Aziz Ansari Interview

Aziz Ansari: People think everything happened all at once, but I’ve actually been doing this for eight years. I was 18 when I started. I was hanging out with some friends and they asked if I had tried stand-up before. I hadn’t, but I thought: "What the hell?" So I went to an open mic night, and I liked it.

Askmen.com: You make it sound easy. It wasn’t terrifying?

AA: I mean, it was terrifying the first time, but it was fun. And people laughed. So that was good. If it had continued to be terrifying, I probably would have stopped. I’m not very brave. As long as people laugh, it’s not scary.

AM: And they’ve always laughed?

AA: Well, writing your own jokes, you just kind of keep working on something until you think it might work, and then you try it out and hope for the best. After you do a joke a few times, you have material that you know works. Although sometimes I have a joke that has worked a bunch of times and then one night it’ll flop. And that’s when I really take a hard look at myself and say: "Well, that crowd is obviously wrong. That crowd has absolutely no idea what it’s talking about."

Aziz Ansari Interview / askmen.com