How his real life father made Aziz 'collapse into tears' after filming his show, 'Master of None.'
This is making us cry!
Aziz Ansari's critically-acclaimed new Netflix show, Master of None, features his real-life parents as his character’s mom and dad. After appearing on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on Tuesday night, Aziz wrote a heartfelt letter about how filming the show brought he and his parents closer together.
"My dad took off most of his vacation time for the year to act in Master of None," the comedian wrote on his website. "So I’m really relieved this all worked out. Tonight after we did Colbert together he said: 'This is all fun and I liked acting in the show, but I really just did it so I could spend more time with you.'"
"I almost instantly collapsed into tears at the thought of how much this person cares about me and took care of me and gave me everything to give me the amazing life I have," he revealed. "I felt like a total piece of garbage for all the times I haven’t visited my parents and told them I wanted to stay in New York cause I’d get bored in [South Carolina]."
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"I’ve been overwhelmed by the response to the Parents episode of our show," the actor continued, "What’s strange is doing that episode and working with my parents has increased the quality of my relationship to my parents IN MY REAL LIFE."
The letter then got particularly heartfelt, as the 32-year-old admitted that his relationship with his parents has not always been the best.
"I haven’t always had the best, most open relationship with my parents because we are weirdly closed off emotionally sometimes," he said. "But we are getting better. And if you have something like that with your family - I urge you to work at it and get better because these are special people in your life and I get terrified when my dad tells me about friends of his, people close to his age, that are having serious health issues, etc. Enjoy and love these people while you can."
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That is so moving!
Master of None deals with topics like immigrant parents, as well as racism and sexism with a candid, almost journalistic lens. While talking to Colbert, Ansari thoughtfully joked about the lack of diversity on late-night TV.
“That’s pretty cool; we’re both from South Carolina," Ansari said, noting that he and the late-night host are from the same state. "Stephen is the first late-night host from South Carolina, and the bajillionth white guy.”
“You’ve talked about not enough people of color, minorities represented on television,” Colbert answered. “Having you on my show right now, does that count at all?”
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“Yeah, it’s really diverse right now, it’s like 50 percent diverse,” Aziz said. “Fifty percent of the people on the TV are not white,” Colbert responded.
“This is like an all-time high for CBS,” said Ansari.
By the way, Ansari made an epic short film while in Atlanta with Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt, and Amy Schumer last month, and it's giving us squad envy. Press play below to find out why!