There’s a good chance you've seen Ahmed Ahmed before. His film credits include Iron Man (2008), Don’t Mess with the Zohan (2008), and Swingers (1996). He’s been on the cover of The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek, written for Huffington Post, and performed stand-up all over the world. He’s also directed and starred in an award-winning documentary about culture and comedy in the Muslim world, Just Like Us (2010), which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.
There’s also a good chance you know nothing about the man behind a lot of the the laughs on TBS’s hit sitcom, Sullivan and Son. And that's OK. But here’s your chance to get to know him.
Ahmed’s currently performing with the Sullivan and Son Comedy Tour, which stops at the Tampa Improv tonight — to help all willing and available Tampa Bay residents to, for at least a moment, imagine everything they ever wanted is right there in front of them.
CL: How’s the Sullivan and Son Comedy Tour going so far?
AA: It’s about the half-way point and nobody’s cut anyone else’s head off.
You guys will be in Tampa, at the Improv, on the 12th. Your tour schedule says you're performing almost every night. Any travel-fatigue starting to set-in?
AA: A little bit, but it’s what we signed up for and we’re having fun.
Very sly, very sly. Be honest, stand-up or acting?
AA: That’s a tough question. I love them both equally. I started out as an actor, and grew up watching movies and sit-coms, and I was always attracted to that art form, so I feel like that was my first calling. But when I got to Hollywood and started getting some mainstream auditions, I realized there just weren't very many positive roles being written for Arab-American actors. So I kind of settled for just playing terrorists or cab drivers most of the time. Eventually, purely out of frustration, I quit acting […] and focused on stand-up comedy, so I could have a voice.
Well, which one’s more rewarding?
AA: It’s all entertainment at the end of the day. But they’re two different art forms and they both have different pay-offs. Stand-up is live, so you get that instant gratification and feedback. Being an actor on a sitcom, or in a movie, you have to wait several weeks or months to get some feedback. But, with the acting stuff, it’s in the books, it’s on the street. So you can always refer back to it.
The fan in me has to say it... It must be pretty rad referring back to an Adam Sandler movie to see yourself perform. How was it working on Don’t Mess with the Zohan?
AA: [Laughs] Yeah, it was fun working with Adam Sandler. It was funny how that worked out. I had a small part in Iron Man, the first Iron Man movie — I think my character was called Terrorist # 4 — and the same casting director from Iron Man was casting Zohan immediately after. So she asked me to come in and read for that part. So I went in and I read and she brought me back seven times, to keep reading over and over, because they couldn't decide if they wanted me or not. And she finally called me and said, “Ahmed, hey, we decided to go with somebody else. But thanks for coming in.” And I said, “Thanks for the opportunity, it was a great experience — great luck with the film.”
[... Then] she called me a week later and said, “Hey, we’re doing a table read for all the executives at the studio and all the actors and producers or whatever. Will you come in and just read some of the filler roles?” At first, my ego was like: no-way, no, I’m better than that — I should have a part. But then I checked myself, and my humble side came out, so I said, “Sure, I’ll come in and do it.” So I got to Sony Pictures — and there are literally about 80 people in the room, including Adam Sandler and the director — and we start the table read. I read all the generic character’s lines, like Man on the Street, or Person taking Drive-through Orders. It was just a couple lines here and there. But I remember saying a line that got a big laugh at the table read. And I just threw it away, but for some reason it got a huge laugh. Then I see Sandler looking down this long table, maybe 30 or 40 feet long. He’s looking down at me to see who said that line, so I looked up and was like: “It was me! I said it!” So we continued the table read and when it was over I went up to Sandler and said, “thanks for having me at this table read, best of luck with your movie. Thanks for considering me.” And he said, “Oh, yeah, yeah, I’ll see you on set.” And the next day the casting director tells me, “Yeah, you’re going to be cast for the role you originally read for.”
That’s a great story. I love the behind-the-scenes stuff. Usually you have to wait a decade or two, once the movie's out on an anniversary addition DVD, before you get a story like that out of a cast member. I bet some of the movies that inspired you weren't lousy. Which one's were they?
AA: [Pause] All the James Bond movies, the earlier ones, with Sean Connery. Those were really the ones that made me want to get into action movies and inspired me to get into film. But, really, it was the sit-coms that drove me to want to do comedy. I was a big fan of the Norman Lear sit-coms, you know, Sanford and Son, Good Times, Welcome Back Kotter, Three’s Company, Happy Days, All in the Family, Married with Children. I was always a big fan of all those sitcoms and always thought, man, what a great job that would be to be able to work with a great group of people and make a live-audience laugh.
Such modest beginnings.
AA: My goal as an entertainer was never to be a world-famous stand-up comedian. I just wanted to make a great living at it and to keep the lights on and pay the bills.
The stories about someone setting out to do something from a young age and then actually doing it always carry the most weight.
AA: Yeah, I used to sit down in front of the TV religiously and watch sit-coms every night. It’s kind of a cool coincidence that I’m on one now.
I’m sure it’s more than just a coincidence. You seem like a hard-worker. What’s your writing process like?
AA: I don’t really have a process. Most comics are a lot more disciplined than I am. They’ll sit down every day with their note-pad and pen and really try to come up with jokes, or read the paper and find political topics. […] My stuff happens more organically. When something unfortunate or uncomfortable or bad happens to me or with me I’ll tell a friend or a colleague or family member the story and they’ll laugh and I always say, “That wasn't funny,” at the time, and they say, “Well, it was funny the way you told it [...]” Nine times out of ten, it’ll get a laugh [on stage].
Great comedy seems to always come from pain.
AA: I think Dave Chappelle said it best: “Comedians are professional complainers” [laughs]. Basically, if pain and heart ache happens in your life, you can either dwell on it, bitch and complain, see a therapist, or have a voice, be a comedian, and turn it into a career [...]
Let me ask you this, it’s a two-part question: what is right with comedy today; and what is wrong with comedy today?
AA: What’s right with comedy these days are all the comedians who speak from the heart and are honest, real and raw about what they’re talking about and can trigger laughter from a place that's truthful. What I don’t like about comedy today […] I don’t find rape or cancer or anything handicap-related funny. Most people would say, “Well, you know, funny’s funny.” But it’s not my taste.
To each their own. Any directors or actors you haven’t worked with yet that you’d like to?
AA: [...] I’d love to work with Jack Nicholson and have Scorsese direct it [laughs].
So Steve Byrne's the man, right?
AA: Yeah, Steve Byrne. He’s the star and creator of Sullivan and Son. He’s one of the hardest working comics I've ever met. The guy is always writing; he’s always on the road; he’s always creating new scripts and developing things. […] He’s very inclusive and understands people’s sensibilities. He brought something to life that he envisioned and turned it into something really great [Sullivan and Son]. We’re on our third season now and it’s really because of him and Vince Vaughn and Peter Billingsley moving this machine forward, with the support of TBS and Warner Horizon.
Ahmed Ahmed will be performing, along with Sullivan and Son cast members, Steve Byrne, Roy Wood Jr., and Owen Benjamin at the Tampa Improv, on Aug. 12.