Aasif Mandvi

I always focused on being an actor. I did stand-up briefly, but I also did a lot of dramatic work. But since I've been on 'The Daily Show,' people think I'm a comedian. That's not how I see myself. ”

I'm a little bit like a turducken: I'm sort of like an Indian person, wrapped in a British person, wrapped in an American kind of thing. ”

When I got to Florida, I was a British kid, but I was also an Indian kid: a brown kid with an English accent. Talk about being an outsider. And that's become the theme of a lot of the stuff I write about. ”

I was born in Mumbai, but I grew up in England, and then my adulthood has been in the States. I'm an American stuffed with an English person with an Indian person inside. I feel like those things kind of inform me in some way, which I think helps me as an actor. ”

I think I would like to see more roles for South Asian performers that are more inclusive and part of the American Diaspora, the American tapestry, perhaps the way that African American and Hispanic roles have developed. ”

I figure if people don't want to make the distinction between a Muslim and a terrorist, then why should I make a distinction between good scared white people and racists? ”

I'm Muslim the way many of my Jewish friends are Jewish: I avoid pork, and I take the big holidays off. ”

In America, people think being South Asian is still kind of exotic. When you go outside New York and Chicago and L.A., there are people who have never tried Indian food... they've never even tasted it! ”

For my parents' generation, the idea was not that marriage was about some kind of idealized, romantic love; it was a partnership. It's about creating family; it's about creating offspring. Indian culture is essentially much more of a 'we' culture. It's a communal culture where you do what's best for the community - you procreate. ”

The experience of being on a show that is very much in the center of popular culture is exciting. You really feel like you're reaching people. ”