Caught between two worlds:

Tongue Tied comedian and actor Pax Assadi talks about being the son of immigrant parents and reveals how selling vacuum cleaners helped his stand-up comedy career. Sarah Nealon reports.

How life as a teen salesman helped Tongue Tied star build a comedy career.

At age 14, comedian Pax Assadi had a part-time job at his father’s vacuum cleaner shop in Hamilton. It gave him the skills he later used when starting out in stand-up comedy.

“From 14, pretty much until I was 17, I was (there) every weekend selling vacuum cleaners,” he says.

“It didn’t really provide me (comedy) material but it provided me with an ability to capture an audience’s attention. It’s hard for an adult to take a 14 year old seriously when you are trying to sell a $600 vacuum cleaner.”

Now aged 27, Assadi is one of New Zealand comedy’s rising stars with appearances on Jono And Ben, Funny Girls, 7 Days and Tongue Tied, his first character-based role.

In the M ori TV comedy about a group of people taking te reo classes, Assadi plays Nehmet, a man who is learning the M ori language for business reasons.

“He’s very similar to me in that he’s of ethnic descent,” says Assadi.

“He’s Pakistani. I’m also Pakistani but half Iranian.

“He kind of struggles with the similar things that I struggle with – of being stuck between two worlds and pulled between those two worlds, having to respect his roots and his culture, but then also having

desires that come from a world that’s different from his family’s world, and having to reconcile those two things.

Assadi, who lives in Auckland with his wife and daughters, aged two and four, is the son of refugee parents. His father is Iranian and his mother is from Pakistan.

They came to New Zealand the year before Assadi was born. The family lived on Auckland’s North Shore before moving to Hamilton when Assadi was 14.

Several years later, the family relocated to Christchurch where Assadi’s parents still live.

During his adolescence, Assadi’s interest in stand-up comedy was piqued when he saw overseas comedians on screen.

“I watched Eddie Murphy when I was like 13 or 14,” he says.

“I didn’t really realise that stand-up comedy was a job. I just thought because Murphy was a famous movie star that he was also allowed to tell people jokes on stage. I didn’t realise he was a comedian first.”

From there Assadi began watching YouTube clips of comedians such as Russell Peters.

“I’d spend all day watching old clips of stand-up, new clips of stand-up,” he says.

“When I was 18 I told my parents that I was going to be a stand-up comedian. I’d decided that’s what I wanted to do. And they cried.”

Assadi says his parents had hoped he would get a job in the medical profession.

“They started with doctor and then went down to like physio and then went to chiropractor and then went to nurse,” he says.

Despite his parents’ misgivings, Assadi was determined to give comedy a shot. He performed his first stand-up gig in 2011 and has steadily increased his profile, but says earning a living from comedy is “very hard”.

“It takes a long time just to get to my point where you’re a well-known enough name that you get regular work that isn’t necessarily just stand-up,” he says.

“You have to diversify your skill set if you want to do jokes for a living.

“I’m lucky enough that I can charge more to do stand-up, which is like a blessing, but I also do a lot of other things like Tongue Tied.

“And I write for and (I’m on) 7 Days, have a sketch comedy group that does corporate (gigs) and all that kind of comedy.”

After eight years of performing, what do his parents think of their son’s career choice?

“Well they still say things like, ‘Hey if this doesn’t work out, you can always come and work at my shop’ and I’m like, ‘It’s fine, Dad. I’m OK. Everything’s all good’.

“They’ve gone from crying and being horrified to saying things like, ‘We’re proud of you’.

“My dad heard me being interviewed on National Radio and it was quite a heavy interview about race and parents fitting in and trying to figure out where they belong in this context and all that kind of stuff. And my dad texted me and, for the first time, said he was proud of me.

“They’ve come a long way from when I first told them I wanted to be a comedian.

“They still don’t love it but they’ve made massive strides. They’ve realised it’s a viable thing.”

“It’s hard for an adult to take a 14 year old seriously when you are trying to sell a $600 vacuum cleaner.”

– Pax Assadi