“If somebody asked me to describe my comedy, I’d say I take on social issues, political issues, and my kids,” says Jobrani. “I’ve got young kids so there’s a lot of material about them and about being a family man and growing older, but you know I live in America where there’s this election going on, so there’s a lot of material about Trump, there’s some about the xenophobia that we have going on and there’s material about me being Iranian in America, so I think it’s a pretty worldly set.”
To put it plainly, Maz says if the United Nations were holding auditions for a worldly comedian, he’d put himself up as a candidate. It’s important for Maz to tackle these kinds of issues in his work, however difficult they may be to talk about, because of the injustice he sees around him.
“There’s a lot of people in power who will try to manipulate the general population for their own benefit,” he says. “I think it’s the job of a comedian to go in and make fun of those people and criticise them in a fun way. I think if a comedian can expose hypocrisy in a politician in a fun way then that’s cool, and that’s really the kind of comedy that I love.”
Aside from dominating stages with his stand-up, Maz is a busy man who also works in the film and television world. He even put out his debut, bestselling book last year. Whilst he’s always undertaken acting, Maz says he’s lucky enough to now be able to be a little pickier with the parts that he plays. It’s not uncommon for young actors to take up any role they can get their hands on early on in their careers, and this rite of passage of the craft saw Maz take up a few parts where, much to his dismay, he was playing terrorists.
“I did one in a Chuck Norris Movie (The President’s Man: A Line in the Sand) and one in the TV show 24. I didn’t enjoy playing those parts,” Jobraniexplains. “You know, there’s enough negative depiction of Middle Easterners and Muslims and Arabs, and I felt like I didn’t want to do those parts anymore. In America there are no shows that counter that image.”
A huge fan of us Down Under, Jobraniis excited to be hitting up Australia for the first time in a good few years. Not only that, but he says performing overseas is always a welcome change of scenery.
“People outside of the US – like places in Europe and Australia – are more open to laughing about some of the stuff going on in the world. Maybe it’s because you’re more informed than your average audience in America.”
However informed, Maz just wants his audience to come together and have a good old-fashioned belly laugh.
“It’s about laughter, but it’s also about coming together,” he explains. “I think if we can get together and laugh, then we can walk away knowing that we’ve shared a good time with people we might have thought we didn’t have anything in common with.”
BY ABBEY LEW-KEE
