: No, no, no, I know you mean it. I appreciate it. Yeah.

Remembering Nafees

THEO VON: And I think—yeah. And your sister would be so proud of you. What was her name again? I want to say it one time. Nafees. It’s such a pretty name. How do you spell it?

AZIZ ANSARI: N, A, F, E, E, Z.

THEO VON: Ooh. Nafees.

AZIZ ANSARI: I’m so glad we talked about that, because I feel like I’m here with some people that work with me, and they’re like, wait, what?

THEO VON: I think when we say people’s names out loud, people that have been a part of our lives, when we say people’s names, they feel that wherever they are. That is a felt thing, because otherwise, why would we feel it? You know what I’m saying?

AZIZ ANSARI: No, it’s bringing their—it’s putting them in the—

THEO VON: Yeah. And I believe it’s like—I believe they feel it. Wherever they are, they feel it. You know, I think you definitely—if you’re here for this long, you definitely keep an anchor locked in.

Manny and the Comedy Cellar

AZIZ ANSARI: I mean, the other person I was going to mention and tell me we can if you—I don’t want you to run late for whatever. But the other person I was thinking of when I was talking about Lucien was—have you ever heard of Manny that ran the Comedy Cellar?

THEO VON: Mm.

AZIZ ANSARI: Mm. Manny Dorman was the owner of the Comedy Cellar. His son Noam’s there now.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, I know Noam.

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah. Yeah. So Noam’s dad is Manny.

THEO VON: Okay.

AZIZ ANSARI: First time I ever did comedy was at the Comedy Cellar. They had a new talent night, which doesn’t even exist anymore. Now they just have 10 comedy cellars and 10 shows. But this was back in the day, they had a new talent night at 6 o’clock, and you’d bring a couple of friends and they’d give you stage time.

And I did that. And I was 18 years old, summer of my freshman year in college. Didn’t do good at all. I did well. My material was terrible, but I did well because I was very comfortable on stage and public speaking, and I was just kind of funny. And it worked.

And I came back and did it again, and I did a couple of open mics and, you know, had a reality check. I was like, oh, f*, this is really hard. And then the third time I did stand-up, third time I ever did stand-up was again at the Comedy Cellar. And it was one of these new talent nights. And I—for some reason, this crowd, me—it just didn’t go well. No, no. Went super well.

THEO VON: Oh, f*. All your stories in a way that go good.

AZIZ ANSARI: And they went nuts. And I said something at the end. I was like, oh, by the way, we perform where we bring a certain number of friends, I’m running out of friends. So if you want to come, say hi backstage or whatever. And I was just being serious, and they were all just losing it.

And Manny saw this, and he said, there’s Manny. And he goes—he basically came up, and it was like some old Hollywood thing. He was like, “You’re ready for the big room.” I’d done stand-up three times. There’s no way I was ready to perform at the hardest comedy club. And this is Comedy Cellar, where it’s like Dave Chappelle, Jim Norton. He’s like, “You’re ready for the big room.”

And so I would show up there, and they would put me on late at night. Almost like a late night. They would—it was really odd because I probably—I shouldn’t have been doing it. I was just so green, and I was doing it. And eventually, you know, Esther, who’s the—you know, famously runs the Comedy Cellar pass—it’s comedy. She was like, okay, let’s you go on. And I went on, and she was like, yeah, you—you can’t be performing here. Yeah. She’s like, you can’t be—can’t be doing this. She’s f*ing tough. I was a little kid. She was like, you can’t—you can’t be doing this. You’re not ready. And I was like, okay.

And then, you know, now again, one of the—you know, me, Master of None, whatever—this, to me is the coolest thing, is that I can perform at the Comedy Cellar and just drop in and they’ll just let me do material and perform, and then the crowd goes nuts and knows who I am. That’s the craziest thing to me.

THEO VON: That’s crazy.

AZIZ ANSARI: That’s above everything else. And my biggest dream, I told people, is that I’m just 90 years old, and I drop into the Comedy Cellar, and maybe a couple of people know who I am, but that I’m able to f*ing hold my own.

But anyway, I was there at the Comedy Cellar one night, and me and Esther were talking about this, and she was like, you know, Manny saw you whenever you were really young. And he must be up there smiling now, seeing all you’ve done. And, yeah, that made me smile. And I wasn’t super, super close with Manny, but he was another guy before Lucien, oddly, even saw me in this. Just said something.

The Power of Encouragement

THEO VON: What’s a reminder, I think for anybody that has been in a field for a while of when you take a moment to connect with somebody that’s just coming into it, you know, that it could have an effect, you know, that’s a nice reminder.

AZIZ ANSARI: It means the world to them. And you don’t realize because I think we’re all—we’re all in our own head and don’t realize.

THEO VON: I mean, yeah, especially when you’re young, there’s one person having to believe, oh, good job. Just little things like that. And I’m still grateful. It reminded me that Neal Brennan and Amy Schumer are the ones that helped me get past at the Comedy Cellar.

AZIZ ANSARI: Oh, wow.

THEO VON: And I’ve only performed there probably six, seven times, maybe 10. But I walked in the other night, and I was so nervous. Do you want to go up? I was like, no way. I’m not freaking going up, dude. But I think some of that’s just places you used to be in, you know? So—Aziz, I’ve got to go, man. Thank you so much.

AZIZ ANSARI: Oh, man, this was such a great conversation. I really enjoyed it, and we talked about so many interesting things and really some heavy stuff. But I thought it was great, and I’m so glad we had the opportunity to do it.

THEO VON: I appreciate it, man. I think it’s exciting that you get to live in London and have a new experience. It sounds like you’ve had a lot of unique experiences, and that’s such a gift, you know. God’s had a lot of grace, it seems like, in your whole just ability to be creative and, man, thank you for sharing that with us.

AZIZ ANSARI: Oh, thanks, man. Thank you for having me.

THEO VON: You bet. And best of luck with the film dude, out October 17th. So this week, I think, and all right, everybody, be good.

AZIZ ANSARI: Thanks so much.

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