Maz Jobrani

Maziyar "Maz" Jobrani (born February 26, 1972) is an Iranian-American stand-up comedian, actor, and writer. Born in Tehran, Iran, he immigrated to the United States with his family at age six and was raised in Tiburon, California.

Jobrani initially pursued an academic path, earning a B.A. in political science with a minor in Italian from the University of California, Berkeley in 1993 before dropping out of a Ph.D. program in political science at UCLA the following year. He transitioned to comedy, becoming a founding member of the Axis of Evil comedy troupe, whose 2005 Comedy Central special addressed Middle Eastern stereotypes through humor. His stand-up career includes Netflix specials such as Immigrant (2018) and tours highlighting immigrant experiences.

As an actor, Jobrani has appeared in films like Friday After Next (2002) and Jimmy Vestvood: Amerikan Hero (2016), and portrayed Fawz in the CBS sitcom Superior Donuts (2017–2018). He authored the Los Angeles Times best-selling memoir I'm Not a Terrorist, But I've Played One on TV (2015) and hosted the 45th International Emmy Awards .

Maziyar Jobrani was born on February 26, 1972, in Tehran , Iran , to a family led by a prosperous businessman father.

Jobrani's family departed Iran in 1979 during the Islamic Revolution, which culminated in the overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the establishment of the Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on February 11, 1979; he was seven years old at the time. The upheaval, marked by widespread political violence , the seizure of private businesses, and the regime's hostility toward Western-influenced elites, drove an exodus of over 1 million Iranians, particularly from urban middle-class backgrounds fearing reprisals and asset confiscation.

The family relocated to Northern California , joining a growing wave of Iranian immigrants who settled there amid the U.S. hostage crisis and severed diplomatic ties with Iran in late 1979, facing initial challenges such as economic resettlement after abandoning wealth in the homeland and adapting to a new cultural environment. This period saw Iranian families like Jobrani's navigating language acquisition and community formation in areas with emerging Persian enclaves, though without retaining prior economic status due to revolutionary nationalizations.

Jobrani's family immigrated from Tehran to the United States in 1979 during the Iranian Revolution , when he was six years old, settling in Marin County, Northern California , where he spent his formative years. The household blended Persian cultural elements, such as frequent family-oriented social gatherings, with the routines of affluent American suburbia, amid a scarcity of other Iranian families in the area that amplified feelings of cultural distinctiveness. His parents, retaining thick Persian accents, pursued assimilation while upholding traditions, including expectations of professional achievement; his father, a former businessman who owned an electric company in Iran , modeled a pragmatic orientation toward economic opportunity in the diaspora context.

Family dynamics emphasized education and stability as pathways to success, reflecting the post-revolutionary immigrant drive to secure footing in America, with parents directing children toward careers like law , medicine , or engineering rather than creative pursuits. This parental focus instilled a disciplined worldview , contrasting with Jobrani's later comedic inclinations, while the father's pre-exile prosperity—evident in purchases like a Rolls-Royce—occasionally drew attention in their predominantly non-Iranian community.

Early assimilation challenges included navigating subtle stigma tied to the Iranian hostage crisis (1979–1981), which cast a shadow over the diaspora , though Jobrani generally integrated well socially as a popular child, experiencing only isolated incidents of peer friction rather than widespread hostility pre-9/11.