Payam Banifaz is an Iranian actor and comedian out of Los Angeles. He was born in Tehran and immigrated to the US with his family at the age of 8. Some of his credits include a recurring role on Shameless as well as roles on Veep, Silicon Valley, Brooklyn Nine-Nine as well as many others.

"My whole family is from Tabriz. So when I was growing up, most of what I remember is the war, unfortunately. And yeah, so like, you know, a lot of the stuff that was happening in, like, Ukraine,
a lot of the footage of, like, people sort of huddled in cellars and like huddled in like subways. Like that really took me back and to my own childhood because I remember before we left Iran like four days a week, we were just in our cellar, in our apartment complex during the bomb ratings. Yeah, I completely remember that too.

"I remember going with my mom and the dad and stuff to this like friendly soccer match between the Iran national team and the U.S. And there was like people in the stands holding like signs regarding like the hostage crisis of the 80s and like, and this was in the 90s. So this is like 10 years removed from that. And just like Iranians go home and stuff like that. And that was the first time I'd ever experienced like racism or culturalism in that way.

"I'll never forget. We were having dinner at a restaurant, and my dad was asking plans about law school. It was like, when you got to take your L-Sat, this dad, and then I just kind of got quiet. And he's like, what's your problem? And I was like, I've made a decision. I think I want to, you know, want to be an actor. And then he kind of just like paused. And then he was just like, I think you've lost your mind. He's like, I think you've literally gone crazy finally. And he was extremely disappointed and upset. He was just like, he really thought I lost my mind. He's like, are you crazy? Like, he's like, it was like nobody wants to see someone like he's like the sad part is no one wants to see someone like you on TV. They don't want to see us."