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" I've had people come up to me after the show and say, 'Why did you not make fun of Pakistan?' People are actually upset you didn't talk about them. "
Maz Jobrani
Say
People
You
Related Quotes:
" You know, funny can be universal. "
Maz Jobrani
Know
Funny
Universal
" 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
" 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
" 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. "
Maz Jobrani
Political
Thought
Thinking
" 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
" 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. "
Maz Jobrani
Immigrant
Parents
Mom
" A lot of times in Hollywood, when casting directors find out you're of Middle Eastern descent, they go, 'Oh, you're Iranian? Great. Can you say, 'I will kill you in the name of Allah?'' I could say that, but what if I were to say, 'Hello, I'm your doctor.' "
Maz Jobrani
Allah
You
Name
" Comedy can take you a lot further in getting your point across. People are entertained, and then, by being entertained, they get your point. "
Maz Jobrani
Take
Your
You
" 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
" You have to laugh at yourself. I do a lot of humor about all ethnicities that are at the show - Latinos, Asians, Indians... What I say is, 'We're laughing together. I'm laughing with you, not at you.' Never say, 'Oh, I'm better than you.' "
Maz Jobrani
Together
Laugh
Better
" 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
" 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
" I took one acting class as an undergrad, and I loved it. I was in a very avant-garde play at UCLA about a closeted, married homosexual. I played his father. "
Maz Jobrani
Class
Play
Acting
" 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
" 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. "
Maz Jobrani
Show
Variety
Always
" 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
" 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 grew up in Northern California - Marin County, Tiburon. And it's interesting. It's a very rich place, but a lot of the affluent people are - they're not as showy. So, like, they might have, like, a Saab or a Volvo. And then here comes my dad from Iran. He buys a Rolls-Royce. "
Maz Jobrani
Place
Interesting
Like
" I saw the discrimination that was happening towards Middle Easterners, Muslims and other brown people who had nothing to do with 9/11. It suddenly felt like a duty of mine to talk about some of the crazy things that were going on and make fun of how stupid it was. "
Maz Jobrani
Crazy
Stupid
People
" Your stereotypical L.A. Persian kids were not working at Sbarro pizza in the mall, but I was. "
Maz Jobrani
Pizza
Were
Working
" Once you start listening to the comics, be they Jewish, Muslim, Italian, Filipino or whatever, the material often springs from the same source - the overbearing mom, the parents who want you to marry from within your community. That's why the 'Ethnic Show' works so well. "
Maz Jobrani
Parents
Community
Listening
" When you have demonization of a group of people, it's easy to clump them all together and not understand them. "
Maz Jobrani
Together
Group
Them
" 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
" 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
" 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. "
Maz Jobrani
End
Famous
Funny
" I think it's time that we had a dad of Middle Eastern descent on TV. The time is ripe for the Middle Eastern 'Cosby Show.' Or, as I like to call it, 'The Mazby Show.' "
Maz Jobrani
Think
Show
Middle
" The way we censor in America is the dollar. That's who censors. "
Maz Jobrani
America
Who
Way
" 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. "
Maz Jobrani
Life
Mother
Saying
" Racism has always existed, and a big part of it is people just not knowing others. I think humans change other human's minds, and it's hard for someone in the middle of America to hate Syrian refugees if they've been able to befriend them. "
Maz Jobrani
Racism
Change
Hate
" Be kind. It feels good. "
Maz Jobrani
Good
Be Kind
Feels