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Aasif Mandvi
Aasif Mandvi, November 2007
Born	Aasif Mandviwala March 5, 1966 (1966-03-05) (age 43) Bombay, Maharashtra, India
Occupation	Actor, comedian, writer
Years active	1995–present
Official website

Aasif Mandviwala^[1] (born March 5, 1966), known professionally as Aasif Mandvi, is an Indian-born, British-raised, American actor and comedian. He began appearing as an occasional contributing correspondent on The Daily Show on August 9, 2006. On March 12, 2007, he was promoted to a regular correspondent.^[2]

Life and career

Mandvi was born in Bombay (now Mumbai), India^[3] to a Muslim family.^[1] His family moved to Bradford, England when he was one year old. He emigrated with his family to Tampa, Florida, USA when he was 16. After studying theatre at the University of South Florida, Mandvi worked as a performer at Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World.^[1] He later moved to New York City where he began appearing in off-Broadway productions. He won an Obie Award for his critically acclaimed one-man show Sakina's Restaurant.^[4]

On Broadway, Mandvi appeared as Ali Hakim in the 2002 revival of Oklahoma! directed by Trevor Nunn.^[5] He also appeared in the play Homebody/Kabul by Tony Kushner. He recently portrayed the German chemist Fritz Haber in the off-Broadway play Einstein's Gift. Mandvi played Melchior in On the Razzle by Tom Stoppard at the Williamstown Theatre Festival and appeared in the docudrama Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom at The Culture Project.

Mandvi played minor roles in the films The Siege, and Die Hard with a Vengeance as well as the title role in Merchant Ivory Productions' film The Mystic Masseur. He also had a major supporting role in the independent film American Chai, playing the lead character's roommate, "Engineering Sam." At the time Mandvi was also involved with a New York–based band, Cowboys and Indian. He played the doctor who diagnosed Paul Vitti's (Robert De Niro) panic attacks in Analyze This, and had a memorable role as Mr. Aziz of "Joe's Pizza" in Spider-Man 2. He was also in a Domino's Pizza commercial. He played the tone deaf doorman Khan in Music and Lyrics. Mandvi also played Bob Spaulding in the movie The Proposal.

He has been in numerous television shows; ER, The Sopranos, Sex and the City, CSI, Oz, Ed, The Bedford Diaries, Jericho, Sleeper Cell and various editions of Law & Order, including Criminal Intent, Special Victims Unit and Trial by Jury. Mandvi was the reader for the books on audio editions of Salman Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown (2005) and V. S. Naipaul's Magic Seeds (2004).

In 2008, Mandvi began production on the film 7 to the Palace which he co wrote with The Daily Show ex-writer Jonathan Bines.^[4] He also co-starred as a Guantanamo captive in the film The Response, a script based on the transcripts of Combatant Status Review Tribunals convened in Guantanamo in 2004.^[6]

He most recently played a dentist alongside Ricky Gervais in the romantic comedy Ghost Town, as well as an office employee in The Proposal, starring Sandra Bullock. He will play Admiral Zhao in M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender, based on the popular animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender. Today's Special, which Mandvi co-wrote with Jonathan Bines, premiered at New York's Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival on November 11, 2009.^[7]

Works

Filmography

Actor

Writer

Stage

Actor

Writer

References

External links

• Aasif Mandvi Dot Com, official Aasif Mandvi website.
• Aasif Mandvi at the Internet Movie Database
• "A Man Called Mandvi", Nirali Magazine, February 2007
• "This is you, America. Are you ok with it?" - Interview