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" I really love D.C.; it's one of my favorite places to perform. I always say when I come here, I feel like my IQ increases by 20 points. "
Maz Jobrani
Like
Love
Places
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" Stereotypes exist because there's always some truth to stereotypes. Not always, but often. "
Maz Jobrani
Because
Stereotypes
Truth
" 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. "
Maz Jobrani
Life
Daily
Daily Life
" 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.' "
Maz Jobrani
You
Car
Know
" I thought, 'Oh, acting is going to be great - I get to play different parts.' And then these auditions started coming up for terrorist, terrorist, terrorist, and I'm going, 'Whoa, what's this about?' "
Maz Jobrani
Different
Great
Play
" I've sold shows based on my standup twice to CBS, but they've never gone past the script stage. TV is very competitive. "
Maz Jobrani
Stage
Past
TV
" 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. "
Maz Jobrani
Name
You
Remember
" 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.' "
Maz Jobrani
Going
Joke
Crazy
" 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. "
Maz Jobrani
Problems
Time
Got
" 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. "
Maz Jobrani
Me
Waiting
New York
" You know the Middle East is going crazy when Lebanon is the most peaceful place in the region. "
Maz Jobrani
You
Peaceful
Know
" If you come from a place of love, and you're not saying, 'I'm better than you,' that's one thing that allows you to talk about different ethnicities. It's almost like laughing with each other. "
Maz Jobrani
Place
Saying
Better
" Part of what's great about America, and Canada as well, is that we can talk about our political leaders in public. "
Maz Jobrani
Canada
America
Political
" I played Li'l Abner and Batman in school plays; I wanted to be an actor to play all these different characters. "
Maz Jobrani
Actor
Batman
Different
" It's true that some countries have more volatility, but each also has nuances we don't even know about. "
Maz Jobrani
More
True
Some
" 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.' "
Maz Jobrani
Me
She
Comedy
" Coming from L.A. to D.C., I'm always impressed that in D.C., people are doing the things that the people in L.A. are pretending to do. Whenever I'm in D.C., I ask people what they do, and they say, 'I'm with the agency, or I'm with State.' In L.A., I ran into a guy who said, 'I'm working on an audition for a guy who happens to be with an agency.' "
Maz Jobrani
Ask
Say
Said
" I think it's funny that nobody wants to be liked by Washington. All the politicians go, 'I don't like Washington. They don't like me.' I always find it funny that people are trying to distance themselves from Washington as much as they can, even though they're all in Washington. "
Maz Jobrani
Think
Me
Funny
" I wish more Americans would travel here. I always encourage my friends: 'Travel. See the Middle East. There's so much to see, so many good people.' And it's vice versa, and it helps stop problems of misunderstanding and stereotypes from happening. "
Maz Jobrani
People
Friends
Good
" Don't get me wrong. I don't mind playing bad guys. I want to play a bad guy. I want to rob a bank. I want to rob a bank in a film. I want to rob a bank in a film but do it with a gun - with a gun, not with a bomb strapped around me. "
Maz Jobrani
Play
Mind
Me
" 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. "
Maz Jobrani
America
Reality
Take
" Any standup that you see who you go, 'Oh, wow, that guy's, you know, that guy's making it.' Inevitably, they've been doing it 10, 12 years - 10, 15 years. Because it takes time. "
Maz Jobrani
You
Go
Know
" 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. "
Maz Jobrani
America
View
Look
" I started acting in junior high. I was in 'Guys and Dolls.' I was Stanley Kowalski. In my head, before coming to Hollywood, I thought, 'I can play anything.' "
Maz Jobrani
Acting
Play
I Can
" When you're a stand-up comic, you live and die by what you say on stage. There's no director or writer or producer who can tell you what to say and not to say. Once in a while, a club owner will ask a comic to work clean, or not say something, but that's few and far between. "
Maz Jobrani
Die
Say
Stage
" A cultural thing that is funny to me is that every time I go out in D.C. after a show, all the nightclubs and restaurants are owned by Iranians and Afghans. It's funny to me how we lost our countries but we gained the nightlife. "
Maz Jobrani
Time
Funny
Go
" 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. "
Maz Jobrani
Back
Comedy
Done
" I was at UC Berkeley as an undergrad when my father lost a lot of money in real estate investments in Northern California. He wanted a change of pace, so in the early '90s, my family moved to L.A., right in the middle of Tehrangeles. It was a culture shock for me. "
Maz Jobrani
Father
Change
Culture
" I meet a lot of people when I do stand-up in the Middle East, and I don't know any terrorists, yet on TV and in the movies, 9 out of 10 are depicted as terrorists. "
Maz Jobrani
Meet
Out
Movies
" One of the first memories I have, we went to - actually, we stopped in New York for a little bit, and I remember going to Macy's with my mom. And I was a big fan of the color orange, and they had Snoopy orange gloves, hat and scarves. And I bought it, and it was the best thing ever. I loved America right there. That was it. "
Maz Jobrani
Best
Mom
Memories
" Your stereotypical L.A. Persian kids were not working at Sbarro pizza in the mall, but I was. "
Maz Jobrani
Pizza
Were
Working