Aasif Mandvi’s cross-cultural journey
Best known as a contributor to “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” Aasif Mandvi usually reports satirical news pertaining to the Middle East as the “senior Muslim correspondent” or even “senior foreign-looking correspondent.”
Mandvi was born in Mumbai, moved to England a year later and then to Florida as a teenager. He’s written a collection of personal essays called “No Land’s Man” that explore his cross-cultural identity and acting career.
Mandvi describes the journey to his birthplace:
There’s this little children’s theater where I first discovered my bug and penchant and proclivity for performing and acting. I went back after all these years and the place had burned down. The book, you know, is called “No Land’s Man” and I keep searching for a home and ultimately realize that the metaphor of the open field is really the home that I’ve been searching for.
On working for “The Daily Show”:
“The Daily Show” has put me in front of millions of people. It has allowed me to speak into the zeitgeist in a way that very few other jobs could have. There’s very little downside to being on “The Daily Show.” It’s been a great opportunity for me.
I don’t think of myself as a comedian. I think of myself as an actor who does comedy. Even on “The Daily Show,” I feel like that person that I play is a character who happens to have my name but he also has a team of very funny Ivy League-educated Jewish comedy writers that go around with him wherever he goes.
On using his cultural identity as a drive for creative work:
What is it to be a South Asian American man? That question is constantly in my work and will continue to be and actually becomes my source of power now.
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