Maz Jobrani Quotes
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I've grown so accustomed to my life in L.A., going to a Coffee Bean or getting breakfast at Kings Road Cafe. I've seen a lot of the world, but the diversity we have here is different. It's a mishmash, which is a nice comfort.
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Comedy comes from tragedy, and being Iranian in America from 1979 on had been quite tragic. In stand-up comedy, I was able to take the reality and exaggerate it.
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Most comics point out what everyone else is thinking but hadn't thought of verbalizing. I guess, in a way, that makes most comics seers. It just depends in what category - some choose to be the seers of relationships, some are seers of racial issues, and some are seers of political issues.
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Unlike the U.S., Iran has no problems with low-voter turnout in elections; the last time, the government got the support of 110 per cent of the population.
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Humor is always important. There are people who help us deal with difficulty or hardship; from the concentration camps to the court jester, there was a need for humor. As long as these kinds of things exist, with repressive regimes, you need it to deal with the weight of daily life.
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One of the jobs of comedy is to expose hypocrisy. When you look at countries like Iran or North Korea that don't have freedom of speech, we who do should push it as far as we need to.
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You know the Middle East is going crazy when Lebanon is the most peaceful place in the region.
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Iranians and Arabs aren't considered diversity because we still don't have minority status in America. There was a group of Middle Eastern actors trying to get SAG to recognize us as part of the diversity they should look out for, because we do represent a different point of view. When OscarsSoWhite happened, I felt part of that.
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Stereotypes exist because there's always some truth to stereotypes. Not always, but often.
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I played Li'l Abner and Batman in school plays; I wanted to be an actor to play all these different characters.
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My mother was very wary at first. And now she's come around 180 degrees. She's, like, one of my biggest fans now. Like, she'll come over to my house, and she'll be like, 'OK, listen. I need two T-shirts from the comedy show, and give me three DVDs. The neighbors are asking for them.'
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I've always had a foot in everything. As a kid, I was active in sports and theater. Now, I'm learning I have to focus a bit. I'm trying to get to next projects, like writing a screenplay. Once that comes together, I could put my mind to another book - maybe a fun kids' book.
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Every time I see Trump on TV these days, I'm waiting for him to burst out, 'Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!' That would make sense to me - that this has all been one long 'Saturday Night Live' sketch.
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I remember I was in a San Francisco nightclub, and I started talking to some girl, and it was like, 'Hey, what's going on, what's your name?' You know, 'Where are you from?' I go, 'I'm from Iran.' And literally, she just looked at me and walked away.
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Coming from an immigrant background, where a lot of parents don't want their kids to be comedians, success was just showing my mom that I could make a living. I was like, if I can get my mom off my back, that was my success.
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I don't know why, anytime you see a car filled with people, it's either Middle Easterners or Mexicans. It's one of those two. Even for short trips, my dad would be like, 'Okay, everybody in the car.'
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I want to show another side of Middle Easterners. My hope is that I would be able to play a variety of parts, and not always be the guy with the accent.
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You know how hard it's been to write material? Because to do stand-up comedy, it takes time for the material to develop. So you'll come up with a joke, you'll tweak it, you'll work it for six months, you really fine tune it, and now you've got a good bit. Well, with Trump, every day there's something new coming out.
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It's true that some countries have more volatility, but each also has nuances we don't even know about.
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The first acting part I ever got was a guest spot on 'Chicago Hope' playing a security guard. I thought, 'Oh, this is going to be cool.' But a little bit later, I got a vague part on this short-lived show called 'Marshall Law' with Arsenio Hall and Sammo Hung. It was a poor man's 'Rush Hour.'
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Here's my advice to my brown friends: The next time you're on an airplane in the U.S., just speak your mother tongue. That way, no one knows what you're saying. Life goes on.
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One thing about D.C. that's funny to me is that you end up running into famous political figures who you've seen on television who you think are not real until you see them.
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The first time I performed at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles, I was in the back of the room doing vocal exercises. 'Me-me-me, my-my-my, mo-mo-mo.' And I'm looking around, and no one else is doing it. I'm like, 'They must have done it before they came to the club.' I came to realize that I was an idiot.
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The fact is, the Middle East has been going crazy for 50, 60, 70 years. So it's not like, 'Oh, I need an ISIS joke.'