The US business magazine Forbes has named 27 year old Indian American comedian and actor, Aziz Ansari as “The Next Big Thing” with 17 stars to watch.

Last year, Judd Apatow’s American comedy-drama film 'Funny People' grossed $70 million in the global box office that compared to the 40 year old Virgin, which earned $177 million. In this film, Aziz Ansari appeared as an energetic stand-up comedian named Raaaaaaaandy who tells jokes like the one about the time he was in a hot tub.

Due to his performance in the 'Funny People' film he earned three-picture agreement with Apatow and GE's Universal Pictures. Ansari is working with his partner Jason Woliner on a movie about Raaaaaaaandy as well as a road trip film about two motivational speakers, Forbes reported.

In addition to his film development work, Ansari co-stars on the NBC comedy 'Parks and Recreation' where he plays role as Tom Haverford, a sarcastic, underachieving government official for the city of Pawnee.

The show has struggle with ratings but has helped grow Ansari's fan base. On June 6, 2010, Ansari hosted the 2010 MTV Movie Awards, holding his own with performers like Tom Cruise and Sandra Bullock.

Ansari was born in Tamil Muslim family at Columbia, South Carolina whose parents emigrated from Tamil Nadu, India.

Ansari is a big proponent of the web. He has 260,000 followers on Twitter. He has also created his own website named Aziz is Bored where the show videos he's made, including several from the MTV Movie Awards, promote his concert tours and link to his favorite music videos. Ansari appears at social media as 'an interesting way to kind of connect with your audience'.

He told Forbes, “It's weird because now, if you like a celebrity you can know so much about them through social media, like what TV shows and music they like, things like that.”

He and a frequent partner, Jason Woliner are writing some movies to do with producer Judd Apatow, he said. “Jason will direct and I will star in them. We are in the early stages of writing them, but the goal is to shoot one of them on my next hiatus from Parks and Recreation.”

In the others stars list for this movie include teenage singer Justin Bieber, multiple Grammy award winning 'Kings of Leon' group, 'Twilight' star Taylor Lautner and Zoe Saldana, who showed Neytiri in James Cameron's epic 'Avatar'.

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