Aziz Ansari’s feature directing debut, “Good Fortune,” wasn’t meant to be his first effort as a filmmaker: That would’ve been “Being Mortal,” called off mid-shoot in 2022 amid accusations of misconduct against Bill Murray. So it was inevitable that alongside the TIFF premiere of “Good Fortune,” a comedy starring Keanu Reeves and “Being Mortal” star Seth Rogen, he’d have to address the canceled film. And it turns out, they share thematic DNA.
The South Carolina-born Indian-American actor, writer, director, and stand-up comedian is known by audiences worldwide as serial entrepreneur Tom “Treat Yo Self” Haverford on NBC’s “Parks and Recreation,” and as the more somber, lovelorn Dev Shah on the Netflix hit series “Master of None.”
More from IndieWire
Could “Good Fortune” and his should-have-been debut “Being Mortal” have swapped titles? After all, in the TIFF premiere, Keanu Reeves plays Gabriel, the Angel of Texting and Driving — in L.A., yes, the City of Angels, where in this comedy, angels exist — and finds himself demoted to human by his angel boss (Sandra Oh). Thus, he becomes mortal. “Whoa!” Ansari told IndieWire in Toronto. “I gotta process that,” when asked.
When the news of “Being Mortal’s” cancellation broke in April 2022, Ansari said he got a deluge of “I’m sooo sorry” texts. He recalled thinking, “I can’t deal with this. I don’t wanna be in this woe-is-me moment.” Ansari said he then called Seth Rogen, also a star of “Being Mortal.” He told Rogen, “Hey, I know you’re free and were supposed to work today. If you wanna make this day less shitty for me, can you read this script [for ‘Good Fortune’]? He said, yeah, and he called me in two hours and said, ‘I’m in, let’s do it.’”
That’s how “Good Fortune” began. Ansari had a basic version of the story ready, where he plays Arj, a down-on-his-luck documentary film editor living out of his car and forced to participate in the gig economy as a Taskrabbiter and home-improvement store worker. Through the latter, Arj meets a union organizer (Keke Palmer, also a “Being Mortal” star), whom he begins dating. Through the former, Arj meets Jeff (Seth Rogen), a venture-capitalist angel investor in tech companies. When Gabriel (Reeves) intervenes because he can’t help but take pity on Arj’s lost soul, Gabriel decides to swap Arj and Jeff’s lives. There you have it, a “Prince and the Pauper”-esque fable, touched by an angel, with a rebellious and playful streak of working-class consciousness.
‘Good Fortune’©Lions Gate/Courtesy Everett Collection
Empathy for the working class indeed feels like a far cry from Tom Haverford and Dev Shah. When asked about shifting from narratives about the middle class — Ansari co-created “Master of None” with his longtime collaborator Alan Yang, also a producer on “Good Fortune” — and from TV to film, Ansari said, “’Master of None’ was almost the perfect training ground to get ready to do this film. There was an episode on Season 2 called ‘New York, I Love You’ and another episode in Season 3, where the character played by Naomi Ackie [goes] through IVF. For both of those episodes, I had to do a lot of work interviewing people, trying to understand experiences that were not my own… I hope for people [who] like ‘Master of None,’ [that] this is kind of what they hoped I would do with a movie. It has a lot of the same DNA as ‘Master.’ It’s about seeing things from other people’s perspectives.”
Anasri said, “So for ‘New York, I Love You,’ there was a segment about a cab driver, a doorman, and a woman who was Deaf. This guy Stefano and I did a DoorDash ride-along, and then I took over his account and did stuff for a day. That fueled the whole segment with Seth [in ‘Good Fortune’], where he ends up doing DoorDash. I also spoke with this guy, Vincent, who tried to unionize a Home Depot in Philadelphia. He was so inspiring. The Elena character that Keke Palmer plays [is based on him]. So we interviewed a lot of people that did those kinds of gigs. That process is something that helped me tremendously in doing ‘Good Fortune.’”
Ansari said the script’s conceit about angels really began to hit home once he pulled off a casting coup with Keanu Reeves. That Ansari is himself an actor and a stand-up comedian helped him figure out the comedy of “Good Fortune,” plus the fact that he was back in the familiar mode of acting and directing in equal measure, as he had in “Master of None.” (By contrast, in “Being Mortal,” Ansari said he had a much smaller role.)
“’Being Mortal’ is based on a book by Atul Gawande that’s about life (and death) issues,” said Ansari. “It was pretty heavy at times, and it was a heavy shoot. So I was excited to do something that was much more straightforward comedy. When Keanu’s name first came up, I started watching all his films like ‘Point Break’ and ‘Speed,’ but I went back to the comedies he had done, like ‘Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure’ and ‘Parenthood’ in particular. You kind of see little bits of his comedy power. He’s very funny when he’s playing a guy that’s kind of naive, but at the same time so sweet. And that’s Gabriel, right? He’s so lovable. But he’s kind of dumb. [Laughs]“
In thinking about Reeves while looking at the script, Ansari said he could “just imagine him having this bright-eyed wonder about the internet, him being this angel that gets thrown into the deep end of being a human and struggling in L.A., but having the attitude he does. I just had a feeling it would work… He’s so great, he’s the soul of the movie.”
How the dating scenes between Arj (Ansari) and Elena (Ackie) are blocked brings to mind “Master of None’s” approach to the same, and Ansari agreed. He said while planning to shoot those romantic moments for “Good Fortune” that he and Alan Yang recognized this is their “bread and butter.”
Ansari also edited the film while he shot, which is a bold choice. “This notion of watching the rough cut is a nightmare. You’re so scared. If you edit as you go along, you minimize that a little bit,” Ansari said. “You just start feeling the rhythms of the movie, and you start understanding what’s working camera-wise in terms of the cinematic language. ‘Oh, these kinds of shots feel good,’ or ‘oh, let’s stay in these singles a little bit longer.’ Whatever it is, you just learn what your movie is, [and] you can kind of lean into things.” Ansari credited his editor, Daniel Haworth, with whom he worked on “Master” as well. Whenever Haworth was on set, Ansari would run in to take a look at the dailies and the evolving cut.
“Master of None” fans will be delighted to see the director’s father (Shoukath Ansari) show up in special appearances, though Ansari’s mother (Fatima Ansari) doesn’t feature in “Good Fortune” as she did in that Netflix show. Ansari said that his mom hates acting, but it was a lot of fun having his dad around, because a lot of the story is about the need for family in a place like L.A.
Aziz Ansari as Arj and Keanu Reeves as Gabriel in ‘Good Fortune’Eddy Chen/Lionsgate
“Parks and Rec” fans will also notice Joe Mande, who played Morris for a few episodes on the NBC sitcom and served as a writer. In the film, Arj meets Joe’s character while Taskrabbiting in line at a Cinnabon. The casting of secondary and tertiary characters feels very intentional in this film, adding to the groundedness of a movie as much about Los Angeles as it is set there.
“We had an amazing cast director, Carmen Cuba. One role that was very fun to cast was Felipe [Felipe Garcia Martinez], who plays a dishwasher that Keanu works with,” Ansari said. “We’d been reading these people, and none of them really felt like the real guy that would be in the back of the kitchen with Keanu. So me and my producer Kelsey [Comeau] went down to his restaurant, and he came out, and we did some of the scenes.”
He added, “Then I called Keanu and said, ‘Hey, I have this idea for that character. Would it be cool if we used a real guy, because I think he would bring some authenticity to the role?’ He said, ‘Yeah, I’m down.’ So we use Felipe, and he shows up, and he’s the only person I met who doesn’t know who Keanu Reeves is! Months after we wrapped, I went down to the restaurant, and I was like, ‘Felipe!’ He was there. And I was like, ‘Did you tell all these people you’re a movie star now?’ And they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, he’s been telling us all the time. He’s telling us about Keanu and everything.’ Yeah, Felipe’s great.”
If Ansari were an angel, what would his department be? Ansari said, “Maybe the Angel of Screenwriting Inspiration? I love to help writers out that are stuck in the jam.”
“Good Fortune” premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. Lionsgate will release the film in theaters on Friday, October 17.
Best of IndieWire
Sign up for Indiewire’s Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.