Aziz Ansari on turning bad luck into 'Good Fortune'
The Business
KCRW
4.5 • 697 Ratings
🗓️ 17 October 2025
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, Kim Masters talks to Aziz Ansari about his directorial debut, Good Fortune. After his 2022 project Being Mortal was shut down following a misconduct complaint involving star Bill Murray, Ansari regrouped. He gathered cast members Seth Rogen and Keke Palmer for a new film and added Keanu Reeves to the mix. He’s filling us in on how he overcame production delays and Reeves’ on-set injury. Plus, he addresses his controversial appearance at the Riyadh Comedy Festival.
Meanwhile, and also on the topic of accepting Saudi money, producer Erik Feig has raised roughly $1 billion for his new venture, SNK Studios — funded in part by Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. The move marks the latest bet on Hollywood by the kingdom and raises questions about the industry’s willingness to overlook human rights concerns in pursuit of capital. Partners in banter Kim Masters and Matt Belloni examine the ethics of doing business with regimes accused of human rights abuses.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From KCRW, I'm Kim Masters, and this is The Business. |
| 0:05.7 | Aziz Ansari has finally made his directing debut with his new film, Good Fortune. |
| 0:11.2 | As you may remember, he had a false start a few years back with another project, |
| 0:15.3 | Being Mortal, starring Bill Murray, Seth Rogan, and Kiki Palmer. |
| 0:19.4 | Just three weeks into shooting, a crew member filed a complaint about Murray's conduct, and |
| 0:23.8 | Ansari heard from searchlight pictures. They called me and they said, hey, we're shutting down for a day to deal with this whole thing. I said, okay. And then they said, we're shutting down a second day to deal with this whole thing. I was like, okay. And then he's like, we're shutting down on a third day. And towards the end of the second day, I went to our editor and I was like, let's just edit. |
| 0:38.3 | And we spent a week editing. |
| 0:40.0 | Hour and a half kind of works as a movie. As Ansari feared, the movie was shut down, and that footage has never seen the light of day. Ansari rebounded with good fortune, bringing back being mortal stars, Rogan and Palmer, and adding Keanu Reeves to the cast. Still, his |
| 0:55.5 | fortune wasn't all good. He had to deal with production shutdowns caused by Guild Strikes and |
| 1:00.6 | Keanu's brutal onset knee injury. Ansari talks about all that. And yes, he also explains |
| 1:06.5 | his participation in the Riyadh Comedy Festival. But first we banter. |
| 1:11.0 | Stick around. |
| 1:11.7 | It's the business from KCRW. |
| 1:14.7 | I am joined by my partner in banter, Matt Bellany. |
| 1:17.6 | Hello, Matt. |
| 1:18.3 | Hi there. |
| 1:19.2 | So, you know, there was a moment there in time where Ari Emanuel and Endeavor got very exercised |
| 1:26.7 | when the Saudis murdered Jamal Khashoggi and said he was |
| 1:30.6 | returning $400 million in Saudi money. And he seems to have repented of that decision. |
| 1:38.3 | I actually was reading somewhere where he was asked why he gave the money back and he said, |
| 1:43.0 | I don't know. |
| 1:46.4 | But I think we kind of know, right? |
... |
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