The actor and comedian Aasif Mandvi’s three-decade career—which began with a bit part on “Miami Vice”—encompasses three distinct eras of Hollywood. There was the pre-9/11 era, when precious few roles were available to Indian American performers like himself. Frustrated by the scripts he was being offered, he set out to write his own.
The result was the Obie-winning one-man show “Sakina’s Restaurant,” in which he played half a dozen characters, including the unfulfilled immigrant parents who run an unsuccessful eatery and their restless, unappreciative Americanized children. Then came the post-9/11 era, when he broke through as the “Senior Muslim Correspondent” on “The Daily Show” while the industry at large was steeped in Islamophobia. In one memorable segment, Mandvi interviewed a woman who claimed that thirty per cent of Muslims were terrorists—and that their “mother ship” was in Tennessee.
Things shifted again during the streaming era, when a content boom opened new doors to artists of color. Working steadily in various mediums, Mandvi proved quietly ubiquitous, amassing more than a hundred screen credits and appearing in major theatrical productions such as “Oklahoma!” and ’s “Disgraced,” which won the Pulitzer in 2013. Perhaps his most prominent role since his decade on “The Daily Show” is in “Evil,” the critically acclaimed Paramount+ procedural from “The Good Wife” creators , which recently found a larger audience on .
