Nasim Pedrad

Nasim Pedrad (born November 18, 1981) is an Iranian American comedic actress best known for her 5 seasons as a cast member of Saturday Night Live from 2009 to 2014. She is currently attached to co-star in the upcoming FOX sitcom Mulaney, premiering in fall 2014.

Life and career
Nasim Pedrad was born in Tehran, Iran, to Arasteh Amani and Parviz Pedrad. Pedrad and her parents lived in Tehran until 1984, before emigrating to the United States when Nasim was two years old. Her younger sister is comedy writer Nina Pedrad, who wrote for 30 Rock during its final two seasons and currently on New Girl. Both sisters are fluent inFarsi. She was raised in Irvine, California, and graduated from University High School, (and incidentally the same high school alma mater of former SNL cast member Will Ferrell) and the UCLA School of Theatre in 2003[3] and was a member of the UCLA Spring Sing Company.

Pedrad was a performer with the Sunday Company at The Groundlings and had frequently performed her one-woman show Me, Myself & Iran at the Los Angeles divisions ofImprovOlympic and the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. The show was selected for the 2007 HBO Comedy Festival in Las Vegas. She has received an LA Weekly Best Comedic Performance of the Year Award as the lead in the comedic spoof After School Special.[3]

Pedrad has guest-starred on Gilmore Girls and from 2007 to 2009 had a recurring role on ER as Nurse Suri. In 2011, she was a recurring voice on the Fox animated series Allen Gregory. She appeared with a small role in the 2011 film No Strings Attached. In 2012, she had a supporting voice role in The Lorax and a small appearance in The Dictator. In 2013, she had another supporting voice role in Despicable Me 2. She has a co-starring role in the upcoming FOX sitcom Mulaney, premiering in fall 2014.undefined

Saturday Night Live
Pedrad joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 2009 as part of the 35th (2009–2010) season. Pedrad is one of a handful of cast members (joining the Italian-born Tony Rosato, the New Zealand-born Pamela Stephenson, the English-born Morwenna Banks, and the Chilean-born Horatio Sanz) to be born outside North America and being of Iranianancestry she is the show's first female west Asian cast member. She became a repertory player in the 2011–12 season after two years of being a featured player.