All About Aziz Ansari’s Parents Shoukath and Fatima Ansari (Who Starred Alongside Him in ‘Master of None’!)

Aziz Ansari’s parents, Shoukath and Fatima Ansari, never expected to star in a hit show alongside their son.

The couple, who welcomed Aziz in 1983 and his younger brother, Aniz, seven years later, were working their day jobs when the Good Fortune actor invited them to join him on Master of None as his fictional parents.

After Shoukath and Fatima shot the first season, Aziz penned a touching tribute to them on Tumblr.

“I’ve been overwhelmed by the response to the Parents episode of our show,” he wrote in the 2015 post. “What’s strange is doing that episode and working with my parents has increased the quality of my relationship to my parents IN MY REAL LIFE.”

Here’s everything to know about Aziz Ansari’s parents, Shoukath and Fatima Ansari.

Shoukath and Fatima met in India

Shoukath and Fatima are from Tamil Nadu, a state in the south of India.

“My dad’s from a town called Tirunelveli and my mom’s from a town called Nagercoil,” Aniz told Vulture in June 2017. “My mom’s older sister went to medical school with my dad. Their families were in roughly the same societal zone.”

The two met through an arranged marriage, Aziz shared in an op-ed for TIME. The Parks and Recreation actor revealed that when his dad knew he was ready to get married, he told his parents, and they arranged meetings with three neighboring families.

“The first girl, he said, was ‘a little too tall,’ and the second girl was ‘a little too short.’ Then he met my mom,” Aziz wrote. “He quickly deduced that she was the appropriate height (finally!), and they talked for about 30 minutes. They decided it would work. A week later, they were married.”

Aziz added, “And they still are, 35 years later. Happily so – and probably more so than most people I know who had nonarranged marriages.”

Shoukath is a physician and Fatima manages all of his offices

Shoukath is a physician with a specialty in gastroenterology. He’s been practicing for over 30 years, and in 2017, Richmond Memorial Hospital named him Physician of the Year.

Aniz told Vulture that his dad also operates several offices across North and South Carolina — some of which are over two hours away from their home — and Fatima manages all of them.

“I can’t imagine being in a relationship where you get up, you eat breakfast together, then you drive to work together two hours, work together all day, drive back together,” Aniz said. “They spend all their time together. It’s so crazy.”

They share two children

Shoukath and Fatima share two children: Aziz, who was born on Feb. 23, 1983, and Aniz, who was born seven years later.

Despite their age difference, Aniz told Entertainment Weekly in 2017 that he and Aziz were “really, really close” growing up.

“We weren’t that close in age where we’d be, like, bickering and stuff like that, you know what I mean? We’re always kind of chill and hang out,” Aniz said.

He added that because there wasn’t much to do in town, they spent a lot of time together indoors — which is where their spark for working together ignited.

“So you just sit home all day and watch TV, and then we’d make up bits and stuff to amuse ourselves,” he said. “Now we basically still do that, except we make TV and use it to amuse ourselves.”

Aniz ultimately joined Aziz in the production of Master of None as a writer, taking on a bigger role in the season 2 scripts.

They raised their children in South Carolina

Shoukath and Fatima raised Aziz and Aniz in the small South Carolina town of Bennettsville.

“The town we grew up in is really, really small,” Aniz told Vulture. “There wasn’t a movie theater in our town or a mall. The nearest movie theater involved an hour-and-a-half drive away. I think there’s a Walmart there now, but when we were growing up you had to drive 45 minutes and over state lines to go to a Walmart.”

Because of the town’s small size, both brothers ended up moving away at a young age.

“The public schools were really bad so I left when I was 11 to live with our aunt and uncle in Columbia, South Carolina,” he explained. “Aziz left the house when he was 15. He went to boarding school for gifted and talented math students.”

Aziz’s parents starred alongside him on Master of None

Fans may recognize Aziz’s parents since they starred as his character, Dev’s, parents, Nisha and Ramesh, in Master of None.

“Every time I see Indian parents portrayed on film or TV, they’re not three-dimensional, they’re excuses for hacky ethnic jokes,” Aziz told the Los Angeles Times in 2015. “I wanted the parents to feel real.”

In a 2017 interview with Vulture, Shoukath shared that some plot points were based on his real life.

“It’s a story of the immigrant and how they come here,” he said. “What the immigrant’s children, the first generation, do for them. That is the theme behind it, and some of the incidents—like how I went to medical school and worked in the zipper factory—most of them are real.”

Shoukath added that he beat out 18 other actors who auditioned to play him in the show. He told Vulture that during the audition, Aziz said, “Dad, you don’t need to do anything. Be yourself. You don’t need to act.”

After starring in Master of None, Shoukath said he and Fatima started to get recognized in public places.

“People are stopping us in the middle of the road, in the airport,” he said. “They’re proud of Aziz. We are recognized in many places.”

Shoukath enjoyed acting, but Fatima wasn’t a huge fan

While Shoukath enjoyed his time in the spotlight, Fatima wasn’t as much of a fan. “My mom doesn’t even like acting on the show,” Aziz told NPR. “She’s really just doing it because she loves me very much. She hates acting.”

He added that between the first and second seasons, Fatima tried finding ways to get out of doing the show.

“When we announced the second season, she’s like, ‘OK, this season the mom character’s on vacation or she’s just gone,’ ” he said. “And I was like, ‘She can’t be on vacation the whole time.’ She’s like, ‘No, maybe she’s at a wedding sometimes.’ She just didn’t want to be a part of it.”

But he said that Fatima ultimately agreed to come back because it gave her a chance to spend more time with her family, especially since Aniz also worked on the show as a writer.

“It’s a really special thing that we get to do this together,” Aziz said.