Aziz Ansari

Aziz Ansari is still using his flip phone, even if he gets lost sometimes. Amy hangs with her former 'Parks and Rec' costar and talks about skipping the first grade, being the first person cast on 'Parks,' and making chicken 65 for Rashida Jones. Host: Amy PoehlerGuests: Rashida Jones and Aziz AnsariExecutive Producers: Bill Simmons, Amy Poehler, and Jenna Weiss-BermanFor Paper Kite Productions: Executive producer Jenna Weiss-Berman, coordinator Sam Green, and supervising producer Joel LovellFor The Ringer: Supervising producers Juliet Litman, Sean Fennessey, and Mallory Rubin; video producers Jack Wilson, Belle Roman, and Aleya Zenieris; lighting director Caroline Jannace; audio producer Kaya McMullen; video editor Drew van Steenbergen; and booker Kat SpillaneOriginal Music: Amy MilesPalmolive removes up to 2.5X the grease**vs. leading brand non-concentrated formulaOrder Sephora on Uber Eats today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I'm pro football Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, and I lived for a long time with something I did not know the name of: major depressive disorder. I carried sadness and anger because I thought I could handle it alone, but I couldn't. Now I want to make sure others know that that support is out there. If you're experiencing similar symptoms, talk to a healthcare professional. Visit MDDAllies.com to watch my story.

• 0:25Speaker 01

  Paid partnership with Johnson & Johnson. Brian Dawkins has not prescribed Caplyta lumateperone.

• 0:37Speaker 02

  I needed more from my antidepressant, so my doctor added Caplyta lumateperone, proven to provide greater relief from depression symptoms than an antidepressant alone, building on my progress without starting over. Caplyta is for adults with major depressive disorder when used with an antidepressant and is available by prescription only. Individual results may vary. In clinical trials, weight gain was not common.

• 0:57Speaker 01

  Elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. Caplyta is not approved for dementia-related psychosis. Call your doctor about new or sudden mood changes, behaviors, or suicidal thoughts right away. Antidepressants may increase these risks. Report fever, confusion, stiff muscles, which may be life-threatening, or uncontrolled muscle movements, which may be permanent. High cholesterol and weight gain may occur, as can high blood sugar, which may be fatal. Monitoring is recommended. Common side effects are sleepiness, dizziness, nausea, dry mouth, feeling tired, and diarrhea. These aren't all the side effects.

• 1:24Speaker 02

  Ask your doctor about Caplyta. Learn more at caplyta.com or call 888-252-4824.

• 1:30Amy Poehler?

  Hello, everyone. Welcome to this episode of Good Hang. I'm very excited about my guest today. It is Aziz Ansari. So great to have Aziz here in the studio to talk about the past, the present, and the future. And we're going to talk about a lot of stuff today. We're going to talk about the fact that he skipped first grade because everyone thought he was so smart. We're going to talk about him growing up as an Indian boy in the South. We're going to talk about Parks and Rec, of course, and all our memories there. And we're going to talk about his cinematic directing debut, Good Fortune. Lots to get into, but before we do that, we want to speak to somebody who knows our guest, who has great feelings and things to say about our guest, and who has a question for me to ask our guest.

• 2:15Amy Poehler?

  And we just have my wife, my beautiful, beautiful wife, Rashida Jones, joining us today. Rashida, I miss you. I love you. Let's get going. Can you hear me? Rashida, can you hear me? Uh oh, she can't.

• 2:35Amy Poehler?

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• 3:16Speaker 04

  This is a disaster.

• 3:17Amy Poehler?

  Okay.

• 3:20Amy Poehler?

  How are you guys over there?

• 3:21Speaker 04

  Am I the over there? Oh. Oh, I can look at your face now. Yay.

• 3:27Amy Poehler?

  Oh, you couldn't see me before?

• 3:29Speaker 04

  It was a side view.

• 3:31Amy Poehler?

  Oh, no, it's a terrible view.

• 3:34Speaker 04

  No, it was great. It was great. This is just more direct and intimate.

• 3:37Amy Poehler?

  Bones.

• 3:39Speaker 04

  Polos.

• 3:40Amy Poehler?

  We just had a tech fiasco.

• 3:43Speaker 04

  Fiasco.

• 3:45Amy Poehler?

  We had a snafu.

• 3:46Speaker 04

  I mean, it still is a miracle that you can talk to each other in live time.

• 3:51Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 3:52Speaker 04

  Like across regions. So I'm gonna stick with that story.

• 3:56Amy Poehler?

  I still can't believe that we have airplanes.

• 3:59Speaker 04

  Exactly. Exactly. So there you go.

• 4:04Speaker 04

  This is a miracle. Our meeting today is a miracle.

• 4:06Amy Poehler?

  Where are we talking to you from right now?

• 4:09Speaker 04

  I'm in my friend's... I know this... Every time I talk to you, I feel like I'm in my friend's sitting room.

• 4:16Amy Poehler?

  Okay.

• 4:17Speaker 04

  In London.

• 4:18Amy Poehler?

  Well, what makes a sitting room? What's a sitting room?

• 4:21Speaker 04

  Good question. Lots of places to sit.

• 4:23Amy Poehler?

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:24Speaker 04

  And kind of no other functionality. Like where you're just kind of sitting and staring at each other, you know?

• 4:30Amy Poehler?

  You're in London.

• 4:32Speaker 04

  I'm in London.

• 4:33Amy Poehler?

  Oh, I miss you, friend.

• 4:36Speaker 04

  I miss you too.

• 4:38Amy Poehler?

  I'm talking to Aziz today and I'm having a lot of, um, I'm having a lot of nostalgic feelings today.

• 4:45Speaker 04

  I feel that. I really miss, I really miss us as a, as a cast.

• 4:51Amy Poehler?

  Same. And I, and I kind of feel like we are his aunties a little bit. We are definitely.

• 4:56Speaker 04

  Totally.

• 4:57Amy Poehler?

  You, you especially, um, but I.

• 4:59Speaker 04

  The education of Aziz, I'm sorry, was sort of like that alternate title for Parks and Recreation.

• 5:05Amy Poehler?

  I know. Him and Plaza feel like they were babies.

• 5:09Speaker 04

  Our babies.

• 5:10Amy Poehler?

  They were our babies that we raised.

• 5:14Speaker 04

  Our beautiful family, the four of us.

• 5:17Amy Poehler?

  Before we get to Aziz, who, like you, I think has a, like, a very specific cultured aesthetic. I'm loving the color brown that you're wearing.

• 5:27Speaker 04

  Thank you so much because, uh, this, somebody told me they didn't like this color. I don't remember who it was. And I was like, I do. I don't know why. It's like very seventies to me.

• 5:38Amy Poehler?

  And I was one, I was wondering what you think the color of the, of the color of fall is. I always ask Rashida these questions because she knows. She's in the know.

• 5:48Speaker 04

  Well, there's a, there's a palette because you know, like when you have, have you ever done your makeup test where you're like an autumn or spring or summer?

• 5:56Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, I think we talk.

• 5:57Speaker 04

  I'm an autumn.

• 5:57Amy Poehler?

  You're an autumn. You are such an autumn.

• 5:59Speaker 04

  You're a summer, I think.

• 6:01Amy Poehler?

  I, I think, I think you're right. And I very, I wanted very much to be a winter. It's kind of the story of my life.

• 6:07Speaker 04

  You love summer, Polos, but you love summer.

• 6:09Amy Poehler?

  I do, but the colors feel a little, um, I don't know, not substantial.

• 6:14Speaker 04

  Too playful?

• 6:15Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, they feel a little, um, juvenile. And I want to, you know, and I remember looking at the palette and saying, I think I'm a winter. And then TikTok said, no way.

• 6:25Speaker 04

  No, ma'am.

• 6:26Amy Poehler?

  They said blondie's not allowed.

• 6:29Amy Poehler?

  But, okay, so that's an autumnal color that you've got going on.

• 6:32Speaker 04

  Definitely. This, I would say, like, an olive green, a wine, like a Merlot color is very the color of autumn. Maybe even like a mustard as an accent.

• 6:42Amy Poehler?

  I can't even get anywhere near those colors. They do not work for me. And with that in mind, what do you think is the, uh, the fashion of the, of the season? What, what should we be wearing?

• 6:55Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 6:55Amy Poehler?

  Cause we, so people should know. Yeah, so every season, Rashida and I, and, um, we, we try to like name how we're gonna dress, basically.

• 7:06Speaker 04

  And it's, and it's, it's steeped in either like a country or a vibe, or, or like a trend, or, or like an anti-trend.

• 7:17Amy Poehler?

  What have been some past ways that we have, we've got, we've, we've named the seasons? I can think of a few. Um, high school art teacher.

• 7:27Speaker 04

  High school art teacher, Japanese winter.

• 7:31Amy Poehler?

  Tired ballerina.

• 7:32Speaker 04

  Tired ballerina.

• 7:36Speaker 04

  What's the last one that we just, that we kind of found from TikTok? It was like frugal chic?

• 7:41Amy Poehler?

  Frugal chic, frugal chic, right.

• 7:44Speaker 04

  Like make your own salads, bring them to work, wear the same like gorgeous sweater every day.

• 7:49Amy Poehler?

  Shop your closet, shop your closet.

• 7:51Speaker 04

  Closet, mhm.

• 7:53Amy Poehler?

  Um, what do we think is happening this fall?

• 7:55Speaker 04

  What about just like a double F, like functional fall? Or like?

• 7:59Amy Poehler?

  Ooh.

• 8:00Speaker 04

  I was just in Paris, which of course, always the fashion's so good in Paris. And the way that like girls wear trousers, like it just is, uh, it, it's hard to describe why they look so much better on them than anybody else. But there's like always like a front, oh, maybe it's front pleat fall.

• 8:18Amy Poehler?

  Okay. You know what?

• 8:19Speaker 04

  No.

• 8:19Amy Poehler?

  Gen Z loves their front pleats.

• 8:21Speaker 04

  I know.

• 8:22Amy Poehler?

  And I, I don't need any more help down there to feel full.

• 8:26Speaker 04

  No more pleats in the front. Agreed. Agreed. Okay.

• 8:29Amy Poehler?

  How about flat front? Functional, flat front.

• 8:32Speaker 04

  Functional, flat front fall.

• 8:35Amy Poehler?

  Okay, you heard it here first, guys. Hashtag trending. Okay, you know, we always like to talk well behind our guests' back about our guests. What do you love about Aziz? I'm sorry.

• 8:46Speaker 04

  Aziz is, um, he's a very insatiably curious human being. He loves to absorb art, food, fashion, film, traveling. Like, he's just, he's so open to experience. And I love people who are like that.

• 9:10Amy Poehler?

  I would say that you're like that, too.

• 9:12Speaker 04

  And then, of course, like, he's just so funny. And I always want his take on something. That makes it, uh, he's a pleasure to be around in that way.

• 9:23Amy Poehler?

  Yeah. What, um, I feel like you have, you two have probably gone and done some groovy things together, like...

• 9:32Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm. We've been in a lot of countries together.

• 9:35Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 9:36Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I love being in Japan with Aziz, because he'll, he'll just, he'll just bust out like the best accent and just order in Japanese.

• 9:48Amy Poehler?

  What?

• 9:48Speaker 04

  Like a full, perfect accent. Yes.

• 9:50Amy Poehler?

  He speaks Japanese?

• 9:52Speaker 04

  Yes, a little bit. But his accent's so good that he convinces people that he's, can like, speak fluently. Because his accent's so good.

• 10:00Amy Poehler?

  Whoa, that's cool.

• 10:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, very cool.

• 10:04Amy Poehler?

  Is it weird that every time I hear about other people speaking another language, I just feel so bad that I don't? Like, I make it about myself?

• 10:13Speaker 04

  Fire of jealousy, fire of envy, same.

• 10:15Amy Poehler?

  Well, people should know that you studied French for a while.

• 10:19Speaker 04

  A month?

• 10:20Amy Poehler?

  Babe, a month more than other people, honey. Okay, so, um, what question do you have for our guest Aziz today? What do you think I should ask Aziz? Anything you want to know?

• 10:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, I was, you know, I was thinking about something that would light him up, that he'd want to talk about. Um, and again, as we mentioned, Aziz is an extremely cultured individual. And, you know, there's probably stuff that people don't... Really know about him. One thing is that he's an excellent chef. And also, he loves food. So A, what's his favorite thing to cook? And B, what's his favorite thing to eat?

• 10:58Amy Poehler?

  Love that. Love that. Has he ever made anything for you?

• 11:02Speaker 04

  All the time. He cooks me dinner all the time. Everything. My, my recent favorite is he makes this thing. It's like, it's an Indian dish that's specifically for children. So I love it. Uh, called Chicken 65. And it's, it's bright red because of the, like, the pepper powder. And it's delicious.

• 11:24Amy Poehler?

  Yum.

• 11:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:26Amy Poehler?

  Ooh, I want to talk to him about that. And I want to talk about kitchen gadgets in general.

• 11:31Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 11:31Amy Poehler?

  I just got for myself. I like to every once in a while, get myself a kitchen gadget so that I can continue to encourage myself to cook. I just got really long, thin tongs. Like, not your, not your grabby tongs, but those long ones that you, where you can turn a delicate, a delicate mushroom.

• 11:49Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 11:50Amy Poehler?

  I wish we were hanging out together right now.

• 11:53Speaker 04

  I miss you.

• 11:54Amy Poehler?

  I miss you too.

• 11:55Speaker 04

  I really want to do a TikTok dance with you.

• 11:57Amy Poehler?

  Oh, yeah. Um, listeners, Rashida sent me a TikTok dance. Um, and said, I wish we were learning this together. And I watched it and I was like, I, I, I don't think I'd be able to learn it.

• 12:06Speaker 04

  100% could do that. It looks so cool because they're such good dancers, but it's a very simple steps.

• 12:13Amy Poehler?

  You know, no one is a bigger fan. Could you do the TikTok dance and send it?

• 12:18Speaker 04

  By myself? I will, I'll send it to you. I'll send it to you. Just don't show anybody. I'll send it to you.

• 12:22Amy Poehler?

  Do that thing where you make yourself a three people. You know how you can do an effect where you can look like three people?

• 12:29Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 12:30Amy Poehler?

  Let's do that.

• 12:31Speaker 04

  That's, maybe your team, after they fix your audio issues, can help me do that.

• 12:35Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, we're gonna split this in a three. And you're gonna be your own backup singer.

• 12:40Speaker 04

  I'd love that. Best career.

• 12:43Amy Poehler?

  Thank you, Bones, for doing this. Miss you, bud.

• 12:46Speaker 04

  Miss you so much.

• 12:47Amy Poehler?

  I know.

• 12:48Speaker 04

  And love you and have fun with Aziz, Zizers.

• 12:51Amy Poehler?

  Baby Zizi.

• 12:52Speaker 04

  As I call him, Baby Zizi.

• 12:53Amy Poehler?

  All right, thanks, friend. Love you.

• 12:55Speaker 04

  Love you too.

• 12:57Amy Poehler?

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• 13:42Amy Poehler?

  Delivery fees may apply.

• 13:45Speaker 05

  God, this is like beat New York right now.

• 13:47Amy Poehler?

  I know. It's so nice to be. People don't know, we're recording in New York right now in the fall.

• 13:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, wait, is this on now?

• 13:54Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, we're rolling.

• 13:55Speaker 05

  Oh, whoa. Okay, good. I'm glad I didn't drop any racial slurs, as I tend to do when I usually see you.

• 14:02Amy Poehler?

  Right away, when you see me.

• 14:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, right away. We usually say, what's your favorite right now? And then I say my favorite and then we start hanging out. Yeah, so, God, thank goodness we dropped that prediction.

• 14:11Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, no, we're rolling. And all we've been talking about is New York in the fall. That's it. New York in the fall, baby. But when you come here, do you get like, do you ever want to live here? Well, you still spend time here.

• 14:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, I feel like I don't live anywhere. I'm always just running around. But wherever I come, like, visiting New York is fun because you come for, and you get a quick hit. You do all your favorite stuff. You see all your friends and then, but if I stay too long, it's too crazy. I'm too old now.

• 14:41Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, I know what you mean. It's, it is.

• 14:42Speaker 05

  Your little Zizi's all grown up.

• 14:44Amy Poehler?

  I know. My Zizi is just, he's an old man now.

• 14:48Speaker 05

  I know. If you watch, whenever I see old Parks things, I was like, I didn't know that me and Aubrey did a show when we were little kids. Like, it's really.

• 14:57Amy Poehler?

  How old were you when you started on the show?

• 14:59Speaker 05

  I was 13 in season one. And then when we finished, I just turned 18. I got my driver's license, like, in the middle of the run.

• 15:07Amy Poehler?

  A lot of people don't know that you were 18 when you were playing Tom Haverford on Parks and Rec.

• 15:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:12Amy Poehler?

  It is true, though. It is, you look like a baby. You were a baby.

• 15:18Speaker 05

  I didn't know anything.

• 15:20Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 15:20Speaker 05

  In the first seasons, I didn't know how to act or anything. I should not have been on television. NBC should have been like, we gotta get, is there any Indian guy that's done more acting? Can we get out, play this guy?

• 15:31Amy Poehler?

  We want, I want to get into this too, because it is, it feels like when we, we, we've met each other throughout, like, we've, we've, in a bunch of different ways, in a bunch of different places. But New York City, I will say, feels like, and I don't know if you feel this way when you come here, that you are reminded of when you were young.

• 15:49Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:50Amy Poehler?

  There is a feeling here, like, if you were here when you were young, when you come back, you feel younger, or something, you remember your younger self.

• 15:57Speaker 05

  You're, you're trying to get back that energy. You remember, you remember being outlaid and all this kind of stuff.

• 16:02Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 16:02Speaker 05

  And, uh.

• 16:03Amy Poehler?

  Cause you were an NYU kid.

• 16:05Speaker 05

  I went to NYU, and I started doing comedy then.

• 16:09Amy Poehler?

  Were you doing comedy, like, in high school, or?

• 16:11Speaker 05

  No, I grew up in South Carolina, so I, you know, there was no outlet for anything like that.

• 16:16Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 16:17Speaker 05

  You know, it was like, you know, you could dip and, and.

• 16:21Speaker 05

  Spit into a.

• 16:23Amy Poehler?

  You can spit into a cup, and everyone laugh.

• 16:25Speaker 05

  I just drank Mountain Dew and dipped. That's all I did in high school.

• 16:29Amy Poehler?

  And did you ever?

• 16:30Speaker 05

  I rode four-wheelers.

• 16:31Amy Poehler?

  Were you in a play?

• 16:32Speaker 05

  I was in plays when I was a kid. I remember there was some play I did, and, uh, I don't know what the play was, but I played like, uh, a cowboy. And I was doing like, a big southern accent, and I remember I just crushed. And kids were coming up to me afterwards, like, do it again. And, and I, it was like, one of those things I remember.

• 16:50Amy Poehler?

  So were you a funny kid?

• 16:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, I liked to be funny in class, and, and, um, yeah, anytime there was anything that involved public speaking or something, I was always super comfortable.

• 17:01Amy Poehler?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:02Speaker 05

  Um, I remember when I did like, something where I was like, six years old, I had to like, speak in front of the whole school, and it didn't like, baze me at all. I don't know why.

• 17:08Amy Poehler?

  It's so funny.

• 17:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, because, okay, so when I was in school in South Carolina, right? This is in the eighties, so, you know, a lot of these people had never even seen Indian people before, and I, I skipped first grade. I did skip first grade and second grade. Like, in the middle of first grade, they called my parents, and they're like, uh, we gotta get him out of here.

• 17:31Amy Poehler?

  He's too smart.

• 17:31Speaker 05

  He already knows all this stuff. I don't know if it's this, this other culture you're from, or what's happening, but we gotta get him the fuck out of this first grade thing. He needs to go to second, now.

• 17:42Amy Poehler?

  Get him out of my class. He's embarrassing everyone else.

• 17:45Speaker 05

  Then I went there and I went to second grade and it's a little school. So like, I'm like, you know, and there's like 30 kids in each class. I grew up in a town of like 8,000 people. So they're like, oh, this, this little, this little brown wonder kid. And so like, I'm on the radio and all this stuff. Yeah, I'm on the radio. And there's, there's a recording somewhere. And when I was a little kid, I, I had like a southern accent because that's where I grew up. And that's where I'm around. So I, I vaguely remember being, being on some radio program. And I was like, my name's Aziz Ansari and I'm a first grader at Marbury Academy.

• 18:23Amy Poehler?

  When you're told at six that you're a smart kid, then you become the smart kid. Were you the smart kid?

• 18:29Speaker 05

  I think so, but I think it kind of annoyed me in a way. Like I, I, I, like, I didn't want to be painted with a certain brush. You know what I mean?

• 18:37Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, I bet. I bet people are just projecting a lot of stuff on you.

• 18:40Speaker 05

  And then I went to the school in 11th and 12th grade, which is in like a science and math school. And it's a public school in South Carolina called a governor's school. And there, it's like all the smartest kids from all over South Carolina. And there I was just like, this dumb kid that was like smoking weed and telling dumb stories.

• 19:00Amy Poehler?

  And they were like, what happened? I thought you skipped first grade.

• 19:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, 11th grade, you need to go back to 10th.

• 19:05Amy Poehler?

  Expecting, but yeah, they, they kicked you back down. Yeah, I mean, it, it, we talked a lot about it when we first met, like this idea of growing up in South Carolina in the eighties as a young Indian boy, one of probably the only in your class, figuring out.

• 19:20Speaker 05

  Dev, not one, one of the, there, there were in, in like first and second grade. I sometimes forget this, there, there was this Thai girl, her name was Tisha.

• 19:29Speaker 05

  Which does not sound like a Thai name. And they used to always be like, what's up with you, Tisha? I'm not kidding. I remember there was a play in like first grade, there was like, it was a play. And for some reason there was Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse and it was me and Tisha. We were the stars, you know? Oh, oh, diversity. No, no, me and Tisha in Bennettsville in like 1988. Leads, leads of this mysterious play where there was Mickey and Minnie Mouse. But there was always like, oh, you know.

• 19:59Amy Poehler?

  Were you excited in a way to expand your horizons and go to New York?

• 20:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, I always, it's so interesting, I was thinking about this, you know, the fact that my dad left, you know, my family is all from the southern tip of India, up until me, and my dad left India and went to, like, he first came to Jersey and he was doing like, you know, residency or whatever. And I, you know, really, I was thinking about this a couple of weeks ago, how remarkable it was and how scary that must have been to come over there and not know anything, you know, this is before internet, FaceTime, nothing, if you're there, you're really gone. And same with my mom as well, and

• 20:40Amy Poehler?

  Did they come over together?

• 20:41Speaker 05

  My dad came first and then my mom came later.

• 20:46Speaker 05

  But I, I was just thinking about how, there was something in my dad, I asked him about this, and he was like, "Oh, I always wanted to go." And it's weird, because I grew up in South Carolina, and I think I had a similar thing, where I always wanted to go somewhere, you know, bigger, with more stuff going on.

• 21:02Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, you had that same, like, drive to see more of the world, basically.

• 21:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, and luckily, I, I, I went to school in New York, which is the greatest place to be if you have that kind of feeling.

• 21:13Amy Poehler?

  So, when you're leaving South Carolina, you apply to NYU, you apply, you're like, "I'm gonna go to business school."

• 21:18Speaker 05

  I, yeah, I didn't know what I wanted to do, this is how dumb I was.

• 21:22Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, business seems to be the major that a lot of men who don't know what they want to do, pick.

• 21:27Speaker 05

  Like, my uncle has a business, I was like, "Oh, maybe I'll start my own business, and I'll major in business." That's, that's how silly I was.

• 21:33Amy Poehler?

  I know.

• 21:34Speaker 05

  And then I get there, and there's all these kids that are talking about Goldman Sachs and all that stuff, I don't even know what Goldman Sachs is, and I'm completely confused.

• 21:40Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 21:41Speaker 05

  And I had friends that were in Tisch, the film and television school, I was thinking about switching to that, or maybe the Gallatin School, where you make up your own major. But I never really got it together, the little combination of laziness, and I also started doing stand-up, like, the summer of my freshman year, and I distinctly remember sitting in a class in my sophomore year and just thinking, "I'm just gonna do something with stand-up. At the least, I'll be a comedian that does comedy clubs, and that, that's fine for me."

• 22:05Amy Poehler?

  How do you be, how do you go do stand-up? You're not, like, what makes you go do stand-up when you're, when you're in college?

• 22:11Speaker 05

  It was one of these weird things, I was in school, my freshman year, and I was just sitting around and telling stories, and people were laughing, someone was like, "Oh, man, you should try to do stand-up." And then a week later, the same thing happened, and it was like, one of these weird, "Ooh, maybe the universe is saying something." And then I went to a comedy club, I went to the Comedy Cellar, which I still perform at all the time, and I saw a show, and I was like, "I think I can do this." And, and I tried it, and I wasn't great. I did well.

• 22:35Amy Poehler?

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:36Speaker 05

  But I was very comfortable with it and I really enjoyed it. I just wanted to get good at it. I just wanted to get better. I never thought about anything further about, you know, acting or any of that stuff. I just wanted to get good at this and it really goes back to what you were saying earlier where you get that high of like, you know, I want that feeling again.

• 22:53Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:54Speaker 05

  And so I, uh, I started there and then, uh, it just kinda went from there.

• 22:58Amy Poehler?

  Well, when we met, do you remember the first time we met? I was trying to think today. I mean, I don't remember anything anymore.

• 23:03Speaker 05

  I have so many friends who are like, when did we first meet? I mean, one of the first times I remember meeting you was, so, the UCB Theater and there was a, uh, Monday night stand-up show at 11, which is like a tough slot. Monday at 11 is not the prime slot. But they were doing a stand-up show and, um, Matt Besser, who was part of UCB, asked me if I would wanna do the stand-up show and I started doing it and I was booking like my favorite comedians and, um, I would host it every week and it really took off.

• 23:33Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 23:34Speaker 05

  And I remember one week you came and I was like, whoa, like you just came to see it and said hi and, and that, that's one of the first times I remember meeting you.

• 23:43Amy Poehler?

  That's what I was gonna say is I remember meeting you by seeing you on stage. That's back when we could all just, you know, sleep all day and then go to do a show at 11 o'clock on Monday night.

• 23:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:52Amy Poehler?

  Then you go on and you do, you create your own sketch show.

• 23:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, we, we did the sketch show on MTV, yeah.

• 23:58Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, and that was kind of like 2007, which was such a cool time for, I think, for comedy at the time because you had MTV and Comedy Central and all these places like taking big risks on, on green apples.

• 24:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, and, and Adult Swim and all these things, yeah.

• 24:16Amy Poehler?

  Were you on Adult Swim?

• 24:17Speaker 05

  No, but, but that was around and things like Tim and Eric and, you know.

• 24:21Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, and it was like, here's this kind of niche vibe, let's give them a show for, you know, like, let's see what they can do for a couple of seasons.

• 24:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:30Amy Poehler?

  And so that, that show was Human Giant.

• 24:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:32Amy Poehler?

  And you wrote, and, and what did you learn from doing a sketch show?

• 24:36Speaker 05

  Sketch shows really hard.

• 24:37Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 24:38Speaker 05

  I mean, you know, that's one of the hardest things to do. Because especially even just from a production standpoint, you know, everything is different. There's no consistency. You're always doing new costumes, it's new locations, it's really a hard thing to do. And writing sketches is really hard. But there was one sketch I did that I wrote, I think, you know, we all kind of wrote together, but it was one that I really liked and it was one that Greg Daniels and Mike Schur saw. And it was because it was on YouTube or Funny or Die or whatever, and that was what got me the gig on Parks.

• 25:10Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, and was it Shutterbug?

• 25:11Speaker 05

  No.

• 25:12Amy Poehler?

  What was it? What was the sketch?

• 25:14Speaker 05

  It was called Viral Videos. And the premise was me and Rob Hubel, and we were on a talk show that Paul was hosting. And Hubel had just made a viral video because he did a video where he cut his penis off. And it went viral. And he was like so excited, I got, you know, 2 million views. And then he's like, oh, we have this other guy, his name's, you know, Kevin Kreisler. He has a viral video too, and it's me, and I got like 40 million followers, and all I did was just make funny faces.

• 25:41Amy Poehler?

  And so he has to reckon with the fact?

• 25:46Speaker 05

  Yeah. He could have just made funny faces, and he's done something a little bit more extreme. And, yeah, it was a fun sketch. But that's what Greg and Mike told me they saw, and they're like, oh, we should get it.

• 25:59Amy Poehler?

  No way. Yeah, because a lot of people don't know, you were the first person hired for Parks.

• 26:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, I met with them.

• 26:04Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, what was that meeting like? Do you remember it?

• 26:06Speaker 05

  Well, it was so mysterious what they were up to.

• 26:09Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 26:10Speaker 05

  I had a meeting with them, and I told them, I don't know what you're doing, but whatever it is, that would be a dream job. And, you know, this was like when The Office was on, and Mike and Greg were both involved in that, and that was, you know, my favorite show like that on the air. And so I told them, whatever you're up to, let me know. And then, of course, you know, when it all came together with you and Rashida and everything, and...

• 26:34Amy Poehler?

  Well, I'm kind of learning. When I was talking to Plaza, when Plaza was here, she was talking about like her meeting with them too.

• 26:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. Very famous stories. Yeah, yeah.

• 26:43Amy Poehler?

  I know, and it's kind of funny, I kind of forgot the Avengers Assemble feeling of those guys going out and getting people and bringing them in and talking about like, we're gonna do something very cool. I mean, it didn't even feel like there was a ton of auditioning. It was more just them picking people that they thought was funny.

• 27:02Speaker 05

  Not only funny, and...

• 27:05Speaker 05

  I feel like all of us, whenever we see each other do interviews, kind of say this kind of stuff ad nauseam, but it's so true, but also just the best people I've ever met in my life.

• 27:14Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 27:15Speaker 05

  Like, really, I cannot believe it, because we've all done other stuff and, you know, not everybody's, you know, look, we've all done other stuff. I don't talk about everything the way I talk about Parks. You know, you do something, and some people, it's a different energy, not necessarily mean or bad, but it's just something like, we all just clicked and there was a vibe that worked with all of us. And, and, and just to pay respect to you and Mike, you know, when I did Master None with Alan, and as I've become a director, I, you know, what I learned from you and Mike in terms of how to lead, um, I mean, I can't thank you enough, it was the best role model I could have ever had.

• 27:52Amy Poehler?

  Cease. Cease, Cease.

• 27:55Speaker 05

  You know, I, I, when I, I started watching your podcast, and so then Parks clips started coming on YouTube, and when I watch it, sometimes I, I just think about us making it.

• 28:06Amy Poehler?

  Same.

• 28:07Speaker 05

  And, and it's funnier for me to watch the bloopers, because that feels more like my experience. And, oh gosh, some of those things that came up, I hadn't thought about in so long, and they were cracking me up. I saw this clip, it was, it was, it was, I don't remember the context of the episode or whatever, but it's, we're in Ron's office, and me and Donna, there's something called blush, and, and, and Ron has decided bronze and blush. So, me and Rheta start just going, "Ron's in blush."

• 28:36Amy Poehler?

  "Ron's in blush."

• 28:37Speaker 05

  And then I jump on the table, "The bronze and blush." And, and me and Rheta's dancing is getting crazier and crazier, and we're just doing, just dancing, dancing all over our apartment, doing all the crazy stuff, and they showed that, that was what we shot, and then they showed the scene as it aired, and it was just like, "Ron's in blush," and they cut.

• 28:59Speaker 05

  That's also my favorite thing. It's like, I mean, I love trying to, if I could try to get someone to break. Like, you're pretty good. I don't, you know.

• 29:07Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 29:07Speaker 05

  Superman's pretty high up on that.

• 29:10Amy Poehler?

  Agree. He never cracked up.

• 29:12Speaker 05

  And, oh man, I love, there was a couple of times where I almost, where I got like, I think heated in the lab, but I think his mustache maybe went up a little bit. And I remember one thing that you wrote, it was an episode you wrote, I was doing that puppy, boys, and then the, and the puppy started licking his mustache. And I was like, mm, how about the puns? I like your mustache. I'm just a little puppy. And it, it all, I think it almost got it.

• 29:38Amy Poehler?

  It almost got, you're so right. I mean, the, the, the, the, the set, the, the setup there was like, you had, you had a chance to play around. Like, you got to try your stuff. I mean, the fact that, that "treat yourself" is used on, you know, cocktail napkins and in Kmart and like, it's everywhere and.

• 29:58Speaker 05

  I, I, I went to some ice cream place one time and they're like, "Treat yourself to a sample." I was like, "Can I have a sample?" I was like, "Please don't, please don't connect this."

• 30:11Speaker 05

  Luckily, the person did put.

• 30:13Amy Poehler?

  Didn't put them together.

• 30:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 30:14Amy Poehler?

  Yeah. I mean, I, I, that's become part of the lexicon. And I can remember that moment, which, by the way, it's so funny in that moment, "treat yourself", because you guys say, "Treat yourself 2011", and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, 2011. Remember that."

• 30:27Speaker 05

  And then there was one in the future that was like, "Treat yourself 2014."

• 30:33Speaker 05

  It's 2025.

• 30:35Amy Poehler?

  What's happening? But I remember that episode deeply because it felt like it was a great example of the writers and the producers realizing, like, what made you laugh? What made Aziz laugh? Like, what would be, like, what would be fun for us? Like, that's what they started doing so well.

• 30:55Speaker 05

  Yes. I think they, they, the more they got to know us, it was such a good group that you could just be like, "Oh, what happens if we put these two together?" And then, of course, we had like, the greatest people coming in and doing bit parts. And they were all just so funny. And the characters. Another clip I watched that, and I think, you know, talking about breaking, this was, is the hardest scene I've ever had to film. In my entire acting career. And it was, and, and, and if it's, it's on YouTube, the, the blooper of this. And it's me and, you remember this scene, it's me and Adam Scott. And we're having lunch with Joan Calmet.

• 31:33Amy Poehler?

  Yes, the great Mo Collins.

• 31:35Speaker 05

  Mo Collins, who always is just so funny. And she said, we're at lunch and she says, I'm gonna go powder my nose amongst other things. And then she walks away and then Adam comes to me and goes, uh, uh, and then Ben is supposed to say, uh, dude, is she gonna go powder her vagina? And we couldn't do it. And, and this is the only time I think this ever happened on Parks or anything where me and Adam were like, just, let's just film the rest of this stuff and we'll come back to that.

• 32:06Amy Poehler?

  We'll come back.

• 32:06Speaker 05

  We'll just come back to the, cause we couldn't do it. And then, and, and cause it, cause it's just the most absurd task. Cause he'd be like, okay, no, no, we got it this time. Okay. All right, all right, guys, ready? Okay. Amongst other things, is she, oh!

• 32:20Amy Poehler?

  You know, we could've said, dude, if she had to go powder her vagina, we couldn't get through it. And Mo was so funny doing it, how she was like stumbling out of the table every time.

• 32:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, and then she'd add some other thing. And you're like, hey, you can't do that. I just steeled myself and now you just did this other funny thing. That's not fair.

• 32:37Amy Poehler?

  Oh, I love, I love a blooper. I love bloopers in general. I love a blooper.

• 32:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, but watching these Parks bloopers was, after I watched your thing, it put me on the algorithm. It was, it was, it was so fun.

• 32:49Amy Poehler?

  Oh, and you know what I also wanted to say, one more, in the, in the Parks and Recreation world for a second. My kids loved Aziz. They're in their late teens and when they see you on TV, they go, oh, is turkey sandwich in this? So, yes. My kids were little when they, when I was shooting that show and they would come and visit. And Aziz, you're really good with kids.

• 33:14Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 33:14Amy Poehler?

  And you do a thing that they love, which is you kind of like, I don't know, it's funny. You realize sometimes with kids, with, with people, like kids, either people like come on too strong and just like wanna, want, wanna interact and kids are like, hmm. Or they just, you know, they don't know, or they're like, hello, young person. But Aziz would basically do these bits with them. That would make them laugh so much. One of them is you would walk by my oldest and pretend to be on the phone with his best friend.

• 33:47Amy Poehler?

  Watson.

• 33:49Speaker 05

  Watson, that's right. Hell, hey Watson, what's going on? No, I'm just on set.

• 33:54Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, my oldest would just kind of listen and be like, wait, he's talking to my friend? Like, he was like five years old.

• 34:02Amy Poehler?

  And the other day, as you were just like doing funny bits with them, and one day you were, you were holding or eating a turkey sandwich, and they started laughing and pointing at you and saying, turkey sandwich, turkey sandwich, whatever. And you loved that. I just remember you thinking it was so funny. And the other thing I just wanted, you, you, you mentioned like your algorithm and your phone taking you to parks clips. I did want to talk to you today about your relationship to your phone.

• 34:32Amy Poehler?

  What is your relationship to your phone now?

• 34:35Speaker 05

  I, I try to stay off everything as much as I can.

• 34:39Amy Poehler?

  How do, how do you do that? Teach me your ways.

• 34:41Speaker 05

  I, I, um, uh, I, I have, I don't have email. I haven't had email for like 10 years.

• 34:49Amy Poehler?

  Incredible.

• 34:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, but I have, I have an assistant.

• 34:51Amy Poehler?

  Okay, all right, but still, that means that...

• 34:54Speaker 05

  There's also stuff like, you know, like, I have a flip phone and if I get really lost, I, I gotta either ask people or, or just call my wife and be like, hey.

• 35:06Speaker 05

  I've had to do that before, like call my wife and I, and it, to the point where she's like kind of used to it.

• 35:11Amy Poehler?

  But, but...

• 35:12Speaker 05

  And if, you know, I hail taxis and if there's not a taxi sometimes, I'll call them and be like, yeah, there's not one around.

• 35:17Amy Poehler?

  So you don't use like an Uber app?

• 35:19Speaker 05

  I, I, uh, usually in, in, in London, there's taxis all the time. You can hail them, and here too.

• 35:24Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:25Speaker 05

  In New York, yeah.

• 35:25Amy Poehler?

  Well, why do you, why do you have that kind of relationship with your phone?

• 35:29Speaker 05

  It just gives me more space to think. I mean, I heard something about like Tarantino doesn't even have a phone. Chris Nolan doesn't have a phone. I was like, whoa, those guys are able to get a lot of stuff done. Maybe there's something to it.

• 35:38Amy Poehler?

  It does feel like the, the, the eventual next step will be just that, will be people like breaking up with their phones in that way.

• 35:47Speaker 05

  It's pretty consuming and, uh... Yeah, but that's just me. I don't know.

• 35:52Amy Poehler?

  No, I relate and I am genuinely asking because I feel like my relationship with my phone has just gotten deeper and more intense.

• 36:00Speaker 05

  I remember one time on Parks, you told me something about how your phone fell in the pool or something and you didn't have for a couple of days and you're like, this is the greatest thing ever.

• 36:07Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, it definitely feels like something that had, has taken over. It's gonna be really interesting, this generation, like Gen Z and Gen Alpha, who have grown up with a phone in their hand.

• 36:18Speaker 05

  I saw a Gen Alpha kid one time at the airport and they had a flip phone. I guess it was like, because some parents get their kid a flip phone. I'll get you a flip phone.

• 36:25Amy Poehler?

  Sure.

• 36:25Speaker 05

  So I saw that and then I had, I had mine and I saw the kid and I went like this and dapped her flip phone and she was completely confused.

• 36:36Amy Poehler?

  Can I see your flip phone?

• 36:38Speaker 05

  God, this thing doesn't even work that well. But another thing is, one time I was eating in a restaurant in London and I heard my phone going off and I checked and nothing was going on. But it was another dude that had a flip and then we just started talking. And he, we were talking about all this and just joking about how like, oh, what do you do when you get lost and all this kind of stuff. And, you know, classic flip phone guy combo. And then he said, you know, the thing I think you gotta avoid now is the chatbot. And I was like, oh, 100%.

• 37:10Amy Poehler?

  Okay, let's talk about that, the AI.

• 37:12Speaker 05

  Not the AI, but just like-

• 37:13Amy Poehler?

  Wait, what's chatbot?

• 37:14Speaker 05

  Chatbot, or I think I'm not even calling it right, but the thing where you type the chat, GPT. I call it chatbot. Yeah, but it's chat GPT. See, I don't even know the name.

• 37:23Amy Poehler?

  I completely agree.

• 37:23Speaker 05

  I think this is like, you know, it's outsourcing critical thinking. It's making everyone's opinions kind of saying, this is my feeling, you know? And I think people using it instead of Google, most of the time it's wrong. And it's just kind of like telling you what you want to hear, so that you can keep asking your questions. And, you know, someone showed me some commercial where it's like, someone said like, how do I make a dinner for this girl that makes a... And I'm like, well, I would rather someone call someone and ask someone and maybe have some sort of conversation, a human thing. Like, it just seems like it's like outsourcing-

• 37:58Amy Poehler?

  It is.

• 37:59Speaker 05

  Thinking and it's like killing some bit of humanity. And I don't know, it kind of makes you, I was reading some article where it said like, it's making everyone a little more basic.

• 38:09Amy Poehler?

  Oh, yeah, that's real. I think that's real.

• 38:12Speaker 05

  You know?

• 38:12Amy Poehler?

  I've always found you, Aziz, to be a very curious person who's kind of interested in why we do things. Like, you're very interested in the why of, like, why people make choices. And I feel like definitely the last few stand-up specials that I've seen you do definitely have that feeling. And what is it? Are you doing stand-up right now? Are you out doing it at all?

• 38:34Speaker 05

  I'm just been promoting the movie now, but I think I'm gonna go out in, after the movie, in like, October, November.

• 38:42Amy Poehler?

  And do new, all new material?

• 38:44Speaker 05

  I've been doing stuff about like, being married and, you know, we're trying to like, have a kid and talking about that stuff.

• 38:52Amy Poehler?

  So what's it like being married? Is it fun being married?

• 38:57Speaker 05

  No, I love my wife very, very much.

• 38:59Amy Poehler?

  She's great.

• 39:00Speaker 05

  She's the greatest thing that's ever happened to me. Yeah, you've met her a handful of times and, yeah, she's great.

• 39:04Amy Poehler?

  How did you meet?

• 39:05Speaker 05

  We met in London and, you know, we did long distance for a while. And then, yeah, I was like, alright.

• 39:13Amy Poehler?

  How has being married changed you?

• 39:16Speaker 05

  I just feel like all the other stuff doesn't really matter to me anymore. You know?

• 39:21Amy Poehler?

  That's nice.

• 39:21Speaker 05

  I'm just like, oh, wow, this person is everything to me. And just to have that person to come home to and told that, that, uh, that's, it kind of makes everything else seem like it's less important.

• 39:32Amy Poehler?

  I mean, I love it, Aziz. I'm so happy for you. I'm excited to hear what you say on stage about marriage and relationship because I've always known you to be a person who's, um, who has a lot of love to give.

• 39:51Speaker 05

  Oh. Oh, thank you, yeah.

• 39:55Amy Poehler?

  Get those tears going, Aziz. Let's get those tears going. Chop, chop.

• 40:04Amy Poehler?

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• 40:48Amy Poehler?

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• 41:33Amy Poehler?

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• 41:54Amy Poehler?

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• 42:36Amy Poehler?

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• 42:51Amy Poehler?

  Before we talk about Good Fortune, your new film, which looks amazing, and holy shit, the cast is great, and you wrote and directed it. It's so good. When you were doing Master of None, Master of None feels like a show with Alan Yang that you created.

• 43:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 43:05Amy Poehler?

  It feels like when I was looking up and going over your stuff and being reminded of it, it almost feels like a different time in television. It was pre-COVID.

• 43:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, it's like a time capsule in New York now, that show. It's about 10 years old now when we were making it. And that was when Netflix first came out, and this was a time when Netflix was like, you remember, people would be like, "Oh, there's a new Netflix show." They had so few. And so every show got their shine. And when Alan and I made that show, the idea of like, "Whoa, this guy that's got the brown face is starring in the show?" That was not really happening. And yeah, and they let us kind of really do what we wanted. When people talk about, "Oh, getting notes," they hadn't even hired people to give notes yet. And then the first season did really well, so the second season, like, "Yeah, just keep doing your thing." And it was just a radically different time.

• 44:01Speaker 05

  And now streaming and making shows and all these things have become much, much different.

• 44:06Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, the whole industry is so different. And I remember you guys feeling... Excited about, um, about doing that. What was it like to leave an ensemble and then be like the lead of a show?

• 44:17Speaker 05

  Well, that's the other thing about Parks is, is Parks is not only you're, you're on this great show, but everything's taken care of. Like you just show up and you're like, treat yourself. Good night, see you, Zeez, thanks so much, great day at work. And, and, and that is not what you do on Mastermind, not what I do on Good Fortune. You, you have to pick, eh, you do, you know, people, I think sometimes, you know, they're like, what is directing? You don't really, it's kind of a vague thing. And it's really, you're just deciding everything. You know, you're like, okay, well, okay, where, where does a scene take place? Okay, a restaurant. Okay, let's go drive around and look at how many, ever many restaurants, I gotta pick the restaurant. What are the people wearing? You, you're making so many decisions, you're crafting everything and you're there and then, and you have to, you know,

• 45:02Speaker 05

  I'm writing everything too, so you have to write it and then you have to figure out how everything's gonna look and make all these decisions and then you have to edit it and you have to make sure it all works. And it's a much more involved process.

• 45:12Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 45:13Speaker 05

  And, and just acting is a much different, you know, simpler gig.

• 45:17Amy Poehler?

  Uh huh, uh huh. What part of directing surprises you that you like so much?

• 45:22Speaker 05

  I just love these moments where you've written something and you have your actors and, you know, you had it in your head a certain way and then someone does something a little surprising or it just goes to another level and, and, you know, when I, I was looking at some behind the stuff scenes from Good Fortune and this, I really enjoyed the stuff where I wasn't acting and I was just over the side and like, you know, it was like Keanu and Seth and they were doing something that was cracking me up and I was just, you know, laughing and, and, you know, trying not to

• 45:47Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 45:48Speaker 05

  mess up the scene. And those moments are super fun. I mean, there's another, there's a scene where they're like riding in a car and, and, um, they were like, okay, do you wanna follow them in the van beyond the radio? I was like, oh, those radios always cut out. I'm just gonna hide in the backseat. So I was like curled up like this and I was just like yelling jokes and, and, you know, Seth and Keanu are so iconic and like hearing them say the jokes like the way you have it in your head, but also a little funnier. I mean, that, that, when it really feels like you're a little kid playing, those are the best parts.

• 46:14Amy Poehler?

  Yes, totally. And, and, and also to be, allow yourself to Still do that, because sometimes I think, you know, when you're working on anything that you created, no matter, it doesn't have to be a film, it could be anything that you made, and you like hand it over and, and people then start to work on it, it's hard to not, to not be too rigid about it, like, you have an idea of how it's gonna go, and it's supposed to go that way, and the reason why we work with other people is to collaborate.

• 46:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, and to play like that, and to see what they have to say, and I love collaborating with actors, which is something I learned from, from our experience on Parks, you know, Mike and all the writers, they would take all these little things, like, oh, Offerman's into woodworking, maybe that, oh, he plays the saxophone, maybe, you know, and I've always spent a lot of time trying to get to know the people that I work with, and try to figure out how to put more of them into it, and try to understand who they are to help write the character better, make it feel more like them.

• 47:09Amy Poehler?

  Um, let's talk about Good Fortune, because that cast is, okay, so first of all, is Keanu as nice as he seems?

• 47:16Speaker 05

  He, he's the best.

• 47:17Amy Poehler?

  He seems incredible.

• 47:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, he's the best, and he's also, he's like the sweetest guy, but he's also like the coolest guy in the world, like, he kind of balances both things, like, you know, we'll do like rehearsals at my house or whatever, and Keanu will show up like on a motorcycle, like, he looks like he drove from an anime movie straight into reality, then he gets out, he's wearing like all black, he's got like a backpack from the future, he takes it off, he's got boots on, and, and he's just the coolest, and me and Seth are just like, ugh.

• 47:41Amy Poehler?

  I mean, I don't know, I don't like that Keanu's still driving a motorcycle, I want him off that motorcycle for insurance purposes.

• 47:48Speaker 05

  Oh, he's always riding that motorcycle, and I'm like, ugh.

• 47:51Amy Poehler?

  I want him off that motorcycle.

• 47:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, no, he loves his motorcycle, yeah.

• 47:55Amy Poehler?

  And Seth and Kiki you've worked with before, and Kiki is...

• 47:58Speaker 05

  Oh, Kiki's the best. You gotta meet Kiki, Kiki's one of my favorite people, ever.

• 48:02Amy Poehler?

  I have met Kiki.

• 48:03Speaker 05

  You have?

• 48:04Amy Poehler?

  I got the privilege of doing her podcast.

• 48:07Speaker 05

  Oh, you did, we did her podcast too, it was so fun.

• 48:09Amy Poehler?

  So fun, Kiki and I have had dinner, not to brag, by ourselves, just the two of us.

• 48:16Speaker 05

  She's like in Australia now. We rarely get to see each other.

• 48:19Amy Poehler?

  She works all the time. She's so, she is so naturally funny. I've described Kiki. She is a movie star hilarious.

• 48:29Speaker 05

  She once told me her aunt died in a way that was really funny and I was like, how did you do that? I'm laughing and you just told me, told me your aunt died.

• 48:37Amy Poehler?

  She is so quick. She's so sharp. She's so talented. I mean, she's just as good a singer and performer as she is an actress.

• 48:44Speaker 05

  We had this scene where me and Kiki are dancing and I was like working with some choreographer and then Kiki's just like, oh yeah. And then just does all this crazy stuff and I'm like, oh.

• 48:52Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, she is. She's so talented and I mean, the cast is really awesome. How did you, um, I guess, like, how did you let everybody play and experiment on the, like, was it, was it, was it that kind of set? Like, did you?

• 49:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, I think, look, if you cast the right people, it's all gonna come together and gel in a nice way. And, and, you know, I spent a lot of time rehearsing with everybody, so we kind of go.

• 49:19Amy Poehler?

  Okay, so you like to rehearse?

• 49:20Speaker 05

  I like to spend a lot of time, so we, because, you know, when you're actually on set, that is the most precious time. When the camera's rolling, to get to that moment, it's so precious and you're always, don't have enough time, blah, blah. So the more time I can spend with these people beforehand and rehearse and kind of make sure everything sounds right beforehand and, and, you know, rewrite things to make it really sound like them, then when we get on set, there's just less, we're already kind of almost there.

• 49:41Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 49:41Speaker 05

  Uh, but of course, once you're there in the place with the clothes and everything else, you, you come up with new ideas. But, um, you know, all those people, they're so, you know, Kiki and Seth, they're really comfortable with improvising. And Keanu, you know, Keanu at first, I think, Keanu was a little intimidated, I think, because, you know, he, he's not, he's not as a comedy guy as much as me and Seth, but he, he got into it and he would improvise and stuff a little bit.

• 50:04Amy Poehler?

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:04Speaker 05

  And I, I told Seth, I was like, could you imagine if like we did an action movie, how awkward it would be like, Keanu, what, what?

• 50:12Amy Poehler?

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna push back on that because I feel like we would be great as an action movie. I, because I want, I want us to be able to do more action.

• 50:21Speaker 05

  Really?

• 50:23Amy Poehler?

  Don't you wish you could do a film where you get to just say one line a day?

• 50:29Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, Keanu barely speaks in those.

• 50:31Amy Poehler?

  That's what I mean.

• 50:32Speaker 05

  You know, when I was a kid, my favorite movies were all action movies. My favorite movies were like Terminator 2 and Die Hard. And I mean, I still love those movies. Those are some of my favorite movies. But I loved action movies as a kid. When I was a little kid, I had that, you know, it's, I was, I mean, I liked comedy and all the stuff, but.

• 50:48Amy Poehler?

  I feel like once you start talking, you, it's diminishing returns. Like, once you actually start talking in film, everyone's like, oh, that's how they talk. Oh, they're saying that. But like, but if you never talk.

• 50:58Speaker 05

  Like which, are you trying to be like in a Fast and the Furious movie? What's the action movie?

• 51:01Amy Poehler?

  I would like more of like a Bourne Identity.

• 51:03Speaker 05

  Oh, whoa.

• 51:04Amy Poehler?

  Just walking through the streets of a European city.

• 51:07Speaker 05

  I like that.

• 51:08Amy Poehler?

  Leather jacket. I feel like everyone would get, like, if I did that, everyone would go like, ha. When I came on the street.

• 51:15Speaker 05

  Well, that's a sometimes, sometimes people send me stuff that's more serious. I'm like, they're just gonna think I'm too silly to be this guy. And it's gonna hurt the movie. I can't do it for you.

• 51:25Amy Poehler?

  I know what you mean. I can't show up as the villain and people aren't gonna be like, ooh.

• 51:29Speaker 05

  She's too nice. She's gonna change her mind.

• 51:34Amy Poehler?

  I do think it's amazing when people like decide to do a 180 as an actor and then they play someone really horrible. And you're just like, oh, no, we love that person and now they're.

• 51:44Speaker 05

  Some people can do it, you know?

• 51:45Amy Poehler?

  Some people can do it.

• 51:46Speaker 05

  Even when Keanu and I, one day, we were doing some press stuff together and, and there was like a room that I was waiting in in between. And it would happen to be like John Wick Weekend. And like, I was watching some of the Wick stuff. I'm like, wow, I can't believe he did this and then plays this very silly guy in my movie. And it's the same guy. It's, it's really impressive.

• 52:02Amy Poehler?

  He just also has a great reputation for being a wonderful person, Keanu. Like, it just seems like, you know, those kind of things, um, just.

• 52:13Amy Poehler?

  Get out into the world and he just seems like he's handled his giant fame and his like very long um.

• 52:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, he's been in the game for a long, long time.

• 52:24Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 52:25Speaker 05

  When I was about to meet him, I did like a little film festival and I was rewatching like Parenthood and.

• 52:30Amy Poehler?

  Parenthood, I just saw, rewatched Parenthood on the plane, it's so good.

• 52:35Speaker 05

  It's incredible.

• 52:36Amy Poehler?

  It is, it's so good.

• 52:38Speaker 05

  I, I, during that weekend, with the John Wick weekend, they showed Parenthood too and I was watching in between and I was just like, wow.

• 52:44Amy Poehler?

  Very different, John Wick and Parenthood.

• 52:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, I know.

• 52:46Amy Poehler?

  Do you, are there films that you go back to that are like your comfort watches? Like if you're, if you're, if it's a rainy day and you're like, I'm gonna put on a movie? Do you like to watch films?

• 52:55Speaker 05

  I, I love watching films and, and there's definitely like a film nerd element to my why, to my life and, and um, uh, yeah, the movies I go back to a lot. I love, you know, I, you know, working on this, I, and, and all the time when I'm writing, I revisit, I revisit like Being John Malkovich a lot.

• 53:14Amy Poehler?

  Yes.

• 53:14Speaker 05

  I love that, I love Eternal Sunshine, Spotlight's Mind.

• 53:17Amy Poehler?

  I love Eternal Sunshine.

• 53:18Speaker 05

  Those, those two I visit a lot, I love those. And then I love watching just older movies too.

• 53:23Amy Poehler?

  Me too, I mean, I, I, I feel like the, the joy of getting older is like looking back and realizing, oh, there's a lot of stuff I still haven't seen, you know?

• 53:34Speaker 05

  Oh yeah, it never ends.

• 53:35Amy Poehler?

  I know, I know.

• 53:36Speaker 05

  The thing that got me into being more diligent about watching film was, you know, I realized, oh, all these directors that I love, whether it's like Scorsese or Paul Thomas Sanders, whatever, they've seen every movie and I was like, that can't be a coincidence.

• 53:47Amy Poehler?

  I mean, I gotta be honest, sometimes it's overwhelming, like the way people who make films talk about films definitely makes me feel like stressed.

• 53:55Speaker 05

  Oh, I had to go on like TCM or whatever and I was like, hey man, I, I might get some things wrong here.

• 54:01Amy Poehler?

  I know.

• 54:01Speaker 05

  Cause like Scorsese will be like, and, and the person that did the craft services here, um, you know, he was making these ham sandwiches that had this special kind of cheese that, that everybody loved and Greta Garbo didn't like them, so he, for her, he would do it with turkey.

• 54:14Amy Poehler?

  Totally. And it's like, I don't know, I don't know it, I know, it's just, and, and it definitely feels like that feeling like when you have an oral exam in school, like a quiz.

• 54:26Speaker 05

  I was watching Parks and Recreation and you know, any Polish kid's called his "Zes, I'm sorry, turkey sandwich."

• 54:32Speaker 05

  How do you remember all this?

• 54:33Amy Poehler?

  I know, it's intense. Okay, speaking of food, though, turkey sandwich and food. I want to talk to you about food.

• 54:40Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 54:41Amy Poehler?

  Okay, before we wrap, because I feel like the food, your relationship to food is, is ties in to the bigger idea of you like trying to open yourself up to a lot of stuff in life, like being curious.

• 54:54Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 54:55Amy Poehler?

  You, growing up, what was the food you were eating growing up?

• 54:59Speaker 05

  I, my mom would cook Indian food.

• 55:01Amy Poehler?

  Mm hmm.

• 55:01Speaker 05

  And there was a woman that took care of us, her name was Ms. Beulah. And she cooked southern food. So there would be, you know, Indian food, like biryani or whatever, and then there'd be like chicken and dumplings.

• 55:11Amy Poehler?

  Mmm. Incredible.

• 55:13Speaker 05

  Weirdly, I think, would eat a little bit of both. So I grew up on southern food and Indian food.

• 55:17Amy Poehler?

  Okay, and then when did you become, when did you start realizing like I, I actually care very much about what I eat and I want to learn how to cook and be a good cook?

• 55:27Speaker 05

  It's interesting you ask, because I think people think of me as like, oh, Aziz, he knows all the restaurants. It's like, I know, I actually like just cook at home all the time now. I love to cook.

• 55:35Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 55:35Speaker 05

  And that, um, uh, I think it happened in a, a lot of it was during COVID. I started cooking more and more and it was kind of what our day was based around. It's like, oh, we're gonna cook, because I, I was in London during COVID and, and the farmers markets and stuff didn't close and you could kind of walk around and, and so food became a way to kind of structure your day a little bit.

• 55:54Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 55:54Speaker 05

  Um, but during COVID, I wanted to learn all my mom's recipes. And so I asked my mom to help, because Indian food's very intimidating.

• 56:03Amy Poehler?

  Oh, big time.

• 56:05Speaker 05

  But it's not a, wait, do I ever send you those cookbooks I make? I make these cookbooks for friends. Uh, I gotta send you one, sorry.

• 56:10Amy Poehler?

  No.

• 56:13Speaker 05

  I'll send you all of them.

• 56:14Amy Poehler?

  No way. Wait, so you like transcribed your mom's recipes?

• 56:17Speaker 05

  Not all of them, but like every year, like during Christmas time, I make this. I'm so sorry, I haven't sent it to you. I'll send it to you.

• 56:22Amy Poehler?

  No worries.

• 56:23Speaker 05

  But, uh, yeah, I, uh, I, I just, whatever I've been cooking that year.

• 56:27Amy Poehler?

  Oh, that's great.

• 56:28Speaker 05

  I started during COVID and I, and I just kind of kept it going.

• 56:31Amy Poehler?

  Oh, that's awesome.

• 56:32Speaker 05

  But Indian food's what I really love to cook.

• 56:34Amy Poehler?

  What, what makes Indian food, like for, for a person just cooking, like hard to cook?

• 56:39Speaker 05

  It's nothing hard. It's just, you know, I would ask my mom Like, oh, how much of that coriander powder you put in? It's like, I don't know, I didn't, you know, and you're like, wait, but, but, and, and you're scared that you're gonna mess it up. But it's not like baking, you know, where like, oh, if you put like a teaspoon too much, it's not really gonna screw it up too much. And the other thing that's super helpful is YouTube. If you can, cause you can watch, there's all these people in, uh, like, you know, aunties and stuff in India that have YouTube channels. And they show you how to cook everything and seeing it visually makes it a little less intimidating.

• 57:04Amy Poehler?

  Yes.

• 57:04Speaker 05

  And you just gotta do that first trip to the Indian store and, and get, I always think that term's kinda funny. That's what everybody calls like the Indian grocery store, they call the Indian store. But that sounds like you're going and buying Indian people.

• 57:16Amy Poehler?

  No, you're not.

• 57:17Speaker 05

  It's just ingredients.

• 57:19Amy Poehler?

  Ingredients.

• 57:20Speaker 05

  But, uh, you just gotta get all the stuff and they keep it in the pantry and then it's like, oh yeah, everything's like, oh yeah, slice of onions and some little ginger garlic. And then some spices and then maybe a tomato and then you put the chicken in, stir it around 20 minutes and it's done.

• 57:31Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 57:31Speaker 05

  Wait, can I tell you, so I cooked for Rashida like a week ago. She lives really close to me and, uh, her family came over and she brought her little kid. And she was like, I was like cooking Indian food and she's like, can you make something for him, something not too intense? I was like, oh, I got it. I'm gonna make him chicken 65. That's like, it's like chick, like Indian chicken nuggets almost. They're like little pieces of chicken, little kids love it. So every little, and then every kid loves it. And so I made him chicken 65 and he ate it and then he started going crazy. He just like had so much energy and then I realized it's because the chicken 65, they put red food coloring in it to make it bright red. And the red food coloring has that dye. That makes the kids go crazy.

• 58:13Amy Poehler?

  Go crazy. It got him pumped up.

• 58:15Speaker 05

  Yeah. So now whenever they come over, I just make a bunch of chicken 65 and he goes nuts.

• 58:20Amy Poehler?

  Well, it is so funny they say that because we do a thing here on the podcast where we like to talk to somebody before the podcast. We talk well behind their back.

• 58:27Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 58:27Amy Poehler?

  And I get a question and I just talked to Rashida.

• 58:29Speaker 05

  Oh, wow.

• 58:31Amy Poehler?

  And Rashida just told us that you made her chicken 65.

• 58:36Speaker 05

  She loves it. She's like, she's like, she, she was like, uh, let's come for dinner again. I was like, what are you watching? Chicken 65.

• 58:42Amy Poehler?

  She loves it and, and, you know, in many ways, I, we both, Rashida and I feel like we were your auntie at times on that. And I know Rashida and you guys like and she was talking about like how you know what we were talking about earlier that you are like what she really respects about you is the way that you're a curious person always trying to learn more about yourself and the world and her question was and she was like you know saying you're a very, very good chef.

• 59:15Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 59:16Amy Poehler?

  Chef or cook? What would you say? Chef? Cook?

• 59:19Speaker 05

  Cook, bro, cook.

• 59:20Amy Poehler?

  Cook, right?

• 59:20Speaker 05

  Cook a little more, more, yeah.

• 59:21Amy Poehler?

  Chef seems like someone else that says, "Call you a chef."

• 59:23Speaker 05

  I'm not that good. I'm not that great.

• 59:25Amy Poehler?

  If you get the right hat, you become a chef.

• 59:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 59:27Amy Poehler?

  You just put it on. But as a cook, she wanted me to ask you, what is your favorite thing to cook?

• 59:36Speaker 05

  I love to cook Indian food and I love cooking stuff. I think there's something special about the food you ate growing up and the food your family made and I think there's some, you know, one time I went to India and I stayed for a little extra time and I asked my family, I was like, "Oh, who's like really like kind of the mean cooks? Like who can I learn from?" And I stayed for a couple of days with some people that were a little bit distant relatives, like my aunt's sister, something like that. And they showed me so much stuff and

• 1:00:06Amy Poehler?

  They were cooking in their home and showed you?

• 1:00:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, and just learning like home food that comes from your family. I think there's something special about it and, and you know, because that's, I think that's something important to pass down and, and you know, with my own, my own parents, you know, they're, they're all healthy and everything, but you know, you start thinking about their, their time and, and just like, oh, wow, like it's a piece of your family history that I think is cool to try to preserve.

• 1:00:29Amy Poehler?

  I feel like you also took cooking lessons somewhere else, too. Did you go to Italy or?

• 1:00:34Speaker 05

  In season two of Master Nuns.

• 1:00:36Amy Poehler?

  That's right.

• 1:00:36Speaker 05

  That also gave me a big help to be comfortable in the kitchen. So it made it less intimidating. But season two took place in Italy. So before we filmed it, I went and lived in this town in Italy and I, I learned Italian a little bit and, and I worked in these kitchens and these places and these, these people did not really know who I was. And I was like, "Yeah, I'm working on a TV show." And they're like, "Oh, okay." And then, but they, they let me work in the kitchens and I I uh I learned a lot from these these people that were there and they were so nice. And um it it kind of gave me some confidence to to kind of start with the Italian food. And then I there was a couple of Indian things I could make, but then it went during COVID. I really started. I had more time. I had nothing to do. So I was just like, OK, I'm going to keep pushing this.

• 1:01:18Amy Poehler?

  I always say this. I did not grow up cooking at all. And my I had a busy working mom who, you know, in I grew up in the 70s and early 80s. So I didn't have a ton of, you know, we we didn't have like a cooking family. And I always say it's never too late to start trying because it is very like low risk, high reward. Like, try a dish and if it doesn't work, you just, nobody knows. You can just throw it away. Like, you can just and when it does work, you feel like incredible.

• 1:01:47Speaker 05

  Repetition is the father of learning.

• 1:01:50Amy Poehler?

  Yes.

• 1:01:51Speaker 05

  Lil Wayne said that.

• 1:01:54Speaker 05

  He did.

• 1:01:55Amy Poehler?

  He did?

• 1:01:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:01:57Amy Poehler?

  Amazing.

• 1:01:57Speaker 05

  I mean, I don't know if he was quoting someone else.

• 1:02:01Amy Poehler?

  Maybe, maybe, maybe. Um, we'll see. We'll look it up. What are you laughing at these days? What are you watching, reading? I know you're not addicted to your phone. You have a flip phone. But what are you? What do you do to laugh? Where do you go?

• 1:02:16Speaker 05

  For laugh?

• 1:02:17Amy Poehler?

  I know.

• 1:02:18Speaker 05

  What did I watch to laugh recently?

• 1:02:19Amy Poehler?

  I know, because it's kind of hard when comedy is your job.

• 1:02:22Speaker 05

  You don't watch as much comedy sometimes.

• 1:02:24Amy Poehler?

  You don't. You and and, you know, when you when you when you come from the stand up world, we all know that the way stand ups laugh is they just watch each other and go, nice.

• 1:02:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a different thing.

• 1:02:33Amy Poehler?

  They go, yeah, that was funny.

• 1:02:35Speaker 05

  What was I laughing at recently?

• 1:02:37Amy Poehler?

  I know. Anything that you do when you're trying.

• 1:02:39Speaker 05

  I just my, you know, every now and then my wife will show me some silly internet thing. She she showed me something. It was like it was like a meme of like a dolphin. Look, it was like looking happy and it was like me letting the flight attendant know I'm ready for a snack. And it was a dolphin. It's like. Like the stupid stuff like that.

• 1:02:58Amy Poehler?

  Okay, let's look up that dolphin.

• 1:03:00Speaker 05

  I think it's a dolphin.

• 1:03:02Amy Poehler?

  I love a meme.

• 1:03:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, those kind of things, movies and stuff.

• 1:03:08Amy Poehler?

  I know, I mean. Smiling dolphin memes?

• 1:03:11Speaker 05

  I love some of those old movies like The Apartment, like just those things just make me laugh so hard.

• 1:03:18Amy Poehler?

  You don't, you don't go on TikTok or anything like that, right?

• 1:03:21Speaker 05

  No, I've never really been on TikTok.

• 1:03:25Speaker 05

  I mean, I've seen videos, I'm not like a, you know, I've seen some of the stuff, some of that stuff has made me laugh.

• 1:03:30Amy Poehler?

  Here we go.

• 1:03:30Speaker 05

  Sometimes I see the stuff I don't understand.

• 1:03:33Amy Poehler?

  It's not him. It's not him.

• 1:03:35Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:36Amy Poehler?

  Well, it's a.

• 1:03:36Speaker 05

  I'm like a cookie, that's pretty close, but the, the one my wife sent me, the dolphin had a better smile. I gotta find it, I gotta send it to you later.

• 1:03:43Amy Poehler?

  Do you watch anything, are you watching any shows right now that like is, is, you know,

• 1:03:50Amy Poehler?

  I mean, it's an interesting time right now for comedy, I mean, Good Fortune is a great example of like, there's not a lot of just straight comedies out there in the world right now.

• 1:03:59Speaker 05

  To be like, an original idea, that's a comedy that's in theaters, like to have even one of those three now.

• 1:04:05Amy Poehler?

  Yes.

• 1:04:06Speaker 05

  Is wild.

• 1:04:07Amy Poehler?

  It is.

• 1:04:08Speaker 05

  And I, you know, Seth and I were always talking about this of how we wanted the movie to be theatrical and how, you know, I remember going in New York when I was in school, going to see like Anchorman and, you know, Forty O Version, all these movies and just being in like a packed theater and just dying. And, and I think that's, that's something I miss and I hope, I hope it comes back and I hope more people get to make comedies and, and that we get that back because it's so much better to be in a group and laugh. You know, if you go to a live show, you know, if you go to a live show at like a UCB or a stand-up tour, there's so many people there and you don't realize how much the, the other people that experience is part of it. Like, you come see me do stand-up at a theater, it's, oh man, we're having a great time, but I just came to your house and just started doing stand-ups and you're sitting by yourself.

• 1:04:51Amy Poehler?

  Yeah. I'd be like, how did you get into my house?

• 1:04:54Speaker 05

  This is not a good experience, this is, but that, Diddy is like the, you know, streaming a movie and being on your phone at the same time is like, not the same thing.

• 1:05:01Amy Poehler?

  I know, it's back to the phone, it's back to the phone and the, the theater is still the only. Place where you're not allowed to be on your phone.

• 1:05:08Speaker 05

  I love going to the movie theater. It's so fun.

• 1:05:10Amy Poehler?

  I'm so happy that you came, Aziz.

• 1:05:12Speaker 05

  Oh, I gotta tell you, I, you know, whenever I was like, okay, we gotta do this press tour for the movie. I was like, oh, well, I know one thing I'll be looking forward to very much, and that was this, and spend time with you.

• 1:05:24Amy Poehler?

  Same.

• 1:05:25Speaker 05

  It's always a pleasure when we get to see each other, and thank you for having me.

• 1:05:29Amy Poehler?

  Turkey sandwich. I'm so happy that you came.

• 1:05:31Speaker 05

  Hold on one second.

• 1:05:34Speaker 05

  Hey, Watson. Yeah, yeah, I'm just finishing up the pod.

• 1:05:39Speaker 05

  Okay, I'll see you there.

• 1:05:41Amy Poehler?

  What?

• 1:05:43Speaker 05

  No, I haven't seen Archie and Abel in a long time. I don't know. I think they're in their twenties. Take care, Watson. Bye.

• 1:05:54Amy Poehler?

  Thank you, Aziz Ansari, for coming by and hanging. It was so great to see you and to go down memory lane and talk about all the good things ahead. And now it is time for our Polar Plunge. And today's Polar Plunge is presented by BMW Certified. In a world full of uncertainty, BMW Certified pre-owned vehicles are the real deal. They come with a BMW Certified Warranty, genuine BMW parts, and an additional three years of 24/7 roadside assistance. Visit BMWUSA.com/certified-preowned to learn more. So for this Polar Plunge, I just want to stick up for my phone a little bit.

• 1:06:32Amy Poehler?

  I feel like we've been pretty hard on the phone in this episode, and we've talked about how bad it is for us. And, look, I agree, but my best friend gives me a lot of things. It helps me track my other friends and send them creepy texts like, oh, I see that you're at the airport. Have a good flight. My phone lets me buy things by just going. Just sweep, swiping it across the thing and you don't even know, you don't even have to take out your credit card. My phone, um, it just tells me about all the awful news that's happening minute by minute, all over the world. And if I missed it, it pops up to remind me.

• 1:07:16Amy Poehler?

  So just take it easy on my phone, okay? It's my best friend and, um, it's never let me down. Uh, but, but seriously, help, help me, help me get away from it. Uh, please help. So today's Polar Plunge was presented by BMW Certified. As a BMW Certified Owner, you receive the performance you expect, plus the warranty and assistance you deserve. Learn more at BMWUSA.com/certified-preowned. Thank you, Aziz. Thank you for everyone listening. Good hang and we'll see you again. Bye. You've been listening to Good Hang. The executive producers for this show are Bill Simmons, Jenna Weiss-Berman, and me, Amy Poehler. The show is produced by The Ringer and Paperkite.

• 1:07:57Amy Poehler?

  For The Ringer, production by Jack Wilson, Kat Spillane, Kya McMullin, and Aleia Zanarez. For Paperkite, production by Sam Green, Joel Lovell, and Jenna Weiss-Berman. Original music by Amy Miles. This episode is brought to you by Caesar. Dog parents, what do you have on the menu tonight? If you're looking to serve your favorite four-legged friend high-quality wet dog food they'll be genuinely excited about, we say, just eat Caesar. Whether it's a protein-rich beef recipe on Monday, or a savory chicken and vegetable dinner on Wednesday, Caesar offers a variety of delicious meals made with freshly crafted, slow-cooked ingredients, all designed to support your dog's everyday nutrition without

• 1:08:42Amy Poehler?

  compromise. That's real variety, real ingredients, and real excitement at mealtime. So if you're looking to serve a meal your dog actually looks forward to every single day, they should totally just eat Caesar. Learn more at Caesar.com. Your dog will thank you. Folks, as we head into fall, we welcome yet another season of change. Changing leaves, refreshed wardrobes, and new routines. But one thing that doesn't need to change? Your phone. The smartest upgrade this Season isn't a new phone, it's a better wireless plan. Switch to Visible, the ultimate wireless hack. You get unlimited 5G data and unlimited hotspot powered by Verizon for just $25 a month.

• 1:09:24Amy Poehler?

  That means keeping the phone you already love, ditching your overpriced phone bill, and saving enough to get yourself a pumpkin spice all season long. All the perks of big wireless for half the cost. Switch today at visible.com. The Visible plan starts at $25 a month. Or get the premium Visible Plus Pro Plan and save $10 on your first month with promo code HANG. Terms apply. See visible.com for plan features and network management details.