'Funny People's' Aziz Ansari Is RAAAAAAAANDY
In Judd Apatow's upcoming 'Funny People,' Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen do a pretty good job making terminal illness hilarious. And Aziz Ansari is RAAAAAAAANDY, a vulgar standup comedian who has his own DJ, makes his sexual prowess the punchline of every joke and encourages fans to laugh their dicks off.
RAAAAAAAANDY has taken his aggressive act outside the big screen to promote the movie, which opens July 31. He has an online presence that dwarfs his tiny role in the film and performs standup in LA--to an audience that is not entirely in on the joke. Whether RAAAAAAAANDY is funny or meta-funny, he's horrifying and gets as many laughs as his alterego. Also, he tweets!
Here you can watch him tout his 'merch' (you can buy a photo of yourself in the audience for a mere $18) and his other great ideas ('Whenever I watch porn, I usually put my head on the dude in the video' is followed by an NSFW and amazing digital execution of that statement.)
Ansari, who you may know from the NBC series 'Parks and Recreation,' talked with us about the life he shares with RAAAAAAAANDY as an upstart comedian.
On playing a bad comedian:
It's fun doing standup as RAAAAAAAANDY. I try to make RAAAAAAAANDY a bad standup, but one that's still good in that he gets laughs. It's tough to do stuff that's bad. You have to make sure it's still funny.
On speculation that the obnoxious RAAAAAAAANDY is a reference to Dane Cook:
I'm not trying to take any comedians down a peg. I just think the character's kind of fun. I don't know any comedian that has a DJ and a custom dance or anything like that. The idea was more like, 'What if Soulja Boy did standup comedy, what would he be like?'
On his parents' reaction to RAAAAAAAANDY:
They haven't seen RAAAAAAAANDY yet. RAAAAAAAANDY might be something that I keep secret from my parents for as long as I can. They'd be like, 'What is this thing about you eating pussy in a hot tub, what is that?' RAAAAAAAANDY is pretty bad. We'll see what happens.
On turning down 'Transformers':
In the first Transformers movie I auditioned for the part that Anthony Anderson got. And they were like, 'Michael Bay really liked you. He wants you to come for this other part. But you have to do an Indian accent.' I was like, 'No way!' And then I watched the movie and it's just some guy like that has literally one line, 'Thank you for calling tech support.' And I was like, 'Man, I totally would have done that because that guy probably made a bajillion dollars.' I would have just donated 30 percent of it to a charity in India so I wouldn't feel bad about doing the Indian accent.
On what's to come in the second season of 'Parks and Recreation':
I want to do an episode where it's just Tom getting a really nice massage the whole episode. And while he's getting a massage the other characters bring him really good food, like high-end sushi or really good tacos. I don't know if we're going to do that episode but it's one that I pitched. It's called 'The Massage.'
WATCH the trailer:
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Huffington Post | Katy Hall
First Posted: 07-27-09 11:27 AM | Updated: 08-27-09 05:12 AM