After four successful seasons, the drama series Evil was canceled. Starring Mike Colter and Katja Herbers, it followed the two main characters as they navigated their way through the supernatural and mysterious. Actor Aasif Mandvi played Ben Shakir and recently joined our friend KJ over at The KJ Today Show to talk about the show’s cancelation and its newfound popularity on Netflix.
KJ: Good morning. How are you? Well, you know, I am delighted to be speaking with you this morning, but I am not happy about what we’re talking about, Aasif
AASIF: I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I take all the blame.
KJ: How could you? You’re Ben the Magnificent. How could you be ending the show?
AASIF: I tried. I tried to fix it. I tried to fix it. Yeah, no, we’re all very disappointed. You know, it is one of those things where I feel like we’re at the height of our success in a way, and the kings want to make more, the cast wants to make more, but the executives at Paramount, in their infinite idiocracy, have decided that, you know, you can’t keep a hit show going. So that’s… Hit shows are not what we want. We don’t want hit shows. We don’t want successful shows.
KJ: Why would we want that? What is this thing that everybody seems to be watching? Take it away.
AASIF: I know. Everybody wants to watch it. Wait, hang on a second. Wait, I think we’ve got this backward. No wonder Netflix is kicking our ass, you know? Yeah, but we’re hoping, we live in hope that maybe somebody else will [with more wisdom] take on the show and maybe there is a life after. An Evil part two.
KJ: So what’s interesting about this, Aasif, and I was thinking about it this morning as we were getting ready to talk, is that there is some power in the hands of the fans, because we’ve seen some shows that have come back. We saw Lucifer come back, Arrested Development, right? So I mean, we can do this.
AASIF: We can do this. We can do this. Yeah. I think that it’s a worthy campaign. I think that people should, right on Instagram, right on Twitter, right on social media, bombard George Cheeks or whoever it is over at Paramount with messages that they want Evil to come back, and maybe we can make it happen.
KJ: Well, I, you know, I’m gonna fully admit that I was one of the people who caught on to the show because it ended up on Netflix. So I do, you know, I feel like and obviously, you know, we can sit here and be like, well, I, you know, if I was in the boardroom making the decisions, I would have waited to see how it does on Netflix. But, I mean, honestly, that was part of it, because there are so many people. It feels like there’s been a great momentum. And I was hesitant to watch it, because I’m afraid of everything. Like, I don’t watch anything horror. People are shocked that I’m watching Evil. And I’m like, look, this is such a great show that I will lose sleep over it. It’s totally worth it. You know, so it’s interesting that we are in a time. I know that the finale is tomorrow, but I am not accepting this. So for people who haven’t gotten into it yet, like get on board, dude, because this is a movement. Let’s talk a little bit about your experience and what we can control right now, which is to celebrate a wonderful show that you have been a part of. Can you reflect a little bit on Ben the Magnificent and the role that this show has played in your life and your career?
AASIF: Well, I mean, it’s been a tremendous role. It’s been a tremendous experience. Every role brings with it, as an actor knows, every role brings with it challenges. You don’t know how you’re gonna do it. Initially, you’re like, well, how am I gonna play this guy? But what supports you is the cast and the writing and the creatives, the people who create the show, And we have such an incredible team on this show, you know, Robert and Michelle King are maybe, you know, I would argue one of the two of the finest writers in Hollywood making television today. And the most interesting television, The Good Fight, Good Wife, Evil, you know, those books, on and on, you know, and I think that having them at the wheel and then working with people like Katja and Michael Emerson and Christine Lahti and you know the whole Kurt and the whole team. They’re such great actors, great guest stars came on the show. You know some of the finest New York actors that would pop up on our show. So it was such a great creative experience and discovering this character with the help of all of these other people and also just the storylines where the writing was immense because actors depend on great writing. We can only do so much. And if the writing isn’t working, then it’s just not going to work on some level. But in this case, you had such tremendous writing. I mean, I would read the scripts and I’d be flipping, I’d be up at two o’clock in the morning finishing the script, you know, because it was such a page-turner. And even for me being on the show, I was excited to know where we were going and stuff. So that’s a rare experience to get to have all of that. So I feel like in a sense of gratitude, I feel like we hit the jackpot and got to, you know, we all got to work on a tremendous show, even though It’s ending and we wanted to continue, but we did that for amazing seasons, you know.
KJ: Yeah. I need to talk to you a little bit about your co-star, Mike Colter, because I am actually heading out here in a day or two to PopCon in Louisville, which is a wonderful convention that I work with and I moderate, and he is going to be there. So you got any scoop for me on Mike? Maybe something from the set that I could bring up that he would look at me and go, how do you know that?
AASIF: Oh, see, now you’re asking me, you know, I get paid for this kind of information. You know what I mean? Give me the tea. Ask him how many cold plunges he’s done today. Oh, because the man does a cold plunge every day. And it’s insane. He’s always got some newfangled health thing that he’s doing, you know. But one of the things that he does on a regular basis is his daily cold plunge. And then he puts it on Instagram. And Katja and I would have a lot of fun with that, like, you know, sort of teasing him about the fact that we have to watch him sit in a cold, a puddle of cold water, you know, on Instagram. So ask about his cold plunge.
KJ: Well, and you know, he has obviously had great success and very recognizable for his role as Luke Cage and kind of shifting over to Marvel a little bit. You also have spent some time in Marvel. You were a part of Spider-Man 2 and Sam Raimi’s version of it. Can you talk a little bit about your experience with that part of Marvel? Well, it was a lot.
AASIF: You know, I had a small part in Spider-Man 2, which which fans seem to love, you know? And it was really, you know, I was a young actor at the time, and I had just been doing theater, and I’d done a movie with Merchant Ivory, and I was the lead in a Merchant Ivory film, and all this stuff, and then I got offered this small part in Spider-Man 2. And initially, not being a Marvel person, or, you know, having watched those things, I turned down the role, actually, initially, when I when I first got the offer. I turned it down because I didn’t. I’ve been on Broadway and I was in an imaginary film and I was looking for something a little bit more. And so I didn’t want to do it. And then they convinced me to do it. And I changed my mind. I went back and I did the role. And then it’s like a role that people still talk to me about. I think we shot it in 2004. So like 20 years later, we’re still talking about that role. People still come up to me. And of course, Just because, you know, they did the long cut or whatever the long version, the DVD long version of it is. And they decided again, in their infinite idiocracy, decided to change one of my iconic line readings in Spider-Man. When I tell Peter Parker to go, and I, and I did this improvised line, which has become a meme and it’s all, it’s kind of crazy how it’s all sort of become. But then when they made the, what I thought was hilarious, when they made the long version, the longer cut, they shortened my line to just make a regular go. And I was kind of pissed off about that. So anyway, that was, but it was, you know, it’s one of the things where they shot that scene in a day and we just went down to Baker Sixth Avenue and shot there Joe’s pizza.
KJ: I did not see the extended version, and I never will now that I know that. Awesome. I want to shift over to a topic that always comes up here. We just started talking, I didn’t even introduce the show that you’re on. It’s the KJ Today Show. We bring people the positive vibes of pop culture, people to know, and pets. And I’m also the kiddie correspondent for Pet Pals TV. So, I mean, I’m obligated to talk to you about your iconic role in Paws of Fury and your motivation for playing a cat.
AASIF: Well, I mean, you get offered a role, you get to play an animated cat, you don’t say no. You know, it’s just one of those things. And it was a lot of fun. And, you know, I got to work with the very talented Gabriel Iglesias. I got to work with him. We had never worked together before, but we sort of got along like, I guess, you know, the two cats. But yeah, it was a lot of fun. And, you know, it was one of those, you get to sort of play this comic duo. It was this kind of Laurel and Harvey sort of thing. And that was great.
For the FULL interview, check it out on YouTube:
A girl with too many fandoms to count.
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