Aziz Ansari was doing his first full-fledged press junket a few weeks ago, hitting the road and sitting on a lot of hotel couches to promote 30 Minutes or Less, the comedy in which he plays the best friend to Jesse Eisenberg's character, a hapless pizza delivery guy with a bomb strapped to him and instructions to rob a bank before the bomb explodes. Ansari, who spent the summer doing a stand-up tour while on hiatus from Parks & Recreation, said he knew the basic gist of the junket tour, which led me to toss off a reference to the scene in Notting Hill in which Hugh Grant visits Julia Roberts at her press junket-- which led to him saying he'd never seen the movie. Which led to me explaining the entire plot, beat for beat, of Notting Hill. Which led to him asking if I had also snuck into this junket to confess my love to him.

The thing is, I still don't know if he really meant that he'd never seen the movie-- and that willingness to run with a joke, while also being utterly friendly and lovely to talk to, is what makes Ansari's brand of comedy both hilarious and impossible to pin down. We talked for a while about Parks & Recreation, my favorite show on television, and that part of the conversation will be up on Monday. Below you can see our conversation about 30 Minutes or Less, about his failed attempts to ask Jason Statham for advice about his fight scene, about how to survive shooting a car chase, and about what he's learned from Jesse Eisenberg about both acting and how to manage an awesome movie career. Check out the video below, and see 30 Minutes or Less in theaters this weekend.