Aasif Mandvi in The Brink, and Billy Connolly in the role of Montgomery Montgomery in the 2004 film of A Series Of Unfortunate Events

Fresh off of having The Brink—which he both wrote for and starred in—un-renewed out from under him by HBO, former The Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi is apparently determined to never put all his career eggs in a single basket ever again. Deadline is reporting that Mandvi has just secured recurring parts on two different series, USA’s Mr. Robot and Netflix’s upcoming A Series Of Unfortunate Events, ensuring he’ll never be caught flat-footed by capricious premium cable execs again.


Mandvi will appear as a special agent of some sort on USA’s breakout cyber terror series, which is expected to return for its second season this summer. The character, Jesse, is being described as “a bit of a dog,” which we assume means he’s a lech, and not, for instance, that Mr. Robot’s next big twist is that there are now werewolves running around, hacking computers by the light of the moon.

Over at Netflix, meanwhile, Mandvi joins what seems to be a growing effort to make the new Lemony Snicket series as distinct as possible from Brad Silberling’s 2004 film. Joining Neil Patrick Harris as the villainous Olaf, and Patrick Warburton as the books’ mysterious narrator and author, Mandvi will be stepping into the role of the Baudelaire orphan’s uncle, Montgomery Montgomery. Played by Billy Connolly in the movie, Uncle Monty is a renowned herpetologist, and is usually regarded as the kindest and most competent of the guardians who take the troubled trio in over the course of the books. (Although, given what tends to happen to good or competent people in Snicket’s universe, Mandvi might want to start lining up his next gig now if he wants to keep one step ahead of the career-endangering hordes.)