Pax Assadi

Assadi was born in 1990 or 1991^[1] in New Zealand to an Iranian father and Pakistani mother. He grew up on the North Shore of Auckland before moving to Hamilton as a teenager, where he worked at his father's vacuum cleaner store.^[2][3][4] Later the family moved again to Christchurch.^[5]

He was inspired by comedians Omid Djalili, Jo Koy, Dylan Moran, and Dave Chappelle.^[3][2]

Assadi has been performing comedy since 2012.^[6] He won the NZ Comedy Guild's Gag of the Year award in 2016.^[7] He is part of the comedy trio Frickin Dangerous Bro with James Roque and Jamaine Ross.^[7]

In 2016, Assadi was nominated for the Fred Award for his show In Mid-Season Form.^[8] Frickin Dangerous Bro were nominated for Humble in 2018.^[9]

He was a co-presenter with Nicola Toki on the TVNZ series Endangered Species Aotearoa,^[10] and co-hosted The Great Kiwi Bake Off.^[4] In 2022 he created and starred in the series Raised by Refugees, which is based on his own childhood.^[11][4][3] He has also appeared on Word Up, 7 Days, The Project, Crack Up, 60 Seconds, Have You Been Paying Attention?, and Brown Eye.^[6][12] Scripted programmes Assadi has acted on include Jono And Ben, Funny Girls, and Tongue Tied.^[5]

In 2025, Assadi appeared on the sixth season of Taskmaster New Zealand.^[3] The same year, he declared he was "bored" doing stand-up and wanted to focus on film and television.^[3]

Assadi also did commercial voice work for a 2degrees ad campaign.^[12]

He is set to star in an upcoming television show alongside Hannah Marshall.^[3]

Assadi has lived in New Lynn, West Auckland since 2020. He practises Baháʼí, and he and his wife Sholeh, whom he met in Dunedin, have two daughters, Vaha and Lua.^{[13][7][3][2][12]} He is a fan of NBA basketball team the Utah Jazz.^[2]