Maz Jobrani

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This week on One on One, meet the talented and travelled stand-up comedian and actor, Maz Jobrani.

The Iranian-born funny man’s original career plans did not include comedy or even acting for that matter.

A whacky sense of humour on stage and an alert, perceptive mind off it, has made him a highly sought-after talent.

He combines his skills as a well-trained actor with an off-beat approach to jokes to help break down negative stereotypes.

After his parents moved to the San Francisco area of California, from Tehran, when he was still a boy, the young Maz Jobrani ended up on an educational path that led him to a degree in political science and Italian.

It was while enrolled for a Ph.D. programme that he decided to drop out and follow a secret dream he had been nurturing to be an actor, after performing in a school play during his early teens. Before long, he was regularly appearing on popular American television shows – and then in Hollywood movies with some of the industry’s top actors.

But for many, his stand-up comedy personifies Jobrani’s true character as an entertainer. His time with the successful 2007 project, The Axis of Evil Tour, along with some top Arab-American comedians, was aimed, he says, at breaking down some of the negative stereotypes in the West about Arabs and Persians.

The goal of his stand-up comedy, he adds, is to expose hypocrisy and if it makes people laugh then great!

This episode of One on One can be seen at the following times GMT:
Friday, December 26: 1030; Saturday, December 27: 0330, 1430; Sunday, December 28: 0730; Monday, December 29: 0030