By: Kristine Bergstrom

Comedian Aasif Mandvi might be most known for his gig as a correspondent on the popular U.S. TV program The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, but he has also written the play Sakina's Restaurant and the movie Today's Special. Now the he is set to portray Commander Zhao in M. Night Shyamalan's upcoming fantasy action flick The Last Airbender. Check out DH!'s exclusive interview with Aasif Mandvi to find out more about his new movie and upcoming projects.

DH!: In the U.S. you are most known for your gig as a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, but you have also written the play Sakina's Restaurant and made the movie Today's Special, you've been on Broadway and on TV, and now you're playing Commander Zhao in M. Night Shyamalan's new movie The Last Airbender, how did you get the part?

Aasif Mandvi: It was just an audition. I went in an auditioned for Night and he cast me. I went in and put myself on tape and they called and said 'Night is very interested and he wants to talk to you.' He called me on my cell and actually I was at the airport when he called me. I was on my way to Kansas City to shoot for The Daily Show so he's talking to me about The Last Airbender and the character and I had to go and shut off the phone. It was a weird thing but he was like 'I understand' and he was like 'you wanna do this?' I was like 'yeah.'

DH!: So tell us a bit about your role in the movie.

Aasif Mandvi: Commander Zhao is the commander of the Fire Nation. The movie takes place in this fictional world where people use the four elements to fight; air, fire, water and earth, so the Fire Nation is this imperial force that is ruling the other three nations and I play the commander of the Fire Nation.

DH!: Was the transition from comedy to action hard?

Aasif Mandvi: Yeah this was my first action role, I played in Spider-Man 2 but that was a smaller role; this is my first time being in a big action film and it was fun working with green screens and special effects. You have no idea what it's going to look like but I have a theater background so it wasn't as difficult as you might think, that's what you do in the theater all the time; you pretend that things are there when they're not, so that helps. I don't have a lot of action scenes because my character is the commander of the ship, but we did two months martial arts training; I had to learn specific moves so that was intense and you know working out muscles I didn't know I had. 

DH!: Did you know anyone from the cast before you started shooting?

Aasif Mandvi: I didn't know anyone. I had met Shaun Toub once before but I didn't know anybody, I had also met Night before at the Lady and the Water after party. We got along very well. We were all in Philadelphia to shoot; except for the trip to Greenland in the beginning 90% was shot in Philly so it's all in the same place. We were all working together and living in the same hotel so we became very familiar and had dinner and hung out. I went back and forth to New York a lot but we were three months in Philly so we would hang out.

DH!: You know we follow you on Twitter and talking about your work you once tweeted that "Washington and Hollywood had a drunken baby and I am in the middle of it." But what about Bollywood? Would you ever want to star in a Bollywood movie?

Aasif Mandvi: Yeah I mean, sounds like that would be fun. Nobody has asked me, but if someone asked me. The problem is I don't speak Hindi well enough.

DH!: Neither does Katrina Kaif and she is huge in Bollywood!

Aasif Mandvi: How does she do it?

DH!: She started out as a model and then she got into the movie industry, she is dating Salman Khan, but she gets help  with the dubbing.

Aasif Mandvi: Maybe I need to start dating Salman Khan.

DH!: [Laughter] Speaking of Bollywood, when Shahrukh Khan was detained at Newark airport last year you talked about it on The Daily Show. We met SRK when he was in NYC to promote the movie My Name is Khan and when asked what he thought about the clip he said that he had seen it and that if he met you he would like to "show you comedy." Would you be interested in doing comedy with Shahrukh Khan? 

Aasif Mandvi: Really? Yeah I would love that! If Shahrukh Khan wants to do comedy we can comedy-it-up together, I'm game, tell him to call my people. We can do like a song and dance thing; he can be hot and sexy and I can be goofy, or the other way around; he gets to be the clown and I get the girl, he gets the laughs. I'm also a great dancer so we can dance together but I have to get the girl, he gets the laughs.

DH!: [Laughter] On The Daily Show you mix comedy with politics and so we wanted your opinion on this; Barack Obama may be the first African-American president, but there is a hopeful Desi president in the south of the U.S.; Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal; do you think 2012 will be his year?

Aasif Mandvi: [Laughter] I think Bobby Jindal has got enough on his hands right now and for the next 10 years; a lot of oil right on his doorstep. I don't know, I think we have a lot of contenders in the U.S. Desi community; a lot of people coming up in politics so let's not focus on Bobby Jindal.

DH!: The Last Airbender hits theaters on July 2, what's next for you after that? What are your upcoming projects?

Aasif Mandvi: This October I'm gonna be in the movie Today's Special that I made, it's a romantic comedy about Indian food, it's set in Jackson Heights. It stars myself, Naseeruddin Shah and Harish Patel and it's a wonderful Tandoori style comedy that will be in theaters in October. You can check it out on our Facebook page, our Web site and you can follow us on Twitter. I play an Indian chef.

DH!: Like the Swedish chef?

Aasif Mandvi: [Laughter] No, not like the Swedish chef at all.