Aziz Ansari, Keanu Reeves, Seth Rogen on Making Comedy

A number of weeks into filming Good Fortune — a low-key comedy written by, directed by and starring Aziz Ansari — Keanu Reeves, legendary motion star of the Matrix and John Wick motion pictures, threw the manufacturing into full chaos.

Within the movie, Reeves performs a bumbling, low-ranking angel who swaps the lives of Ansari, a down-on-his-luck L.A. gig employee, and Seth Rogen, a rich tech exec residing the great life within the Hollywood Hills. The three actors had been filming a lighthearted scene, shuffling excitedly between a sizzling sauna and chilly plunge, when Reeves’ foot caught on some flooring.

“My knee went,” Reeves, 60, recounts on a current Sunday morning, seated beside his two Good Fortune co-stars on the colourful Whitby Lodge in midtown Manhattan. (He’s at present on the town rehearsing together with his Invoice & Ted’s Wonderful Journey co-star Alex Winter for a Broadway manufacturing of Ready for Godot.) “I snapped my kneecap vertically, like a potato chip. Because the ache was developing, I used to be like, ‘Oh fuck. This isn’t good. That is fairly unhealthy.’ There was plenty of blood.”

Ansari took within the unfolding nightmare and commenced to panic. Good Fortune was his plan B. Plan A had been a really totally different movie, a ardour mission about getting older and loss of life known as Being Mortal, which was shuttered three weeks into manufacturing after its star, Invoice Murray, was discovered by Searchlight Photos to have engaged in “inappropriate conduct” with a feminine assistant, a stroke of unhealthy luck that painfully echoed Ansari’s personal brush with #MeToo allegations some years prior.

In any case, Ansari had no plan C.

“It nonetheless seems like one thing from The Studio,” he says, referring to Rogen’s hit Apple TV+ comedy — a present fueled by behind-the-scenes Hollywood mayhem. On cue, Rogen, 43, slips into his Studio character, Matt Remick, frazzled head of Continental Studios: “Keanu broke his kneecap! He can’t stroll! What can he do? Can we prop him up? Can we cling him from wires? We’ll marionette him within the scene!” Then the well-known Seth Rogen snicker: “Heh heh heh heh heh!”

Ansari additionally laughs about it — now. “Keanu might have simply been like, ‘Hey man, I’m so sorry. I’m out,’ ” he says. Raised on Reeves’ movies like Level Break, Velocity and The Matrix, his star was a lot extra than simply one other actor — he was a display screen god and, so far as Ansari was involved, a serious casting coup. Minus Reeves, his goals of a profession as a film auteur had been spiraling down the drain as soon as extra.

However Reeves pushed by the ache to movie no matter they might on schedule, then caught round for reshoots as soon as the solid got here off. The outcomes of all that literal blood, sweat and tears will lastly be unveiled Sept. 6, when the movie premieres on the 2025 Toronto Worldwide Movie Competition, simply weeks earlier than opening broad Oct. 17 all through the U.S.

For Ansari, the stakes for his little angel film are of biblical proportions. A gifted observational stand-up and sketch comic who discovered stardom taking part in the smarmy Tom Haverford on NBC’s Parks and Recreation, it’s been a full decade because the launch of his Netflix present, Masters of None, a tv groundbreaker that ushered in a brand new period of numerous storytelling, cracking the doorways open for a wave of lauded collection like Insecure, Atlanta and Ramy. It’s been almost eight years since an nameless lady accused him of undesirable sexual aggression whereas on a date, kicking up a fierce debate concerning the rising energy of the #MeToo motion, a devastating blow to Ansari’s sterling picture as comedy’s “woke bae,” as one web site dubbed him in 2016. And it’s been three years because the shock of Searchlight Photos pulling the plug on Being Mortal, the mission that was speculated to launch his characteristic movie directing profession.

So, sure, how audiences obtain Good Fortune means an ideal deal to Ansari. It means the whole lot.

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Two mornings later, Ansari occupies a nook desk on the terrace of one other swanky lodge in decrease Manhattan — this one to stay anonymous, because it’s his favored pied-à-terre.

He has, since 2019, headquartered himself in London, the place he lives together with his spouse, Serena Skov Campbell, a Danish forensic knowledge scientist. However he’s incessantly in New York and Los Angeles, he says, in addition to on the highway doing stand-up. His present Hypothetical Tour, which explores married life and his hopes to develop into a father, featured a date at Radio Metropolis Music Corridor in April and was just lately prolonged into November.

Up shut, Ansari seems youthful than his 42 years, though a bit spent. He solely orders espresso. He had a late dinner, he explains, and the restaurant’s signature dish of sheep’s milk ricotta and honey on toast isn’t precisely calling his identify. “It has truffles in it,” he says. “I don’t like truffles.”

Ansari noticed Weapons over the weekend, the blockbuster horror movie a couple of classroom of lacking youngsters. “It’s cool, it’s subtle and it’s attention-grabbing. I used to be actually glad it did effectively,” he says. “Zach Cregger, the writer-director, he was in my era of comedy. He was within the sketch group The Whitest Children U’Know. We had been pals within the scene.”

The scene he refers to is the underground New York comedy world of the early aughts. Ansari grew up in South Carolina, considered one of two sons to immigrant mother and father from India, each docs. (They’d later dabble in appearing, taking part in his mom and father on Grasp of None.) He moved to New York in 2000 to attend NYU’s Stern College of Enterprise and immersed himself within the metropolis’s thriving improv and stand-up tradition, the place he rapidly grew to become a standout.

“I’ve been a fan since I noticed him play a Criss Angel-type magician on Human Big,” says Judd Apatow, referring to the MTV sketch comedy collection that ran from 2007 to 2008. “Whenever you see him at a comedy membership, he’ll do a set and kill, then instantly sit down, put in ear buds and hear and take notes about the way it went. No one works tougher than him.”

Apatow solid Ansari as Randy Springs, an obnoxious comedian, in his 2009 movie Humorous Individuals. It was on that set — and the set of that 12 months’s a lot darker comedy Observe and Report — that Ansari and Rogen first developed a kinship and comedy shorthand. “Aziz and Seth have at all times been far more than comedian actors,” says Apatow. “They’re each distinctive comedian forces of nature who’ve distinctive visions all their very own.”

Years later, that imaginative and prescient was what would draw Reeves into their sphere. “When you might have the prospect to work with two comedy masters,” he says, “you go for it.” Again then, although, Ansari was nonetheless studying from a crew of different comedy masters — Amy Poehler, Nick Offerman, Adam Scott, to call a couple of — when he was solid in 2008 on Parks and Recreation, the follow-up sitcom from the showrunners of NBC’s The Workplace. Ansari’s character grew to become an instantaneous fan favourite — an aspiring leisure mogul together with his personal weird patois (his private mantra, “Deal with yo’ self,” launched itself into the favored lexicon).

It was on Parks that Ansari encountered a author named Alan Yang. “We had been each very younger, and we simply acquired alongside in a short time,” he explains. “What occurs on these reveals is you get together with one of many writers after which possibly you go off and do your personal present collectively.”

That certainly is what occurred. Ansari nonetheless remembers sitting in Ted Sarandos’ workplace in late 2014 when he and Yang pitched Grasp of None as a contemporary, ethnically numerous tackle the “younger individuals residing in New York” style. There have been three posters on Sarandos’ wall: Orange Is the New Black, Home of Playing cards and Lilyhammer. “These had been their solely reveals on the time,” Ansari recollects. “However they simply appeared to actually get it. Ted was like, ‘We are going to go along with this immediately.’ “

“It was initially a bit bit extra skewed towards the courting angle, following a younger single man in New York,” recollects Yang, 42, now a producer on Good Fortune. Throughout one significantly irritating writing session, Yang talked about how their stress “would by no means rival the struggles my mother and father had after they had been youthful. My dad didn’t have sufficient meals to eat as a child — he needed to kill and eat his pet rooster simply to outlive. Aziz actually responded to that and began sharing tales his mother and father advised him. We then broadened the scope of the present.”

Alongside for the trip was one other gifted younger author from Parks and Rec: Harris Wittels. In early February 2015, Ansari knowledgeable Wittels — whom he describes as “one of many funniest individuals I’ve ever met” — that he wouldn’t simply be writing on the present, he’d be starring on it as Ansari’s greatest good friend. Wittels, who had been open about his dependancy points, fatally overdosed on heroin six days later. “I believed he’d been coping with these items,” says Ansari, wiping away a tear. “I used to be very naive about dependancy. I believed, ‘Nicely, for those who determined you’re getting assist, the whole lot’s high quality.’ And then you definately get that telephone name — and it’s a whole shock.”

The present went on, nonetheless, and to nice acclaim, with the second season’s “Thanksgiving” extensively thought-about a collection excessive level. It options the lesbian character performed by co-star Lena Waithe — who together with Ansari took dwelling a comedy collection writing Emmy for the episode, making her the primary Black lady to win in that class — popping out to her household at Thanksgiving dinner.

“After which the third season I changed into a lesbian drama,” he deadpans. Certainly, Ansari blew up his present’s successful system and targeted season three — filmed by 2020 and 2021, with COVID interruptions — on Waithe’s character and her breakup along with her spouse (Naomi Ackie). On the urging of mentor Apatow — who suggested him to “attempt to direct as a lot as you may” — Ansari helmed all 5 episodes of the season.

“There have been so lots of these sorts of reveals on the air at that time that I didn’t wish to do it anymore,” he says of the inventive overhaul. “I had this aggressive concept of like, ‘Let’s do the present once more, however take away the whole lot individuals like about it. Let’s actually problem ourselves.’ It was enjoyable, and we pulled it off, however I additionally do perceive why individuals had been like, ‘Hey, what did you do?’ “

Between the present’s second and third seasons, Ansari was thrown yet one more curveball. On Jan. 13, 2018, accusations of sexual misconduct had been leveled at Ansari on a little-known web site — the now-defunct Babe.internet, which billed itself as being “for ladies who don’t give a fuck” — in an immediately viral account titled, “I went on a date with Aziz Ansari. It changed into the worst evening of my life.”

The nameless accuser detailed assembly Ansari at a 2017 Emmys afterparty, the place he was celebrating his “Thanksgiving” writing win. That led to a dinner date, which quickly redirected to Ansari’s Tribeca loft. There she was “pressured” into having intercourse with Ansari, who behaved, she stated, like a “sexy, tough, entitled 18-year-old. … I cried the entire trip dwelling. At that time I felt violated.”

The story lit a firestorm over the ability and attain of #MeToo in addition to turning into a flashpoint in journalistic ethics with regard to the motion. In a New York Occasions op-ed, Bari Weiss declared the story “the worst factor to occur” to #MeToo because the motion ignited with that paper’s reporting on Harvey Weinstein in October 2017.

Ansari issued an announcement, saying he took the encounter to be “fully consensual” and was “shocked and anxious” when the girl advised him the next day that not all “appeared OK” with what transpired. “I took her phrases to coronary heart and responded privately after taking the time to course of what she had stated,” he stated.

His subsequent public remarks on the matter got here in his July 2019 Netflix comedy particular, Aziz Ansari: Proper Now. “There’s instances I felt scared, there’s instances I felt humiliated, there’s instances I felt embarrassed, and in the end I simply felt horrible that this particular person felt this manner,” he advised the viewers on the Brooklyn Academy of Music. “I at all times take into consideration a dialog I had with considered one of my pals the place he was like: ‘You realize what, man? That complete factor made me take into consideration each date I’ve ever been on.’ And I believed, ‘Wow! That’s fairly unbelievable.’ If this made not simply me however different individuals be extra considerate, then that’s a very good factor, and that’s how I really feel about it.”

Ansari drew some criticism for not addressing the accuser instantly in his particular, to which he responds, “I imply, I apologized to the particular person personally, proper? When it occurred.” And he rejects the notion that he took a hiatus within the wake of the controversy, saying, “It wasn’t actually a break, per se. I did that tour, and I needed to handle it within the particular as a result of individuals had been interested in how I felt about the entire expertise. So I felt like I needed to discuss it within the particular.”

Rogen has not been shy about taking public stances with issues of sexual misconduct — most notably together with his onetime cohort and collaborator James Franco, who in 2018 was hit together with his personal lengthy checklist of accusations. In 2021, Rogen confirmed in an interview with The Occasions of London that these accusations “modified many issues in our relationship and our dynamic” and that “I’ve not and I don’t plan to” work with Franco once more, a pledge he to date has stored.

Ansari has drawn no such rebuke from Rogen. Quite the opposite, the 2 had been planning to collaborate for a while — and at last acquired their probability with Being Mortal, by which Rogen performed the son of a dying Murray. Keke Palmer, who performs Ansari’s love curiosity in Good Fortune, was solid as Rogen’s spouse within the movie. “She’s so humorous, however there’s additionally a depth to her,” says Ansari, and cites her viral 2021 Met Gala purple carpet interview of Megan Thee Stallion as having received him over to her idiosyncratic charms.

Ansari had about three-quarters of Being Mortal within the can when a feminine manufacturing assistant accused Murray of climbing on prime of her in a mattress and kissing her by their COVID masks. The studio launched an inside investigation, discovered the declare to have advantage and canceled the shoot. Regardless of the implosion, Ansari nonetheless holds out hope that he sooner or later will have the ability to full his imaginative and prescient — with Murray intact. “He was devastated,” he says of his star. “He couldn’t imagine it occurred. I feel this film meant rather a lot to him.”

When the story broke within the media a couple of weeks after manufacturing shut down, Ansari’s telephone blew up. “Everyone’s texting me, ‘Oh, Aziz, I’m so sorry,’ ” he recollects. “And I stated, ‘Oh God, I can’t reside on this woe-is-me second.’ ” He had a tough model of Good Fortune sitting on his laptop computer. “And so I known as Seth,” he continues. “I stated, ‘Hey, I do know you’re speculated to be filming Being Mortal, so that you’re free at this time. It is a shitty day for me. If you wish to assist me, learn this, inform me if you wish to do it.’ “

Rogen known as him two hours later and stated he was in. It was, the actor says, a straightforward determination. To Rogen, the script wasn’t simply humorous, however it put a highlight on a brand new breed of working-class People. “We had been saying as we had been making it, ‘If this film does nothing else, I hope possibly individuals tip their DoorDash a bit bit extra after they watch it,’ ” Rogen explains. “As a result of one unhealthy assessment — somebody’s aggravated that they didn’t put the sauce within the factor — can actually fuck your shit up. We discovered very comedic methods to do it, however it’s very actual, and also you haven’t actually but seen one thing from that particular person’s perspective.”

Good Fortune follows Ansari’s character, Arj, a documentary editor residing in Los Angeles who’s failing to maintain his head above water. Once we meet him, he’s primarily homeless, sleeping in his automotive and showering on the YMCA whereas shuffling between gig-economy jobs that require him to do demeaning issues like standing in line to purchase somebody a classy cinnamon bun. (That scene was shot on the identical L.A. block as Braveness Bagels, the place individuals repeatedly queue up for his or her wares.)

One in every of Arj’s first traces of dialogue is, “The American dream is lifeless.” It simply might have served as a downbeat tagline for the movie. “I feel my character represents a frustration that lots of people really feel proper now,” Ansari explains. “Lots of people are working two or three jobs, and hire and the whole lot else has gone up a lot, however wages haven’t. Individuals are struggling a lot simply to get by, and there’s a frustration of, ‘How is that this the deal?’ “

The kernel of the movie got here to him when he imagined two contrasting Angelenos of the identical age: “One man is the man that’s been screwed by the previous 20 years, burdened with pupil debt, doing something he can to scrape by. After which there’s the opposite man, who works in tech and has investments and lives on this big home with a pool. In L.A., these individuals cross paths on a regular basis. That was attention-grabbing to me. What occurs if their worlds collide — and the place does it go from there?”

That second character, the one performed by Rogen, is Jeff, an entitled, egocentric and largely unlikable enterprise capitalist. Nonetheless, each Ansari and Rogen admit they’re rather a lot nearer to Jeff than they’re to Arj.

“That’s us making enjoyable of ourselves, little question about it,” Ansari notes. “We’re Jeff. We’re a bit bit extra considerate than he’s. However do we’ve a chilly plunge and a sauna? I feel we each do. I needed to make us uncomfortable. As a result of you may watch Succession and be somebody like me and be like, ‘Hey, that’s not me. That’s loopy.’ However plenty of the individuals I do know have chilly plunges. After I gave the script to Evan Goldberg, Seth’s writing companion, he was like, ‘Oh, that is uncomfortable — I’m studying this in my sauna.’ ”

Ansari tried as greatest as he might to precisely seize the complexities of financial wrestle in 2025 America. “It’s such a delicate factor, you don’t wish to get these items incorrect,” he explains. In researching the script, he consulted with consultants like Matthew Wolfe, a sociologist he labored with on Being Mortal, in addition to economist Juliet Schor and Brian Goldstone, writer of the brand new ebook There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America.

When the angel concept got here to him — he cites the whole lot from It’s a Fantastic Life to Wim Wenders’ Wings of Want as inspiration — the plot clicked into place. He had initially pitched Rogen on taking part in the winged half, however Rogen gravitated to the wealthy tech bro. And they also batted round a couple of names. “When Keanu got here up, I simply was like, ‘Keanu Reeves? Actually? That’s attainable? That may be unbelievable!’ ” Ansari says.

Reeves was impressed with the script and, after assembly with Ansari in London, agreed to signal on for one of the crucial playful roles of his profession (a scene with Rogen at a burger joint by which the angel learns to eat for the primary time is an impressed little bit of bodily comedy). Nonetheless, Reeves didn’t simply play the half for laughs. He got here into it figuring out this was a film with a message and he actually broke a leg doing justice to the function. And — who is aware of — maybe that snapped kneecap in some way enhanced his efficiency, serving to him discover the tortured soul of his demoted angel, who takes up ingesting and smoking as soon as he finds himself stranded on Earth.

“There are sociological, cultural, wage-disparity and standing questions being investigated within the movie with a extremely delicate hand — however a hand,” says the actor, his knee now totally recovered. “I feel that’s what elevates the movie. It hopefully brings round some sort of understanding, compassion and empathy. I feel that’s what makes it a murals.”

This story appeared within the Sep. 3 subject of The Hollywood Reporter journal. Click on right here to subscribe.