He’s become known for playing himself, and lowering the satirical boom as the “Middle Eastern correspondent” on Comedy Central’s hit, Peabody Award-winning The Daily Show, but Aasif Mandvi is also an OBIE award-winning actor with a successful, decade-long career that’s spanned film, television and stage. In addition to assaying the 2008 presidential election on the small screen, Mandvi will next be seen in David Koepp’s Ghost Town, with Ricky Gervais and Greg Kinnear.

I had a chance to catch up with Mandvi recently, and even share a mildly racist-sounding anecdote involving him. Phoning from New York, after a muggy morning of filming on his new movie, 7 to the Palace, Mandvi gamely talked about the “different kinds of brown people in the world,” dentistry, and telling off comedy superstars. For the full Q&A feature, from H Magazine, click here.