The Emmy-winner admits that after two critically acclaimed seasons of his Netflix series, his creative well is a little tapped.
Aziz Ansari's creative well is a little tapped.
The Master of None star and co-creator covers the Fall issue of GQ Style, where he candidly goes into detail about why all the pressure to get going on season three -- after the critically acclaimed first two -- feels a little overwhelming.
"'What about season three?' Which is obviously a question people have to ask, but for me it's a little stress-inducing," the 34-year-old comedian confesses. "[Co-creator Alan Yang] once said it best: It's like we just gave birth to a kid and they're like, 'When are you gonna have another kid?'"
"I just feel like I've said a lot. Especially if you look at it—instead of two seasons of a TV show—as, like, seven movies. I mean, those two seasons are really personal, and it's a lot of content, a lot of ideas," the Emmy-winner adds. "Now I need a minute to refill my notebook. My life has not progressed enough for me to write season three yet."
And by progression, Ansari means focusing on the personal areas of his life that his Master of None work has left neglected.
WATCH: Aziz Ansari Gets Played Off the Stage Before Giving His Own Emmy Acceptance Speech
“I'm way more dedicated to my professional life. And I realized that recently, you know?" he shares. "Look, the conventional wisdom is you come off a win like I had with season two, now you can do another thing. But I've had that high, twice now, of making something I really care about, that I really believe in, that I'm really inspired by, and having people respond to it. I'd rather figure out other things in my life that I don't feel as good about. I don't feel as good about my personal life as I do my professional life."
For better or worse, the professional accolades continue to build for Ansari after the second season's "Thanksgiving" episode, which features the incredible Angela Bassett as a guest star, and details a mother's years-long path to embrace her daughter's lesbian sexual identity, presented as a series of past Thanksgiving dinners where Aziz's character joins the family and daughter (Lena Waithe), his oldest friend on the show. The episode earned Ansari and Yang another Outstanding Writing Emmy nod, and Ansari admits that it has been touching to see the response from gay, black individuals, after co-writing the episode with Waithe -- whose real life experience helped shape the perspective of the story.
"I was sitting at dinner last night after the shoot, and this guy just started talking about that episode: 'I'm gay and I'm black and that was my experience,'" Ansari says. "And it was so cool, because it seemed like it was a specific story, but it's a really universal experience for a lot of people."
"I wrote the Thanksgiving episode with Lena. And I wouldn't have done it if Lena either didn't write it with me or sit down with me for a long, long time and let me write it," he continues. "If you're only writing about yourself, that's limiting as a storyteller, but if you're gonna go into other people's worlds, you'd better get it right."
Check out the full interview here.
After their 2016 Emmy win, Ansari and Yang opened up to ET about what the experience was like.
Watch the video below to see what they said.
