Maz Jobrani Quotes

When I told my parents I wanted to be an actor, my mom was, like, 'I think I heard you say lawyer.'

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.

Americans don't know a lot about the Middle East - [they] don't know we laugh.

She was always a loving mother who did what she thought was best. Sometimes that included hitting us with clothes hangers when we were young, but I'm sure we had it coming. To this day I have flashbacks when the dry cleaner asks me if I want my shirts folded or on hangers. I love my mom dearly, and thanks to her all my shirts now come home from the dry cleaner's folded.

Definitely in the West, we're all cast as the same now. Whether you're Indian, Pakistani, Arab, Iranian, Afghan or whatever, you just get thrown into this category. And nine times out of 10, you're depicted as bad.

So why someone would kill themselves to be with seventy-two inexperienced women is beyond me.

I tend not to make fun of religious groups anywhere I play.

After our clips were seen on YouTube, we gained some fame and were invited to Dubai to kick off a five country tour of the region. This was a big deal because no American-based comedy troupe had ever gone to the Middle East to perform for Middle Eastern people. As a matter of fact, normally whenever Middle Easterners hear the words "American" and "troop" in a sentence, it usually means their country is about to be attacked. So it was important for us to emphasize the word "comedy" when publicizing our Dubai arrival. It was also important for us to spell troupe with a "u". What a difference a vowel makes.

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.

September 11 The morning of September 11, 2001, I was in Los Angeles. Like many people, I could not believe what I was watching on TV. It was heartbreaking to see all the misery and even more heartbreaking because it was happening to New York, which will always hold a special place in my heart. At the time, my younger brother, Kashi, was working near the Twin Towers, so my first instinct was to call and make sure he was okay. Once that had been confirmed I drove around Los Angeles visiting my family, in shock. As the

You know, funny can be universal.