Aasif Mandvi, one of the leads in the new production of “Waiting for Godot,” opening Thursday at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, sits on the couch and remembers the dearth of roles for South Asian actors in the 2003 Tony film in which he played a Taliban minister. Kushner’s “At Home/Cain”. Mandvi’s co-star Rainn Wilson comes close.

“I thought you were Cuban!” Wilson froze.

Mandvi doesn’t miss a beat.

“I told you a million times, I’m not Cuban,” he says with mock exasperation.

“You can play Cuban,” Wilson says.

“I played a Cuban, but I am not a Cuban,” says Mandvi.

“You should change your name, you really should,” Wilson insists. “Like Antonio Mandivosa. You work non-stop.”

Mandvi shakes her head and scolds Wilson.

“You’re so white right now,” he says.

They both laugh.

The two men describe their early days in the theater, when Wilson was earning no more than $17,000 a year for years and Madvi was touring Florida with a production of “Aladdin” aimed at children so young that they occasionally peed their pants during the performance. .

Aasif Mandvi was photographed at the Geffen Playhouse in October.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

In his first show in New York, Mandvi played Hector in Shakespeare’s “Troilus and Cressida.” The production took place in the back of a restaurant in Brooklyn, and the audience consisted of perhaps a dozen people. Mandvi recalled that the mother of the man playing Troilus made all the costumes, so he came on stage with a cardboard sword with a fold on it.

“I went through drama school, I was a professional!” “It was such a crazy thing,” Mandvi says with a laugh. But it does mean you go out on stage and do your best to be seen and build your resume.”

It’s funny to think of a time when both actors needed to get their resume ready. Actors Vladimir (Wilson) and Estragon (Mandvi), two of the most iconic misfits of modernist theatre, will take to the stage as real stars. Although Wilson will always be associated with naive and insidious people Dwight Schrute on NBC’s “The Office” and Mandvi has recently gained a loyal fan base for her portrayal of the science-minded skeptic. Ben Shakir in “Evil” on Paramount+Both men describe theater as their first and greatest love.

“The whole reason I came to Los Angeles, and I’m not exaggerating one bit, was because I knew if I ever wanted to play Mercutio at the Public Theater, I had to be on a TV show,” Wilson says. “That’s just the reality of New York theatre. “They want to sell tickets.”

Rainn Wilson is at the Geffen Playhouse on October 29, 2024.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Wilson remains in Los Angeles but still talks about returning with the goal of doing some great roles. So he took the opportunity to work on “Waiting for Godot”. In 1986, he performed a scene from the play in an acting class at the University of Washington and eventually married his stage partner, author Holiday Reinhorn. Since then he had always dreamed of visiting this place again. Mandvi had also done “Godot” in acting class long ago and the play had been on her bucket list for a long time.

The Geffen production is exciting for both actors because it is presented in conjunction with Gare St Lazare Ireland, an Irish theater company specializing in Beckett’s work.

“I’ve rarely been this challenged as an actor before,” says Wilson. “I did Hamlet in college and I will say it was harder because everything is subject to interpretation.”

Wilson gives an example. There is a sentence in the middle of the play that reads: “Suddenly everything will disappear and we will once again be left alone in the middle of nowhere.”

“You can play that line with all the darkness and sincerity you can muster and it can really strike a chord in the audience’s heart, or you can put a little spin on it and get a big laugh,” he said. he said, thinking for a moment. “Yes, and I’m not even sure which way to go with this right now.”

Beckett wrote “Waiting for Godot” in the late 1940s, during World War II, when he was a part of the French Resistance. He wrote after World War II. Centering on two ragtag characters who wait in vain for a man named Godot, the play delivers some of the most closely parsed lines of 20th-century theatre. It premiered at the Théâtre de Babylone in Paris in 1953, and has since been endlessly analyzed and explained by scholars, critics, and theater lovers determined to uncover its meaning.

“This assumes the ultimate thesis that we don’t know what we’re doing here or why we’re here,” Mandvi says. “We’re just passing the time.”

Mandvi and Wilson are the same age, 58, and shared the same manager when they started in the mid-90s but had never worked together.

“It felt like an explosion, didn’t it?” Mandvi says. “I thought, ‘Oh, I’m going to work with Rainn, who I’ve always admired and watched, and —’

“I was oddly intrigued,” Wilson interjects.

Mandvi nodded slowly.

“I was oddly intrigued,” he repeats, adding emphatically, “which has actually faded.

“He’s one of those few people that the more you get to know him, the less you like him,” Mandvi continues. “As little lust as you want, I must say.”

Wilson agrees: “That’s true.”

Next up, the actors suggest: A mash-up of “The Office” and “Evil,” with the Dunder Mifflin Paper Co. being haunted. Hollywood producers take note.