At the Movies: Onstage and On Screen
By Dave Kerr

Source: The New York Times, May 3, 2002 (page E29)

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Aasif Mandvi can currently be seen on Broadway, where he is the first South Asian actor to take on the role of Ali Hakim, the Persian peddler in "Oklahoma." And as of today in Manhattan, he can also be seen on film, playing the title role in Ismail Merchant's adaptation of V. S. Naipaul's novel "The Mystic Masseur."

"I had quite a career for a while playing cabdrivers," Mr. Mandvi said, "and I'm quite happy to say I don't have to anymore." In "The Mystic Masseur," set among the Indian immigrant community in Trinidad, Mr. Mandvi plays a village schoolteacher, Ganesh, who turns a modest talent for writing and an inherited gift for healing massage into a career in colonial politics.

"There are definitely more Asian-American-themed films that I see being made," said Mr. Mandvi, who has also recently appeared in the independent features "American Chai" and "ABCD." "I guess it makes sense, since India has one of the largest film industries in the world, that the descendants of that here, the second generation, are also finding their way into filmmaking. There are more and more South Asian filmmakers in this country making films with roles for actors like myself."

Mr. Mandvi spent his childhood in Bradford in the north of England and moved with his family to Tampa, Fla., about 20 years ago. "I started acting when I was very young," he said. "I saw 'Bugsy Malone' one Christmas Eve, which was all cast with children, and I thought, 'Wow! I want to do that!' So I told my mother I wanted to be an actor, and being the good South Asian mother that she is, she was not discouraging, but at the same time not encouraging. But I did some research and found a children's theater company in Bradford and signed up with them. That's when I wrote my first play as well. It snowballed from there."