Should I say anything?
"Ahmed Ahmed take one?"
Boo!
I played a terrorist in the movie "Executive Decision."
[“Executive Decision” clip]
I played a terrorist on the sitcom "Roseanne."
[Clip:] "Nothing you can do will make me talk!"
[Clip:] "Oh, really?"
[Clip:] [Scream]
In a film called "Steel Sharks,"
I played this evil, Persian submarine commander.
All my lines were like "I'll kill you in the name of Allah!"
You know, or like "Off with their head!"
[Clip:] "Your time has come, American."
You always see the same guys at every audition.
You can hear the actor in the audition room with the door shut.
You know "I'll kill you in the name of Allah! I'll kill you!"
[Muffled]
And the door opens up, and the guy's like
"Thank you very much for having me in."
"Hope to get the part, see you on set!" Yah know.
There was never the Arab friend.
Never the Arab doctor on "ER."
They never had like the guy like me.
I'm about as American as you come.
I called my agent one day and I said,
"Don't call me for these terrorist parts anymore."
And the phone stopped ringing.
I started waiting tables at a restaurant.
The restaurant I worked at didn't serve great food.
So I had to make people laugh in order to get the tips that I was trying to get.
That's when I made the decision that I can be a stand up comedian.
"The very funny, Ahmed Ahmed!"
[Ahmed Clip:] "And my parents are practicing Muslims, so they pray five times a day."
[Ahmed Clip:] "and my American friends always walk into my house when my parents are in mid-prayer."
[Ahmed Clip:] "Like, 'Mr. and Mrs. Ahmed, what'd you lose?"
[Ahmed Clip:] "'What's going on over there?'"
[Ahmed Clip:] "What're you looking for?"
Slowly but surely, you start picking up tricks of the trade.
I spent a lot of time in the comedy clubs, sitting in the back of the room til' two in the morning.
Just watching and studying comics.
I became friends with Mitzi Shore who owns the little famous Comedy Store.
She became almost like a mentor, grandmother.
And then September 11th happened.
Right after September 11th, a lot of hate crimes were happening.
Mitzi said, "I'm gonna open the club this Friday, you have to go on and talk about being Arab."
and my opening joke was, "My name really is Ahmed Ahmed."
"I had nothing to do with it."
"Just telling you so you don't follow me out to my car after the show."
[Ahmed Clip:] "I got to the airport, man, I checked my bags and the guys said,"
[Ahmed Clip:] "Are these your bags?' I said 'Yes.'"
[Ahmed Clip:] "He says 'Did you pack them yourself?' I said, 'Yes.'"
[Ahmed Clip:] "And they arrested me."
[Ahmed Clip:] [Laughter]
I worked with a couple other comedians, Arab and Middle Eastern guys.
We started touring around.
We went all over America, we ended up going to the Middle East.
Selling out 20,000 tickets, in five countries, in thirty days.
We were the first ever Middle Eastern comedy show on Comedy Central.
[Ahmed Clip:] "If you think about it, both Jews and Muslims have more in common
than any other religion ever."
[Ahmed Clip:] "Both Jews and Muslims don't eat pork, we don't celebrate Christmas,"
[Ahmed Clip:] "We both yell on the phone when there's no emergency."
[Ahmed Clip:] [Laughs]
Stand-up comedy allowed me to have a voice to
talk about being Muslim in a funny way, without having it be imposing or threatening.
I had a woman come up to me one night after a show and said,
"Are you really a Muslim?"
I said "Yeah," she said "You're wearing a nice suit and you have a smile on your face."
I was like... [laughs]
The impressions that America is getting, the negative impressions of Muslims, it's not good.
I get profiled all the time.
If you Google my name, "Ahmed Ahmed," there's a guy from Egypt who pops up,
who's a terrorist, who kinda looks like me.
He's a lot shorter with a mustache, he looks like a porn star actually.
But he has all these aliases he goes by, and the first two are "Ahmed Ahmed" and "Ahmed the Egyptian." I'm like...
I gotta find this guy, cause he's ruining my life.
They all think that I'm him.
And then it dawned on me, maybe he's in the Middle East googling me like,
"Hey bro, look! There is this this comedian in America, who's using my name."
Like random Arabs walk up to him.
"Bro, you're so funny! I saw you on YouTube, tell me a joke."
He's like "I'm not a comedian!"