We talk with Texan/South Asian stand-up, writer, director about his journey from Texas, his love of comedy and its connection to his father’s love, a family of doctors, was stand-up a phase, bad jokes, going to USC film school, his love of sitcoms, Jess Oppenheimer, making his first pilot, putting his road career on hold while he takes care of his mother, opening for the great D.L. Hughley, being nominated for an Emmy while driving for a rideshare company, and the future of sitcoms and rideshare and can they be combined?

Bio:  Jay Mandyam was pushed into doing stand-up comedy by one of his college professors at the age of 19. He has worked with national headliners including: Whitney Cummings, Chris Hardwick, Tim Allen, & his comedic idols Christopher Titus and Paul Reiser. For the last few years, Jay has been seen opening regularly for Russell Peters, DL Hughley, and the late Louie Anderson. Jay’s comedy focuses on himself; sharing stories about all the times his big mouth has gotten him in trouble. In 2018, Jay made his international debut by touring India. As for television, Jay was featured on the hit HBO show “Silicon Valley”. He also made a couple of appearances on Comedy Central’s “@midnight”, Howard Stern’s “The Wrap Up Show”, and "Modern Family". In addition to stand-up, Jay is an accomplished writer, having written on the Netflix show “The Fix”, and Adam Sandler’s Netflix special “100% Fresh”. In 2019, Jay was seen every night as “Indian Jay” on "The DL Hughley Show" on TVOne. When the world shut down in 2020, Judd Apatow convinced Jay to go to USC to work on his directing skills. Jay was the first student at USC to do a multicam sitcom pilot with a studio audience as his thesis project, which was nominated for a college Emmy. Most recently, Jay was seen alongside Adam Sandler in Happy Gilmore 2.

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