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I only recently discovered Maz Jobrani (while watching CBS' Superior Donuts, which sadly, only aired for two entertaining seasons —2017-2018.) and the breadth of his talent. I did my research, watched his Netflix special, Immigrant and found that, not only is he funny, he is quite accomplished. In entertainment for over twenty years, Maz has done stand-up specials for Comedy Central, Showtime, Netflix...; appeared in TV shows (Curb Your Enthusiasm, Shameless, Last Man Standing) and films (Friday After Next, The Interpreter), is helming his second podcast, and penned the book, I'm Not a Terrorist, But I've Played One on TV: Memoirs of a Middle Eastern Funny Man. It's late November when I meet up with Maz at The New York EDITION hotel. The place is packed to the brim with people imbibing after-work libations. "I'll hold it like that so you can hear," Maz offers as he takes my phone, which I'm using to record our interview, and holds it up to his mouth. "Here, you go ahead, ask the questions." Presently, Maz is on his Peaceful Warrior comedy tour, which he has taken all over the U.S., as well as to Europe, Australia, and the Middle East, where he recently shot a special in Dubai. "The reason I call it the Peaceful Warrior tour is because if you look at the Immigrant special, I talk about my kids, but then I talk about politics, about Trump —that was recorded in early 2017, shortly after he became President, at the Kennedy Center in [Washington,] D.C. Obviously, the people in D.C. tend to be pretty liberal. During the election, people were still letting you do the Trump jokes without getting too agitated, but quickly after the election, some people got offended at Trump jokes and they need to be reminded that in America, we can make fun of our President, whether he's a Democrat or a Republican," he says lightheartedly. He recalls a few shows where he offended members of his audience. "Rather than yelling back, I said, 'That's fantastic, you can have your own opinion. That's the beauty of America. We can have opinions!' So I'm trying to deal with anybody that comes at me aggressively from the audience when they get offended by political jokes, in a very peaceful way. Continue to still make my points... continue to be a warrior, but in a peaceful way." Maz has always appreciated meaningful comedy. "I actually said, 'What point is art, if it's not saying something?' My first comedy hero was Eddie Murphy, and he wasn't political, but he was a rockstar when I was a kid. But when I really started getting into it, I started listening a little bit more to what Richard Pryor was doing, George Carlin, and then later, things like The Daily Show. I've always liked it if somebody can have something that they're doing, but also have a political message in it… If I can come up with jokes that have a message or if I can bring up an item, let's say my audience might not be aware of, then I feel like my jokes are more, I don't want to say effective, but I prefer those types of jokes." The Iranian-American (Maz was born in Tehran, Iran and raised in the San Francisco Bay area) comedian is passionate about using his platform to create awareness, but wants to make it clear that he doesn't represent anyone, but himself. At the time of our interview, an increase in the price of gasoline had caused protests in Iran, which then resulted in their government shutting down the internet across the whole country. Maz shared that he had been using hashtags and doing a lot of social media posts to try and get the American press to talk about the Iran protests more as there wasn't much coverage. "Iran is a very complicated place, 'cause there's people that want America to get involved and they want them to overthrow the government, the government of Iran is corrupt. But a lot of Iranians don't want a war, so it's a very complicated issue. You gotta kinda tread lightly. Some people message me: 'You're not saying enough about this.' And I'll say something. 'You're saying too much. You're a comedian, stick to comedy,'" he says, shaking his head. Maz tries to tune out the negativity and not read the comments on social media. "As a person who is a creator, I can't be too worried about these opinions, unless something happens