Aasif Mandvi

Aasif Mandvi isn’t a real journalist, he only plays one on TV. Which actually makes him far more credible than your usual broadcast reporter. “The great thing about it is that we’re not beholden to telling the news,” he says of his year-and-a-half-long stint on The Daily Show. “We’re beholden to being funny, and that frees us up to tell the truth, which a lot of news outlets aren’t free [to do].”

The Daily Show’s fake news format gives Mandvi the freedom to make unconventional decisions on what’s newsworthy (“We decide the thing that’s gonna irritate people the most”) and stretch the limits of verisimilitude (the Mumbai, India, native is the show’s Middle East correspondent because “Americans can’t tell the difference”). But it also provides a venue for some real-world real talk. “The regular media shines its light in one particular way, but we look at it with the intent of satirizing it,” he explains. “If it makes you laugh, great, but you’re also seeing it in a way that you’re not [getting] from any other outlet.”

In ’08, the veteran actor of stage (Guantánamo) and screen both big and small (2002’s The Mystic Masseur and TV’s Jericho) will begin shooting a “food comedy” he wrote called 7 to the Palace, set in an Indian restaurant in Queens. But with the Middle East never far from the news, there’s no shortage of events for Mandvi to “report” on. And as for the “news” on Comedy Central? “You can take it to the bank: We’re the only people telling the truth.”