Aniz Ansari Talks To AOL On "Parks and Recreation"

[JamesG]

26-year-old actor/comedian Aziz Ansari is riding a wave most of his peers can only dream about. As the lecherous, sarcastic Tom Haverford on NBC's Parks and Recreation, Ansari has received critical acclaim and helped dispel any thoughts of an Office-type knockoff.

The former co-creator of MTV sketch comedy show Human Giant, Ansari now shuffles his time between Parks, movie roles and stand-up ('Aziz Ansari: Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening,' his first CD/TV special, airs on Comedy Central Jan. 17.)

Most recently, the writer sold three film ideas to Judd Apatow and Universal Pictures, including a spinoff of his popular Raaaaaaaandy character from last year's Funny People.

We caught up with Anzari right before Thanksgiving from his family's home in Charlotte, NC, where he's "looking forward to my mother's cooking and hanging out with my cousins for a few days."



What did you learn from Human Giant that you were able to take with you to Parks and Recreation?

I think doing Human Giant gave me the experience of what it was like to film a TV show. The way we shoot Parks and Recreation is similar to the way we shot Giant in that we'll do takes that are scripted first and then do a couple of improvised takes in the end.

We also did stuff on Giant that was shot documentary-style the same way Parks is shot. But it's different because you're playing one character every episode.




Having done multiple characters on Human Giant, was it hard at first just developing Tom Haverford?

Not really. It's been cool to settle into Tom and figure out there's so many different ways to go with this character. We can keep fleshing out his world for a long time.

[Showrunners] Greg Daniels and Michael Schur are really cool about any ideas I have for the character and are totally open to hearing them.




Have you thought about the direction Tom will go in for the third season?

We haven't even talked about that yet. I just treat it episode by episode and just think about what's happened before. I try not to think too far ahead because things always can change.

There's a character being played by Justin Theroux that Amy [Poehler] is getting set up with on a date and I thought it'd be fun for Tom to just think that guy's really cool. That was something I just thought the day we were filming it and it became the running joke in the episode.




A lot of the jokes seem like the result of a group of friends riffing off each other.

On set, it's very collaborative and we'll work on jokes together while we're filming it.

I think there's a tendency for people in interviews to ask us about improvising because it's a little more interesting to talk about, but the scripts are so funny to start off with that we don't really need to improvise. But when you're on set, it's fun to collaborate.

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