Aziz Ansari casts his real parents as his TV parents in upcoming Netflix series

By Victor Beigelman | October 7, 2015 | 3:51pm

Aux Features TV

Aziz Ansari is fascinated with dating, love, the internet, and how devastating the mix of all three can be, so much so that it’s inspired a large chunk of his standup in the past few years and even a Malcolm Gladwell-esque book, Modern Romance. In that book, as well as various routines and interviews, he often contrasts his parents’ arranged marriage against the woes of finding and maintaining love in a world of endless romantic options. Now it looks like we might get at least a glimpse of their perspective on the whole dating-is-impossible gag their son loves to explore: People reports that Ansari has cast his parents in his new Netflix show Master Of None.

The show will follow Ansari’s Dev as he “navigates the ins and outs of life in New York as a thirtysomething” opposite love interest Noël Wells. His real parents Shoukath and Fatima will appear as Dev’s parents on the show, mostly because Ansari wrote the characters based off of them and, as he puts it, “there’s not a ton of older Indian people that are out there in the acting game.” Even though he had to coach them, Ansari said they picked up acting pretty quick. “It makes you realize how easy acting is,” he laughed.