WEBVTT - The Talented Mr. Mandvi 0:00:02.320 --> 0:00:05.560 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:12.200 Thing from My Heart. Radio actor, author, producer, playwright and 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:18.479 game show host. Today's guest, Assif Monvy is nothing if 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:21.919 not versatile. You'll recognize the actor from his roles in 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:26.319 Blue Bloods, A Series of Unfortunate Events on Netflix, and 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:30.000 The Daily Show with Jon Stewart as a long term correspondent. 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:34.400 He currently stars in Evil on Paramount Plus and host 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:37.839 the CW panel show What I Lie to You. But 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:41.240 there's more than meets the eye with this multifaceted performer. 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:45.440 Nvy trained in Shakespeare, Ibsen and Chekhov, and his theater 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:49.000 credits include both work on Broadway and the Pulitzer Prize 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:54.000 winning play Disgraced. In the late nineties, Assif Manvi wrote 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:57.920 and starred in the off Broadway one man show Sachina's Restaurant, 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:02.040 which earned him an Obie Award. MV shared with me 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:06.560 how his level of adaptability came to be. Born in Mumbai, 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:10.120 India and raised in Bradford, England, he lived in Bahrain 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:13.640 for the first years of his life, separated from his parents. 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:16.880 I wanted to know what those formative years were like 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:21.160 for him. My grandmother and my grandfather lived in Bahrain, 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:24.880 which is right off the coast of Saudi Arabia and 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:28.880 a little island, one of the wealthiest places in the world. 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:32.280 My great grandfather had gone to Bahrain in the like 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:35.640 early nine hundreds and started a business there, and my 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:39.679 grandfather had a huge toy store in the capital city 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:42.399 of Bahrain. So my grandparents lived there part of the year. 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:45.000 So I went and lived with them in Bahrain when 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:47.880 I was a year and a half old. How long 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:51.600 until I was three? So was it over a year? 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:55.200 Was I? Yeah? It's interesting like the times at that time, 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:59.000 because they sent me on a plane by myself to 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:03.560 Bahrain from London. And I was like, Dad, did you not? 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:05.720 I asked my dad recently actually about this. I was like, 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:08.400 we're not concerned, and and and he I think he 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:10.400 was just like at that time, we just didn't really 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:14.680 worry about it. We didn't We didn't think about what 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:17.440 kind of psychological impact that would have on you, or 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:20.120 even the danger of it. We just sort of gave 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:22.640 you to the airline. The stewardess was very nice, she said, 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:25.120 we'll take care of him. We didn't really think about it, 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:27.480 you know. Yeah, it was sort of that. It was 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:30.280 it was like it was like the stewardess was really 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:32.079 nice and she was going to take care of you, 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:35.400 and and we put you on the plane. I met you, Yeah, 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:38.440 and my grandmother met me on the other side. You know, Um, 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:40.960 this is like it's been a pre and nine eleven world. 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:43.360 There was more of that, and now post nine eleven, 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:45.560 of course it's it's a different world. But do you 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:48.000 recall it all what it was like when you reunited 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:52.079 with them. Yeah, it's actually one of my very earliest 0:02:52.200 --> 0:03:00.480 memories is returning to London Heathrow with my and mother 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:04.840 and like it's it's just a memory of shadows, and 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:07.600 I seem to remember my mother wearing a white sorry 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:10.520 and she's got her arms reached out. But the crazy 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:14.680 part of it is I didn't reckon. I didn't know 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:17.520 who she was, so in the year and a half 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:21.880 that I was gone, I had forgotten about her and 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:25.440 and I sort of acclimated myself to this other life. 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:28.639 And now I was back and she was like, I'm 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:31.520 your mom, And I just remember like that feeling of 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:35.119 holding onto my grandmother's arm and just being like, what's 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:37.240 going on here? You know, like, who are these who 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:40.720 are these strangers? But then my grandparents stayed with me 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:43.880 and my parents, they stayed with us for the next 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:46.839 six months or so for the transition, for the transition 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:49.720 back into the into the UK. Are both your parents 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:52.880 alive now? My mother is not alive, my father is 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:55.680 alive yet either one of them articulate to in your 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:59.040 adult life their feelings about that period, with how difficult 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:02.680 it was for them. My mother talked about it a lot. 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:04.040 It was hard for her to talk about, you know, 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:07.520 it was it was she was a young girl who 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:11.120 didn't have a great deal of agency around it. I 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:14.640 think it was her father's decision to have me go 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:18.279 back and live with him and my grandmother, and and 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:20.560 because he just wanted my parents to get on their 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:23.640 feet a little bit more settled. And I think, you know, 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:27.880 in India, kids are raised in large, communal families, so 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:32.479 that kind of idea, you know, the grandparents and uncles 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:35.159 and aunts and everybody sort of raises At least my 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:37.360 my mother came from that kind of family where everybody 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:40.719 lived together and it was very communal and people raised 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:43.240 each other. So there was very much that sense of like, oh, 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:45.840 you know, we'll send him over there. And and so 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:48.120 my mother did talk about it later in life of 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:52.400 how difficult it was for her in that time, when 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:54.920 you know, she's working, she's doing this job at this 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:59.120 television factory where she's on a conveyor belt with like 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:03.479 you know, vis in this foreign land and her child 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:06.279 is halfway across the world. I think it was really 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:09.600 really difficult for her, And and and she couldn't talk 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:11.359 about it that much. It was the one thing in 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:13.640 her life that I think it was the first thing 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:15.520 she would have changed in her life. I think had 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:19.160 she been able to What's interesting, how I wonder if 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:21.560 there's a commonality here. I find it very often the 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:26.080 people who are asked to grow up quickly, even if 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:29.800 only to negotiate one condition like that, you know, the 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:33.279 transfer at a very early age to the grandparents and 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:35.080 come back and things like that, and you have to 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:38.960 manage your feelings about that. That gives people, I find 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:42.679 who are performers and actors a bit of an edge. 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:46.320 Not everyone has this, not everyone has it to the 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:50.400 same degree, but it gives them kind of a confidence 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:53.760 and a kind of command because they've gotten through things 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:56.080 from an early age that we're difficult to get through. 0:05:57.120 --> 0:05:59.680 And your acting, in your performances, you have an authority 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:02.120 to you. You could play the head of the FBI 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:03.880 that runs into and says, okay, man, here's you know 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:06.600 you You could do any of these things. You can 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:09.120 kiss the girl, you can go say all right, men, 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:12.760 code zero and we're going in. There's a lot of 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:14.599 things you can do. And I always wonder if that 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:19.120 ephemeral quality that people have, like when people say to me, 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:22.400 I'll play parts, and I'll play some really really tough, 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:25.640 mean character. They always want to hire me to play 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:28.320 the guy that straightens people out. And what I say 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:31.919 is I say, it's acting. I say, if I don't 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:34.920 do it, I get fired. So I go in there 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:36.760 and it's acting, meaning it has nothing to do with 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:38.719 me and who I am. I just but but I 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:43.360 have inside me the confidence to jump off that cliff 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:46.760 and make those choices that are stronger choices because of 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:48.880 a certain conditions of my own life, you know what 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:52.080 I mean. Your life wasn't all candy canes and unicorns, 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:54.920 you know what I mean? And and maybe that empowers you. Yeah, 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:59.159 I mean I think that there was a certain level 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:02.600 of probably some of the stuff that I dealt with, 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:07.279 you know, growing up sort of a lot forced me sometimes, 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:10.600 I think, to access my imagination. And you know, I 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:14.680 was a very imaginative child that was creating like little 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:17.239 uh we have the old cassette tapes and I would 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:19.240 I would do like radio plays when I was like 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:21.760 seven or eight years old, you know, and they were 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:24.760 sort of like Monty Python esque, sort of like these 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:27.920 little you know, and and so I was very there 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:30.120 was a lot of escapism for me as a kid, 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:33.880 you know, like escaping out of the sort of the 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:36.880 depression of living in the north of England. My parents 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:39.320 were struggling and they were very loving and they were 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:41.920 a very loving home. But the circumstances I lived in, 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:46.040 and I think also as an immigrant and a brown 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:51.680 kid in a white world at that time, there was 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:54.600 an adaptability that I had to find. I had to 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:56.560 be able to fit in. I had to be able 0:07:56.560 --> 0:08:00.520 to like figure out how to adapt quickly and charm 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:05.400 you and and yeah, and use whatever your humor or 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:09.360 whatever I could. And I think that also, I mean, 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:11.960 I think I had a proclivity towards performing. Maybe you 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:15.000 did too. From very I think that was part of 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:17.400 my d n a, you know, like I just but 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:21.160 I think that it was probably helped along by this 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:23.880 idea that like I, I knew I was sort of 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:28.000 adaptable and mutable, and I felt like I had to be, 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:31.200 you know, to survive. There was a lot of racism 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:33.000 when I was a kid in the north of England. 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:34.880 No I want to talk about that. So when you 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:39.240 get there, you come, and you're there for some brief window, 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:41.480 you leave and go to Bahrain, and you come back. 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:45.880 Describe Bradford at that time, you see and you yourself described, 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:48.400 I'm a brown kid in a white world. What was 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:51.679 it like for you there? It was you know, my 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:54.480 dad had a corner shop what in New York you'd 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:58.480 call it a bodega, and my mom was helped him 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:01.040 in the store. She was also a house way, you know. 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:03.880 And and and it was sort of a lower middle 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:09.280 class life. It was a time when politically in England, 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:13.440 the National Front was very powerful at that time, which 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:19.480 was this very anti immigrant sort of political party run 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:22.280 by this guy named Enoch Powell. And so there was 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:25.800 a lot of of racism in the community and in 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:30.560 the culture, and in and in the rhetoric. And I 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:33.640 do remember getting chased home by a band of kids 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:38.160 after school and getting you know, let's go packy bashing 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:40.280 and all that. So I would get off the bus 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:43.440 and and run and and and the kids would they 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:46.000 would chase me and they and I would get caught 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:47.959 in an alleyway and you have like four kids, you 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:50.160 know what I mean, English kids, and and and that 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:54.200 was a semi regular sort of occurrence, you know, not 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:56.520 say that everyone was like that, but there was that 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:58.720 that went on. And then I went to boarding school, 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:02.800 which the whole other level of insanity when I was 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:05.480 a little bit older, when I was thirteen. But it's 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:09.520 interesting because I looked back on it now with a 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:15.120 certain fondness for the place and the time. But it 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:19.480 was also like a weird hard you know. It wasn't 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:22.160 it wasn't like the It was. It was a rough 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:27.400 kind of upbringing. You know, when you finally leave and 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:32.560 your father wants to go over to the United States. Uh, 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:34.680 he was in the He wanted to get involved in 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:37.280 some kind of textiles work, textile research. Well he was 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:39.640 doing he was doing that in Bradford, but then he 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:42.160 started his own business. Then he left and opened this 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:44.320 corner shop and then he had like a little business 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:47.120 and then he wanted to come to America and just uh, 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:50.760 you know, he was he wanted to open up a business. 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:52.920 I don't want to make it all about race, but 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:56.880 when you leave Bradford and you have a you know, 0:10:56.960 --> 0:10:59.200 whatever amount of that you have to deal with on 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:01.040 a day to day base us and then to come 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:04.960 to Tampa, Florida, I'm not assuming Tampa was the East 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:07.439 Village of New York in terms of its enlightenment. What 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:11.320 was that like that transition? Why Tampa Because my father 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:15.040 had a college roommate who lived in Tampa, and my 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:19.080 dad was originally wanting to move to Canada. And he 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:21.920 had always talked about going to Canada. This was the 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:26.040 eighties thatchers England. It was bad unemployment. My dad had 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:28.720 a small business. He was like, we were doing okay, 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:30.959 but he always sort of talked about going to Canada. 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:32.720 And then he ran. And then he called up his 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:35.400 buddy of his who he went to school within India, 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:39.439 and this guy said, I'm living in Tampa and Florida 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:42.880 is the future. Man, you gotta come, you gotta come. 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:49.800 He was like the city of right. So you know, 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:54.240 I had grown up watching American movies, you know, Hollywood movies. 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:57.480 That was my like escape as a kid. And so 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:01.040 for me, the idea of living in America, I just 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:02.840 thought my life was going to be like the movies, 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:04.800 you know, it was gonna be. And then I get 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:09.079 to America and and so Tampa, Florida was my I mean, 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:10.960 I visited America when I was a kid. I'd gone 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:13.000 to Disney World and all that, you know, but but 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:17.840 Tampa was like my introduction to what America was. And 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:21.400 it was very I went to high school. I was 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:24.320 dropped right in the middle of this high school, and 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:29.560 I just remember how white it was and and and 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:31.839 what was amazing was there were no Indian kids, Like 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:36.199 like Bradford had a large Indo Pakistani community. There was 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:38.000 a lot of it did there was a lot of 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:42.240 racial strife, but there was a large community there in Tampa, Florida. 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:43.920 I was the only I think it was, one of 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:46.160 two Indian kids in my high school. And the other 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:48.720 Indian kid wouldn't talk to me because he saw me 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:51.880 as a liability. So he was like, I'm not gonna 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:54.360 having to do with this new guy. You think you 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:57.240 and I are plotting plotting, right, exactly. He was like 0:12:57.400 --> 0:12:59.120 he was kind of popular. It was in the band, 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:01.160 and you know what I mean. He wouldn't talk to me. 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:05.400 And I remember in the cafeteria all the black kids 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:08.520 would sit on on one side and all the white 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:10.400 kids would sit on the other side. Not because that 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:12.160 was the way it was supposed, that was just the 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:15.840 way it divided up. And it was like there was 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:21.000 no interaction, Like none of my sort of middle class 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:24.760 white friends hung out with any of the black kids. 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:28.160 So it was really interesting. But I got into um. 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:31.560 I found my little drama click in high school and 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:34.680 that's what really saved me. And who mentored you into that, 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:39.839 who emboldened you, who comes to you and or or 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:43.000 what is inside of you It says I want to 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:46.280 hit the drama club or whatever. The first rung on 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:49.839 the ladder is well my really, honestly, I give credit 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:52.480 to my mother. So I had been in this very 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:55.640 private English school when I was in England, and they 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:58.280 didn't have drama class, but they had art. So I 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:01.040 took art. But my mother they knew that there was 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:03.040 always a little bit of I had sort of taken 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:05.839 these after school drama classes and stuff. I used to 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:08.160 be part of this like children's theater group. So my 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:10.559 mother knew that I enjoyed performing. And when I got 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:13.439 to Tampa, you know, you go for the orientation to 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:16.440 high in high school and they have these electives which 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:17.959 we didn't have in England. You know, it was all 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:21.400 very My school was very math science, you know, biology, English, 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:24.320 you know, and so they had these electives and you 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:26.840 could take classes like psychology, which I was like, that 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:30.800 was very very progressive, you know, and so on. There 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:35.440 was a drama and I checked off art because I thought, well, 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:38.680 that's I've done that before. And and my mom looked 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:39.880 at me and she said, are you sure you want 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:42.480 to do art? Because they have drama here, unlike your 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:45.560 school in England, they actually have a drama class. Wouldn't 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:48.640 you rather do drama? I didn't even occur to me 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:51.080 that that was a thing that you could do in school, 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:53.640 and so I said, yeah, maybe I should do that, 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:55.760 and so we scratched our art and we put in 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:58.960 drama and that's how I ended up a sixth period 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:02.200 doing drama class. And when you were there doing the 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:04.840 drama class, what starts to take you It was the 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:06.680 more you do with the more it deepens the more 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:09.360 you like it. Yeah, I think it was always it 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:11.240 was just always in me and I and I had, 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:13.280 like I said, I've been doing sort of like I 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:15.200 was part of a children's theater company when I was 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:18.360 in England after school kind of thing. But just that 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:23.800 became like my tribe, my sort of sanity, you know, 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:27.400 like it just sort of it was where I it was. Yeah. 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:31.080 I mean I think in my life, acting has always 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:33.080 been like a savior for me, you know, you know, 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:36.480 it saved me from the sort of stuff that I 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:40.000 dealt with in my childhood. Then landing in a new country, America, 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:42.800 What do I make of this place that's all new, 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:45.080 these people, you know, like I was this little English 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:48.680 kid in America who's also I was also brown, you know, 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:51.680 and then suddenly there I wasn't drama class, and these 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:54.800 kids in drama class sort of like I felt like 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:56.920 this was my pep, these are my people, you know, 0:15:57.120 --> 0:15:59.480 and and and so I again it was it was 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:02.240 sort of like it saved me through that period of 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:06.800 transition coming to America and the first gig you get, 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:09.600 I think professional as you're working at Disney World, Is 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:11.840 that correct? Yeah? So I ended up at us F 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:16.640 University South Florida in doing theater, and uh, and I was, 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:20.080 you know, my we still were not citizens of this country. 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:23.320 We were still on a green card, so I couldn't 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:26.280 get the in state tuition. And my parents were struggling, 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:28.400 and they were, you know, and so I was paying 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:31.320 some ridiculous amount, like I was paying it myself as 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:34.480 a four hundred dollars a semester or some credit for 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:36.520 for So I was taken like I was going very 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:41.040 slowly through the curriculum. And I and I auditioned a 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:43.600 bunch of my friends and they were opening up the 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:46.920 MGM Studios in Orlando, which was part of like the 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:49.760 Disney complex over there, and a bunch of my friends 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:52.280 and drama class said, Hey, we're gonna go an audition. 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:56.200 You know, they're looking for like improv actors. There's a 0:16:56.240 --> 0:17:00.120 comedy troupe. Great, I'll go. They wanted a monologue and 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:02.400 I and I had been working on this Eric Bagoshen 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:06.480 monologue in act in my scene study class Sex Drugs 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:08.120 and rock and Roll, Sex Drugs and rock and Roll, 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:11.119 the short order, fry Cook, what do you what do 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:12.879 you want? Come here? Come? You know that guy who's 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:15.040 the New Yorker guy? And so I had been working 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:18.919 on this monologue and so we all drove out to 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:21.600 this audition was a big open call in the Hyatt 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:26.680 Regency in Orlando, and uh, and I auditioned and got 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:30.200 the job. And this was eighty nine right. They're paying 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:32.919 me four hundred and sixty dollars a week. You know, 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:35.440 there was there was housing, and it was more money 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:37.439 than I'd ever seen in my life. And I did 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:39.800 a soap proper, same thing, four hundred of the day, 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:42.439 and I was I was Rockefeller, right, and I was 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:44.960 like four hundred sixty bucks a week. I was like, 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:47.640 this is crazy, Like I can go make a bunch 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:50.840 of money and come back, finish my education, go finish school, 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:53.560 you know, get my degree. And so I said, okay, 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:57.120 I'm gonna go do this. And I joined what was 0:17:57.160 --> 0:18:04.520 called Streetmosphere, which was a street improvisational comedy troupe. We're 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:08.040 working there. Down the street was the Mickey Mouse Club, 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:11.080 and there were the kids who later became Justin timber 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:13.760 Lake and Christina Aguilera. They used to come and watch us. 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:16.119 We used to have our rehearsal and in the and 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:18.480 these little kids these twelve year olds would stand in 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:21.760 the corner watching us, and it was Justin and Christina 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:24.920 and Brittany and all those kids that later became big, 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:28.200 huge superstars. And I was working with like some really 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:31.520 funny people. It was great. More Collins was there. I 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:34.560 remember she went on to Mad TV and other people 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:37.040 that went on have comedy careers. We were just doing 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:39.119 improv and then we'd go out on the street on 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:41.720 the lot and we would just play improv games with people. 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:44.639 So it actually ended up for me weirdly being like 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:47.680 a comedy grad school where I just got to work 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:51.040 with all these really funny people, get paid and and 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:53.439 I was there for a year, and then I went 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:56.400 and worked at Universal Studios down the street when they opened, 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:58.600 and I did that whole theme park thing for about 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:01.639 a couple of years. I got cast in this show 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:05.399 called The Phantom of the Opera Horror Makeup Show, and 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:08.440 it was this stage show where they basically had an 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:10.280 audience come in and they would do a kind of 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:13.080 thing where they teach you how to do horror makeup 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:15.840 in movies, right, But the whole setup of it was 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:18.560 there was a host and a guest and the guy 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:22.040 was the makeup artist. And what I realized was what 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:25.520 they had actually done was take an episode of The 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:31.440 David Letterman Show and just completely recreated on stage. So 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:34.840 the host was David Letterman and the guest was a 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:38.399 guy named Mark James, who was a very famous Hollywood 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:42.400 makeup artist, and these two guys just had on all 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:45.399 the jokes. If you go back and watch The Letterman, 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:47.919 that's all the jokes of the same it's it's the 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:51.760 transcript of his episode of interviewing this makeup artist that 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:54.720 they put on stage, and we would do it five 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:58.680 times a day for a different audience, and it was great. 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:03.119 When did you go to New York? Early ninety one, 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:07.520 I was dating a girl in Florida and she said, 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:10.639 I'm moving to New York because I want to do theater. 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:13.080 And I had nothing to do because I was sort 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:15.320 of like hanging out in Florida, and I was like, 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:17.120 I want to go to New York. You were doing 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:21.000 staged versions of Letterman sketch exactly exactly for me. It 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:23.240 was the next time. I was like, I'm probably gonna 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:25.000 either go to New York or l A. And And 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:27.000 at the time she was going to New York and 0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:28.639 I said, I'll come with you, and so I just 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:36.239 followed it. In New York, actor Assaf mndy Mondy and 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:39.760 I share a mutual love and respect for our former 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:42.840 acting teacher Win Hammon, whom I had the honor to 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:46.600 speak with in two thousand eighteen. Give us two examples 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:50.040 who came through your doors who you just excited you. 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:51.840 You knew they had it. They went on to become 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:57.640 great actor. Michael Douglas. He said, you asked me if 0:20:57.640 --> 0:20:59.960 it was all right, if I could call your mother 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:02.920 there and tell her how good you are. I knew 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:07.000 his mother, and he was good. He was, he was 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:09.040 very good. Right. What about a woman? What's an actress 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:14.440 who came through your doors? Alison Janny? Alison Janny probbly talented. Yeah, 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:17.040 you just give a role. She can do it all. 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:21.240 She can do it all. You'll hear us if MV 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:24.760