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PLAYBOY: On Parks and Recreation you play a small-town government employee named Tom Haverford. Like you, Tom is from South Carolina, and despite being Indian, he calls himself a redneck. Do you consideryourself a redneck? ANSAR I prefer to think of myself as a Southerner. I defi­nitely have a huge affinity for Southern food. Not so much the racial issues. It's a weird balance. We've got delicious fried chicken, but the Confederate flag also hangs outside the statehouse. That's a compromise I'm willing to make. If somebody said to me, "Every day you're gonna be called the A/word, but you'll also get a delicious fried chicken leg and a biscuit," I'd belike, "I'll take that trade!"

PLAYBOY: To^HHBHiWnce admitted his real name Darwish Sabir Ishmael Ghani. Were you ever tempted to change your name to something less ethnic? ANSAI Wouldn't that be a waste of time? Who would I be fooling? Nobody is looking at me and thinking, Hey, I totally believe that guy's name is Brian Henderson.

PLAYB Tom has a pickup technique called "peacocking,"

in which ha wears something ridiculous, such as a raccoon

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to work?

AZIZ ANSARI

(continued from page 90) ANSARl: I got the idea from the Neil Strauss book The Came. And that stuff works, man! If you go to a club and some dude's wear­ing a weird thing, people will go up and talk to him. I haven't seen anyone take it to Tom's level, of wearing a raccoon hat. But I'm telling you, if it's cold outside and you pop a raccoon hat on your head and go to a bar, people will pay attention to you. Even if they're pointing at you, laughing and say­ing, "Look at that goofy asshole," they still want to talk to you. You're halfway there!

Q4

playboy: Rob Lowe and Adam Scott recently joined the cast of Parks and Recreation. Do you feel you're still the handsomest guy on the show?

ANSARI: Do Rob Lowe or Adam Scott have nice well-trimmed beards? Fuck no! Of course I'm still the most handsome guy on Parks.

Q5

PLAYBOY: You grew up in a rural town in South Carolina where your family mem­bers were some of the only Indians. Did you feel like an outsider? ANSARI: Not at all. We didn't move from a town with a big Indian community to a town with nothing but white people. I had no frame of reference, and I wasn't treated differently. Occasionally I got teased, but that stuff happens to every kid. If it's not about your ethnicity, it'll be about your weight or your acne or something else. Kids are fucking assholes.

Q6

PLAYBOY: You seem very proud of your beard. Under what circumstances would you shave it?

ANSARI: I wouldn't! I know it's weird for an actor to be so attached to facial hair. I guess it's a point of pride. I shaved it only once, just to see what it felt like. And I hated it. Some people can go back and forth between having a beard and not having a beard, but I'm definitely not one of those people.

Q7

PLAYBOY: You and your Parks and Recreation co-star Amy Poehler both started on com­edy sketch shows—you on Human Giant and she on Upright Citizens Brigade. Have you ever exchanged war stories? ANSARI: We're sometimes just in awe of the budget differences of network TV versus a cable sketch show. We did a scene on Parks with a dinosaur-themed restaurant called Jurassic Fork. If it had been Human Giant or UCB, you'd see maybe a couple of dinosaur posters and some action figures. On Parks, our art department brought in a full-size animatronic T. rex and stegosau-rus. It was the coolest shit I'd ever seen. We've also traded stories about standards and practices, the gatekeepers that tell you what you can and cannot say on TV. I think we both had to deal with sending penis sketches for approval.

Q8

PLAYBOY: Penis sketches? Please explain. ansari: For Human Giant we were working on a scene about a bunch of guys trying to stay awake, and one draws a dick on some­body else's face with a marker. MTV's stan­dards department was like, "Well, you have to draw the dick in a particular way. It can't be too graphic." So we faxed over four dick drawings, and they sent back this hilarious memo: "Dick Number One, you can't do that. Dick Number Two, that looks good."

Q9

playboy: You've worked with everyone from Zach Galifianakis to Seth Rogen. Are you a comedy good-luck charm? ANSARI: Those guys all have this weird rash on their forearms since working with me, so definitely not. When I did Funny People with Seth it was quickly clear we had a simi­lar sense of humor. I kept pushing myself to make Seth break by doing the dumbest stuff I could—humping chairs and yelling random stuff in my DJ voice, like picking up a yellow M&M and screaming "Yellow!" I got him to break a few times, and that was always a nice reward.

Q10

playboy You've been on the road with your Dangerously Delicious stand-up tour, play­ing some big venues. What's the difference between doing comedy for a hundred peo­ple and doing it for a thousand? ANSARI: I'm always high energy, so it doesn't matter how big the audience is. Because of Parks and Rec, I'm a lot more recogniz­able. People see me and they're excited just because they've seen my face on television. I walk onstage and they start screaming. I don't do any jokes, really. I just talk about whatever I ate that day, and they go wild.

Q11

PLAYBOY: When you're onstage you have an awful lot of swagger and confidence for such a little guy. Where do you get your bravado?

ANSARI: I've always been inspired by comics like Chris Rock and Louis C.K. I'm in awe of Louis. He'll say some absurd idea and the audience is like, Well, I definitely don't agree with that. But then he forces them into submission with his jokes. By the end you think, Well, okay, I guess he's right. That's incredible power. To pull off something like that you have to be very confident.

Q12

PLAYBOY: You've done stand-up at the Sas-quatch and Bonnaroo rock festivals. How are rock crowds different from stand-up comedy crowds?

ANSARI: I don't notice much of a difference, except maybe a few more of them are stoned. They've got that look in their eyes as though they have no idea what's going on. And at Bonnaroo sometimes hippies bring their babies to the show. That can be a little disconcerting. I'm doing bits about fucking a Cinnabon, so I don't know if a baby is really my ideal audience.

Q13

PLAYBOY: You've socialized with hip-hop

stars like Kanye West, MIA and 50 Cent. Do they expect you to be their court jester? ANSARI: Naw, it's not like that. One time I was at Kanye West's place and he asked me to do my act in his living room for some of his friends, but that was kind of an isolated incident. And he didn't say, "Do some jokes or you're out of my house!" He was just, "Do some jokes, please. Do some jokes, please. Do some jokes, please." And finally I was like, "Okay, fine!" It went over really well. It was just Kanye and maybe 30 other people. And if anybody was making too much noise in the next room, Kanye would jump up and scream, "Yo! Shut the fuck up! Homey's over here trying to tell some jokes!"

Q14

playboy: While hosting the MTV Movie Awards you did a spot-on impression of R&B singer R. Kelly. Given the chance, would you trade careers with him? ANSARI: Are you kidding me? Who wouldn't want to have his career? The guy sings his songs and ladies throw their panties on the stage. It doesn't matter how good I get at comedy, I'm never going to have anything like that. Someone at Bonnaroo asked me, "Do you want to be the Jay-Z of comedy?" And I was like, "No, I just want to be Jay-Z!"

Q15

PLAYBOY: Your dad is a doctor. Was there ever pressure to follow in his footsteps? ANSARI: Not at all. My parents have always been supportive. As long as I went to col­lege, they didn't care. I majored in mar­keting because it didn't seem like much work. Marketing is just a bunch of fancy jargon for common sense. By the time I was a sophomore I realized I wanted to be a comic, but I stayed in school to avoid a big argument with my parents about dropping out.

Q16

playboy: You got into a fake feud with Jus­tin Bieber, claiming the teen pop crooner had stolen one of your songs. Any other celebrities been stealing from you lately? ANSARI: Bieber's best bud, Usher, has stolen about 10 fedoras, four sequined vests—two black and two silver—and nine necklaces that say usher on them from me. Not cool, Usher.

Q17

playboy You're a known Chick-fil-A fanatic. Why?

ANSARI: I love Chick-fil-A! I grew up in South Carolina eating there all the time. But there aren't any Chick-fil-A outlets near me in Los Angeles. When I see one of the restaurants now, it's a really big deal. It makes me nostalgic. I don't know, maybe it's a good thing they're not everywhere. The scarcity of it makes it more valuable and personal to me.

Q18

playboy You and a few other comics started a group called Food Club in which you dine together at high-end restaurants and wear captain's hats. Is that your idea of recreation,

or is it bizarre performance art? ansari: [Laughs] A little of both. It's fun to get dressed up and put on suits and silly hats and eat amazing food. We also give out a plaque to our favorite restaurants and chefs, and we've been pretty selective. It's already three times more prestigious than the Michelin star.

Q19

playboy: The critics have been mostly supportive of you. Do you worry about a backlash?

ANSARI: Not at all. You can't let what other people think about you get into your head too much. And with comedy you don't need reviews. If it's good, I'll know it. I read some review of the 2010 MTV Movie Awards that said my monologue didn't go over well. And I thought, I was there. I got an

applause break after every joke I did. That is the definition of doing well for a come­dian. Don't tell me I didn't do an amazing job. The laughter proves you wrong.

Q20

PLAYBOY: You spend a lot of time on Twitter. What's the appeal?

ANSARl: Twitter is just a big time waster. It's a dumb thing to occupy your time when you're bored or waiting in line at the gro­cery store. But it does give you access to people you never had access to before. A decade ago, if you wanted to get a message to Diddy you'd have to go through 10, 20 people. Now just write a message on Twit­ter and there's a pretty good chance he will actually read it. That's crazy!

To which NFL player would STEPHANIE ROLLIS (left) compare herself? "Ed Reed, the best safety, who plays for the best team, the Baltimore Ravens." ASHLEY HELM-STETTER admires New Orleans tight end

Rule #2: Know your LFL history.

The league originated with the Lingerie Bowl, a pay-per-view event first broadcast opposite the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. Today the LFL has 10 teams in 10 cities—the Baltimore Charm, Chicago Bliss, Dallas Desire, Los Angeles Temptation, Miami Caliente, Orlando Fantasy, Philadelphia Passion, San Diego Seduction, Seattle Mist and Tampa Breeze. The games—seven-on-seven full-on tackle football played on a 50-yard field—currently air Friday nights on MTV2.

Rule #3: Get over the dress code.

"Everybody thinks we're running around in tiny little nighties," says Mikayla Wingle of the Tampa Breeze. Not that she wasn't nervous when she first heard about the league-mandated attire: "I was like, 'I'm going to be wear­ing what?'" But she relaxed when she actually saw the uniform, which is more Sports Authority than Frederick's of Hollywood.

"Once people get past the lingerie part," she says,

"they're just fascinated with the fact that there are athletic women playing football—basically, a guy's favorite thing to watch."

Rule #4: Beware of their competitive fire.

LFL players may not be swaddled in as much padding as their NFL counterparts, but they still compete with the same reckless abandon. "It hurts, but when you go out there and you're playing, you don't feel it. You're trying to kill each other!" says Tanyka Renee of the Philadelphia Pas­sion. "Personally, I prefer to knock my girl down before she knocks me down."

Rule #5: Give credit where credit is due.

When Chelsie Jorgensen of the Seattle Mist talks about her foot­ball exploits, most men are skeptical at best. "They don't believe me. They say I'm too small to play professional football, but I explain that all the girls in the league are about my size." Whatever jabs come her way, ultimately Jorgensen knows the score: "I wouldn't play football if it wasn't real football."

Clockwise from top left: [MADIA LARYSA (Chicago Bliss) adheres to a punishing workout that includes 30 minutes of swimming. Things are less serious in the locker room: "On game day we always start with a pillow fight," jokes VANESSA SANCHEZ (San Diego Seduction), snap­ping a towel at STEPHANIE NOEL (Los Angeles Temptation). As for postgame plans, MIKAYLA WINGLE wants only one thing: "Sleep!"

Girls will be girls. From left: TISHA MARIE hosts an online book club that includes nonfiction relationship tomes. CHELSIE JORGENSEN is a self-professed sweets addict who dreams of raiding a candy shop and renting movies with a special someone: "We could sit in bed, cuddle and eat until our tummies hurt!" That's nothing compared with STEPHANIE NOEL, whose sweet tooth has

inspired a unique nickname. "My coaches don't call me Cupcakes for nothing. Seriously, I'm always talking about or baking cupcakes." After wearing cleats 30 hours a week at practice, VANESSA SANCHEZ can't wait to take them off and treat herself to a pedicure. And for NADIA LARYSA there's nothing better than a love story. "I love watching romantic comedies. Chances are I'll end up crying."