Aziz Ansari is a 'Master of None'; meet San Fermin; Summer movie preview

There's a common theme of extreme risk aversion. Look, you list out those CBS shows, and that's exactly why I had to make "Master of None." If I don't do that, what am I going to do? I'm going to be an Indian guy that says something funny to MacGyver and then runs away. The whole point of "Master of None" to me is that everyone has incredible drama and comedy in their life no matter who they are. In Hollywood and in film and television, the stand-in for the every-man is a straight, white guy. But it can be anybody. Anyone can lead one of these stories, but the reason why the slate at CBS looks the way it does is they are so scared.

Yes!

You know what's interesting is I saw a quote from President Obama where he said a similar thing, like "When are we going to see some Muslim characters that are not terrorists?" And I wanted to say, we have seen that. My dad and mom are in the show — they're Muslim characters.



When you read these stories about someone being on a plane and they see a brown guy doing math and then they report the guy — that's a knee-jerk reaction to think that person is being racist. But if every time you've see someone like this, it's only been news reports of terrorists and that's all they've ever seen and so they're scared, it's really just a sad side effect of the way our culture shapes the perception of Middle-Eastern Islamic people. If half the time you saw an older Muslim guy it was a goofball like my dad, I think you would have a different perception of what it means to be an older Muslim man. 

When we started making the show, we didn't have these kinds of goals. We were just trying to make a good show. As far as our casting, there are attempts to do diversity that come off as genuine and there are ones that come off as fake. I think ours is genuine. For example, Lena Waithe's part of Denise. We didn't sit down and go, Ooh you know what would be kind of quirky and weird? What if my friend was this queer, lesbian, African-American woman? No. We had a part. It was for a woman who was like my best friend. There was no ethnicity specified. And we met her and she was just so hilarious and we got along so well — we had an instant rapport. And we just said, We should make this woman Denise. And Denise was originally written as a straight character and we were like, no, we're going to make it this woman Lena because she is so funny. Our chemistry is better than anyone else's chemistry that I read with.



Then you have the other version [of diversity in casting] where you have this movie or this TV show where they're like, Man, there's a lot of white people here. It's getting a little uncomfortable. Maybe he has a black friend. Let's just throw a black friend in there. And there's no real attempt at having real diversity.

It's very diverse. We have black people, Indian people and only one white guy. Which is probably the least amount of white guys in any major TV writing room. There are some late night shows where it is solely white guys. Which seems so dumb because then you have so few perspectives. It makes the show better when you have people who are coming from different perspectives and backgrounds. We also do a lot of research with the characters that we write. For example, the "Old People" episode. We showed that script to that actor, and she said it was pretty dead on. We spent a lot of time talking to older women in retirement homes and really got to know them and use them to help craft the character. Going that extra mile is what makes your characters richer and more real.

Yes. We were thinking about the look and the feel of the show. The trend in modern single-camera comedies is very fast-paced. You're cutting from single to single, and people are saying joke, joke, joke. They'll even suck the air out of scenes in editing to make the pacing faster. I don't dislike everything that does that, but, for "Master of None" we started talking about '70s films where the dialogue was a little more naturalistic and slower paced. Some of my favorite films are from Linklater's "Before" trilogy. They just felt so real to me and I wanted the show to feel real like that. 

When Season One ends, my character moves to Italy. I really did move to Italy for a month and a half to this little town called Modena, where I worked in a pasta shop. I really did do that. If you make a really good movie, people don't see it and then ask you to make a sequel in a few months. You wait. Then, when you have something you're excited about, you write it and then you make it. The impetus should be on making a great thing, not keeping people happy. I'm not worried that people are going to forget about the show.

When I was eight, my dad took me to sign up for basketball and we were at the local library. There was a piano there and I guess a bunch of other kids were playing on it, and it was around the corner so my dad couldn't see that I was there. I sat down and started playing it and he thought it was actually somebody who knew how to play, and then he saw that it was me. He [said], "Oh, I guess we got to get this kid into lessons." At least that's the story he tells. Who knows if that's true?

My parents were really supportive of me doing music because they're painters, my sister's a painter, my cousin's a painter. It's a very arts-related family. So they had to tell my sister, "You know, it's OK if you're a doctor." It's like the opposite of the normal problem. 

I got into classical music in college because there was nothing else to study if you wanted to do music. It was that or you could join an a cappella group, God forbid. I mean I can't sing either. So anyway, I just threw myself into it and actually started to really like it. I did play classical piano as a kid, so it kind of clicked. 



Even though I studied classical music, it never felt like it was entirely my world. I actually came to school to study and I was actually way behind everyone else. There were kids who had been doing it since they were 10, with real composition teachers, and I was like totally not that. I was figuring it out as I went. 

When I got out of college, I was hired on a part-time basis as a musical assistant to Nico Muhly, a really incredible composer who lives in New York, and I helped him in whatever small ways I could. The cool thing about that is my own opportunities for writing instrumental music have really opened up because orchestras, choirs and ballets are interested in having a different kind of voice that maybe comes from a different place like San Fermin. 

It is unusual for me to be writing lyrics and to not be singing them, but I know Allen Tate's voice so well and now I know Charlene Kaye's voice so well that it's just like writing for another instrument for me. 



I've never been the frontman for any band that I've been in because I don't sing, never have. It really wasn't until this band that I went ahead and took on the songwriting responsibilities. 

For me, I get bored easily listening to music. Especially on this new one, "Jackrabbit," it'll be in this place for a minute or two, and then it will change totally. I like feeling like the music has infinite possibility to it, but I think you also pay a price for that, right? Because then, you can't just put it on in the background.

For the last ten years we've been overrun with sequels and reboots. We're clearly used to it and we plunk our money down for it because those tend to be the biggest money makers. I don't know if anyone was clamoring for a Tarzan remake. I wasn't. I am excited, however, for "The BFG" because I remember loving that book when I was a kid. I'm also excited to see Steven Spielberg return to his fantasy roots. 

I'm also pretty excited for "Ghostbusters." The trailer didn't look like anything to be too desired, but it has an amazing cast with Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon. I'm just excited to see what they can do to make Ghostbusters even better.

A lot of people like myself will go see both the big stuff and the smaller stuff. I am excited for "Neon Demon." Nicolas Winding Refn did "Drive" and "Only God Forgives," which everyone pretty much hated. But this looks fascinating with Keanu Reeves and Elle Fanning. The trailer is beautiful and just really intriguing.

"Swiss Army Man" premiered at Sundance and all anyone was talking about was Daniel Radcliffe playing a farting corpse on a remote island. I'm looking forward to the quirky stuff as well. 

"Finding Dory" I'll see just because it is Pixar. Despite being a sequel which made me hesistate at first - especially coming 13 years later - I love Ellen and I love Dory. And I hope it can touch some of the same emotional core that some of the great Pixar films do, but not just to rely heavily on gags like Dory having a terrible memory.



The summer series doesn't necessarily mean you aren't going to get really great movies. I anticipate the end of the summer movies with dread. It means that we're going to get a bunch of prestige, Oscar-baiting movies which could be good, but a lot will be beautiful but not very interesting.