Maz Jobrani: New Movie is an “Homage to Peter Sellers Pink Panther”

Jobrani Mines Stereotypes for Comedy Gold in Jimmy Vestvood: Amerikan Hero

“Try to fit in and try to act a little less – what’s the word I’m looking for – terroristy. You dig?”

That’s the sage advice a beleaguered TSA investigator offers to Iranian immigrant Jimmy Vestvood after the Iranian immigrant accidentally sparks panic on a flight when he exclaims “Allah Akbar” during turbulence in Maz Jobrani’s new film Jimmy Vestvood: Amerikan Hero. Premiering May 13 in Los Angeles, Irvine, Encino, and Washington, DC (and opening in New York and Toronto on May 20), Jimmy Vestvood: Amerikan Hero is a fish-out-of-water political satire starring Jobrani, written by Jobrani and Amir Ohebsion. Jobrani describes it as “an homage to Peter Sellers’ Pink Panther,” a favorite of his during his childhood in Iran.

“To this day, you talk to anyone from Iran and they love the Pink Panther films from back in the day,” Jobrani said in a phone interview with The Interrobang. “It also gets compared to Borat, which I think was a little more mean-spirited towards Kazakhstan, whereas this one is more about a naïve guy with an American dream. You can describe it as a Persian Pink Panther meets Borat.”

The titular Jimmy Vestvood (“Like Clint Eastwood, but Vestvood,” the character explains, flirting with a beautiful femme fatale) aspires to go to America and become a successful private investigator. He ends up becoming a pawn in a politician’s plan to fan anti-Arab sentiment and start World War III.

Jobrani was six years old when his parents moved from Iran to Northern California. By the time he was 10, he had already decided that he wanted to become a comedian. “I remember watching Saturday Night Live and discovering Eddie Murphy. From there, I knew that this is what I wanted to do,” he said.  His parents were less than thrilled with his decision to get into show business and tried to steer him to something more practical. He studied political science and aspired to become a lawyer or a professor, but the lure of the stage ultimately prevailed.

“I have immigrant parents and immigrant parents want their kids to be lawyers or doctors,” Jobrani said. “When you’re an immigrant, you’re coming from wars and revolution. I think that’s why they want you to have a stable job. My mother thinks, in the back of her mind, that there’s going to be another revolution at some point and I’m going to have to move and find a new job somewhere else.

“When I dropped out of the professor program, my mom was like, ‘You didn’t become a lawyer. You didn’t become a professor. At least become a mechanic. People need mechanics. Nobody needs an actor.’”

Nevertheless, Jobrani opted out of academia and made a full-time commitment to acting and comedy at the age of 26. He was a founding member of the “Axis of Evil Comedy Tour” (with Ahmed Ahmed, Aron Kader, and Dean Obeidallah), which received a special on Comedy Central in 2007. He went on to appear in three Showtime specials and his book I’m Not a Terrorist But I’ve Played One on TV charted on the LA Times Best Seller list in 2015. He has also made tours of the Middle East where he has performed in front of the King of Jordan.

The idea that developed into Jimmy Vestvood: Amerikan Hero was born more than a decade ago. “Amir (Ohebsion) wrote this play which was about this Persian guy in Los Angeles who is kind of a charlatan on a blind date with a gold digger, so they’re just perfect for each other,” Jobrani said. “The character’s name was Jamsheer, but he told people to call him Jimmy. It was probably the first time there was a play for the Persian community in Los Angeles that was done in English. It did really well. After that, I told Amir I wanted to do something with this Jimmy character. I thought there was a movie there somewhere.”

Jobrani and Ohebsion spent almost 10 years working on the script before filming in 2015. Jobrani said he was fortunate to be able to cast several of his friends, who turned in terrific supporting performances, particularly Sheila Vand (as Jimmy’s infatuated seventh-cousin, Leila), Niousha Jafarian (as a Kim Kardashian-inspired trophy wife), and Marshall Manesh (as a butcher who hired Jimmy as a security guard at his supermarket).

Actress Vida Ghahremani, who plays Jimmy’s mother, gets a big laugh when the prim and proper character drops an unexpected expletive, which was a tricky scene to shoot, Jobrani said.  “The script called for her to say ‘make whoopie’ or ‘schtup’ or something, but the director (Jonathan Kesselman) thought it would be funnier if she said ‘fuck,’” he said. “She’s an older actress and I didn’t think she would say it, but I asked. She said ‘no, no,’ but I’m trying to negotiate the F-word with her. Finally, I said, I’ve got an idea. In Persian, the word faq means ‘jaw.’ Why not say faq? You would say that in a movie, right? So she said, ‘Aah, all right.’ And we got it.”

While the movie stars an Iranian and the cast is largely Middle Eastern, Jobrani said he didn’t make the film for Middle Eastern audiences.

“My goal isn’t for this movie to be seen by Iranians. My goal was for this movie to be seen by American audiences and to make them laugh and have fun with it,” he said. “I think comedy has a big role in overcoming stereotypes. Look at Richard Pryor. Look at George Lopez. Even Bill Cosby with The Cosby Show. When we were doing the ‘Axis of Evil’ tour we were getting emails saying, ‘Wow, I never knew you guys laughed.’ Comedy shows another side that people aren’t used to seeing. I’m trying to show Iranians in a very different light than we’ve ever seen in American cinema.

“It’s a silly comedy, but there are some political messages that I think will resonate with audiences, statements about how politics work,” he said. “I once heard DL Hughley say comedy is like giving people their medicine, but giving it in orange juice so they don’t taste it. That’s kind of what we’re trying to do; we’re giving out some medicine in orange juice with Jimmy Vestvood.

Locations and show times are available at www.jimmyvestvood.com.

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