Jimmy O. Yang (performing a bit)
Appearances
Bad Friends
We're Leaving LA w/ Jimmy O Yang
It's just nice that I have a nicer place than your agent now. Oh my God, dude.
Bad Friends
We're Leaving LA w/ Jimmy O Yang
Were you crying to look cool in front of Gene a little bit?
Bad Friends
We're Leaving LA w/ Jimmy O Yang
It feels like L.A. to me. You can just track where he's walking in L.A. Exactly. You know exactly where those people are.
Bad Friends
We're Leaving LA w/ Jimmy O Yang
More than Manhattan. It's bigger than Manhattan is burnt.
Bad Friends
We're Leaving LA w/ Jimmy O Yang
A white dude and an Asian dude. You two are disgusting. You two are something. We're bad friends. Dude, did you fall asleep last night? No, bro. Yeah, you did. No, no, no. I liked your... No, you have... Today you liked it. No, no. So you're saying that I could have died. No, I liked it at four in the morning. I promise you. I could see the phone right now. Yeah, you could see it.
Bad Friends
We're Leaving LA w/ Jimmy O Yang
He's saying it's shitty food. It's airplane. No, lounges aren't cafeteria food.
Bad Friends
We're Leaving LA w/ Jimmy O Yang
Well, what can you see? That I did it at four in the morning. I know... Oh, God. I could have died last night. You definitely couldn't have died.
Bad Friends
We're Leaving LA w/ Jimmy O Yang
Those are meth... Meth nose. Meth nostrils. I've never done meth. Those are nostrils. Those are meth nostrils. Bobby texted me at three in the morning saying like doors were unlocked and to come in if the fire hits. That's sexy. No, it's not, dude. No, that's not sexy? It's not sexy, no. Oh, I thought that was sexy.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
And so after Parks and Recreation ended and Brooklyn Nine-Nine was up and running and my friend Dan Gore who created with me was running that show every day. NBC very kindly said, you can sort of do whatever you want, and we'll give you at least one season on the air.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
So I had been thinking about that game I played in my head about other people and about myself and judging my own behavior and doing things that I knew were maybe slightly iffy and how many points I lost or how many points I gained when I did certain things. And so that became the idea that I just liked the most of the ideas that I had. And I
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
I just pursued that and thought, all right, this is going to be weird. I'm going to do a half-hour comedy show about moral philosophy, but I don't know, maybe it'll work. I just sort of rolled the dice, and I'm glad I did because the experience of working on it was wonderful. It was a big hit.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Yeah, I mean, as far as you can determine anything these days is a big hit, it was at least a show that people watched and seemed to enjoy, and it seemed to resonate with people.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Oh, philosophy by far. I say that only because I had no religion really to speak of. My father's side of the family are Jewish, but my grandfather, his father, renounced Judaism when he was very young and became a devout atheist. My mother's side of the family was raised vaguely Methodist, I would say, but... I had no religious upbringing at all.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
When I got to college I took a couple philosophy classes and really liked the way that philosophy was able to talk about ethics and morality and other topics without
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
limiting them in many cases without limiting them to who can apply for this right like that was always one of my problems with organized religion was that it was like this is the way the world works but it's only for this group of people it's not for that group of people it's only for you over here if you believe these sets of things we told the marketing team
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
When we were coming up with posters and advertising materials for the show, no harps, no puffy white clouds, no halos. This is not a show about Christianity. This is a show about philosophy.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Yeah, absolutely. This show is appearing on NBC at probably 8.30 on Thursday or something. And, you know, you can't say those words. So let's come up with a reason why you can't say them within the context of the show. It wasn't just that it was on NBC. Like, I wanted that show on.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Ideally to be able to be watched by people of all ages and it was I'm happy that that show was on NBC and not you know behind a paywall on a streaming service because I think that ultimately my bet which was just a conjecture at the time but my bet was that kids would like it. And it turned out to be true when we entered the COVID era and everybody was having to go to school from home.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
My wife said, you know, everyone in William, my son's class, is watching The Good Place right now. Like you should do like a fun extracurricular like Zoom class where you watch episodes of The Good Place and talk about philosophy. And I was like, I don't know. Like, it feels – those kids are on – poor kids are on Zoom like six hours, eight hours a day and –
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
And she was like, I think they would like it. So I sent an email to the parents and we're like, if your kids would be interested in this, is this like a thing that, you know, we're all desperate for ways to occupy our kids' time these days. And immediately like 30 kids showed up. And so I ended up teaching this kind of like fun sixth grade class on philosophy where we watched episodes of the show.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
And then I talked about, you know, Aristotle or Kant or something. And it was really fun. And the kids were really into the show and they really liked talking about that stuff.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
It's a little rarefied, but I'll bet if you did a Venn diagram of Parks and Recreation watchers and NPR listeners, it's a pretty big intersection. Like it's not the craziest thing in the world, right? And also the joke works whether you know who those people are or not. If you've never heard their names, it still is funny. It's a funny little MC Escher logic loop that we wrote out there.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
But, you know, there were a number of times that Leslie went on the local NPR station over the years, and it was just our chance to, like, make little jokes about the reality of listening to NPR. And that one, I don't remember who, I wish I remembered who pitched that. My guess would be that it was Ayesha Muharra, who was a writer on the show the whole time.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
who loved NPR and she always loved writing those scenes and pitching jokes for those scenes. She's a wonderful writer. She writes on Hacks now, which is another show that I executive produce. But it was always fun to do NPR jokes. It was always a favorite exercise.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
We had to kind of stop ourselves from having her go on too much because we could have done it in every episode and had plenty to make fun of. Lovingly, lovingly, I should add.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Castellanata, yeah, from The Simpsons, yes.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Monty Python and Monty Python's Flying Circus, Saturday Night Live, Letterman, Cheers. So, you know, early to mid 80s comedy shows were the ones that I was raised on. My mom only let us watch when we were kids, only let us watch an hour of TV a week. So I had to really choose carefully. And then as I got older, obviously those rules were lessened in severity.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
So I started watching more and more and more comedy. But those are the main influences on me were Letterman, Monty Python, SNL, Cheers, and then later Conan, I think, as I got into high school.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
I don't know. It's a good question. I mean, possibly. I mean, I kind of respected the choice to limit the amount of TV that we watched. You know, it's funny to think about now when everyone is carrying a phone in their pocket that can show them any piece of video that has ever been created anywhere in the globe.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
But at the time, there was still this kind of vague sense for people in my parents' generation that like TV rots your brain. And I've had this conversation with a lot of folks my age is like – a lot of writers my age is like some people gorge themselves on TV and watch hours and hours and hours a day. And some people were like me, were like their parents are very restrictive. I don't think –
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
there's any discernible difference in how people turned out, which kind of gives me a little bit of hope when my son is watching TikTok all day and my daughter is watching YouTube tutorials about how to apply makeup or whatever. And my wife and I get worried, but it's like, well, this is the same stuff that people said about TV when we were kids.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
And the truth is, I've talked to Amy Poehler about this. Amy Poehler watched tons of TV and was obsessed with TV. And I know a lot of writers and performers who felt like that and watched a ton of it. And I don't sense any real difference in the way that people's personality is developed based on how much TV they watch. So I'm kind of hoping the same applies to the modern era.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Yeah, I mean, the biggest change, obviously, is just the shift to the streaming model. The Office, we did 28 episodes one year, I think, or maybe 30. The typical season was 22 episodes or 24 episodes, and now a season of TV is eight half hours, usually. And that just completely changes the way you tell stories, right?
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
The advantage TV always had over movies was you could, in success, watch a set of characters live and change and grow over many, many, many years. And now you're talking about, you know, maybe two seasons of eight episodes and then you're done. So TV writing is much closer to movie writing, I think, than it was when I was first breaking in. There's nothing you can do about it.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
That's the world we live in. But I do mourn a little bit the loss of the old system. I think during COVID, people revisited old shows that had 200 episodes, like Friends and Cheers and whatever.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Yeah. And you can sit you could sit during covid and watch an episode every night for five or six months. And that was incredibly valuable and I think brought people a lot of comfort. That's what we're losing. And that's what I mourn the most about the new system is we're just sort of losing what to my mind was the the inherent advantage that TV storytelling had over movies or anything else.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
The timing of that was so perfect, though. Terry, comedic timing was A-plus on that statement.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Well, just by asking the question, you're sort of answering it, right? Because the work that I do is incredibly fun. Like why wouldn't I work? It's sitting in a room with a dozen really funny people writing stories and making jokes. Like that barely counts as work to me.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
It's not that it's not hard and it's not that it doesn't come frequently with anxiety or disappointment in the way that any job would. But my goodness, if you can't enjoy yourself with the job I have, there's something deeply wrong with you. And by the way, there are many people who can't enjoy themselves with the job I do. And there are things that are deeply wrong with them.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
And that's why, you know, that's why there are a lot of therapists in Los Angeles. But I can't believe I get to do this. It's a miracle. It's incredible. And I, you know, I do it because I love it and because it's so fun. And Not doing it, it's not like you're saying, you've dug a lot of ditches in your life. Why do you keep going back and digging more ditches?
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
It's like the things I do are inherently enjoyable and collaborative and wonderful. So why wouldn't I keep doing it? It wouldn't make any sense to stop.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
I'm not saying I want someone to die. So what are you saying? Well, I'm saying if someone's already dead, I would like to be the person who'll find the body. That's weird, man. Okay, you know how in cop shows, there's usually a cold open? Cold open. The first scene before the main titles. Right.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Okay, so for a couple of minutes, you follow this random character who you've never met, who's not one of the leads. And part of you is thinking, why am I even watching this guy? Why are you watching this guy? You're watching because either he's about to get killed, or... Or... You've seriously never seen a cop show? How is that even possible? Video games and weed. Okay. What was I saying?
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Somebody's about to find a dead body? Yes, that's the rule. The person in the first scene of a procedural is either a victim or a witness. Holy .
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
You're a , man. I'm the . You were the one who was hoping it was a dead person.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Thank you so much, Anne-Marie. First of all, I'm a big fan. And second of all, I think you should introduce me at every single one of my shows from now on.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Well, first of all, when I first got the script, I knew that it was based on a book. I love reading books, but I get distracted very quickly. And I'm like, oh, man, I got to read the script and the book. That's a lot of pages. But then I rifled through a book in like half a day. It was just so engaging. And I really felt like it spoke to me.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
as an Asian American, as an actor, as an artist, and I think just as an outsider, as someone who felt like I was always in the background of my life and I always have to find a way to sneak in. And I'm like, man, It almost sounded like the book was based on my climb and struggle in my career. From Willis being a background guy, which I was. From Willis having a bit part, which I was.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
I was Chinese teenager number two. I was person in line. And to Willis becoming the tech guy, which I was on Silicon Valley. So I just really connected to the role. And of course the book and the script were so well written by Charlie Yu. I felt really passionate about it. Rarely does a script or something land on my desk where I felt a personal connection with.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
And from then on, I was like, man, I got to get this. I got to do this.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Yeah, I think, first of all, that scene, it really made me smile when I think about it. It's almost like an old-school physical comedy scene where Willis, me, I was trying to get into this door in the police precinct, and I can't. Like a Monty Python or something, like a sketch. So it made me laugh, and I had a lot of fun doing it. But there's such a deeper meaning on, hey, you don't belong here.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
And then he had to find a lot of ways to sneak in, which, in a way, I kind of felt... Like that in my career. I didn't go to Juilliard or NYU like a fancy acting school or something like that. I had to do open mics where I pay $5, five minutes of stage time, and then kind of snuck in by doing some commercials.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
So in a way, I think that's very true to my own experience and I think to the Asian-American experience where a lot of times we feel invisible and that invisibility has been internalized. That we don't think about it every day, but we just accepted it. And in a way, that's even more dangerous.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Yeah. like the tagline of the show, the poster of the show is me getting kicked out of a window, you know, and, which is a fun scene. I'm not going to give too much away. But, it's break out of your role. That's the tagline of the show. And I thought it really is that it's breaking out of the role that society expects you of.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
It's breaking out of a role that your family expects you of, you know, and we all have that Asian or not, you know, like my family expected me to be an engineer, a good student, definitely not a comedian, you know, and an actor. And society expects me to be the model minority, you know, And then I have to prove to myself that this is possible.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
There's so much nuance within Chinese culture. With Shanghainese parents, I grew up speaking Shanghainese to them. I still speak Shanghainese to them, which is a local dialect. In Hong Kong, it's its own place, especially when I was growing up. It spoke Cantonese.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
And Cantonese people love making fun of people speaking Cantonese with an accent, whether it's Shanghainese accent, a Mandarin accent, whatever. So I grew up even in Hong Kong, like somewhat foreign, because my parents were from Shanghai. Like my dad would show up to school, pick me up, and they'll come to Shanghai, which in Cantonese means, you know, the Shanghai guy.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
They're making fun of him as a foreigner, although he's also Chinese, of course. So there's cultural differences, even when I was born in Hong Kong. But I think it helped shape my, I don't know, maybe linguistic skills to have to learn Shanghainese at home, to have to learn Cantonese in school, and to have to learn Mandarin in between when I was watching Chinese TV shows.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Maybe that eased my transition when I moved here to America to learn English.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
I think there's many sides of Beverly Hills. They lived in like an apartment in Beverly Hills. That wasn't very fancy at all. It was like one block away from not being Beverly Hills. And eventually my dad actually used that address. as a fake address to get me into Beverly Hills High School. So I think, I'm telling you this now, I think the statute of limitations is up.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
I don't think he'll go to jail.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
My Beverly Hills certificate? I don't think so. But yeah, you know, it was culture shock because Hong Kong is a big metropolitan, very vertical city, much like New York. You can walk anywhere. There's life on the streets. There's subways. You don't need a car. Whereas LA is the opposite. Everything is six lanes wide. Everything is concrete, strip malls. You can't walk.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Absolutely. The one thing that I really loved was hip hop when I first came to this country. It was so foreign to me in a way, but I was like, wow, this is the most American thing ever. And in high school, I really got into hip hop. I got into rap. I started making beats. I thought that would like make me instead of like the weird foreign kid into like the cool kind of hip hop kid.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
But of course, it's weird, you know, for me to try to rap like, you know, but I really kind of dove into that. And then in college, I went to UC San Diego. It was a big Asian population. But there's also like a stoner surfer culture. So I remember I was like, I really got into like the stoner culture thinking that was mainstream America college kid that I want to get behind.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
And even now, I think... Inadvertently? Sorry, English is my fourth language.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
You're fourth or fifth. Inadvertently, I'm still doing that where I am the commissioner of my fantasy football league. I watch every single NFL game. I love drinking a Coors Light on the weekend with my buddies or five or six, you know, just to be like really American. You know, I love very American things.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Like I went to shop for like a Yeti cooler the other day and it made me felt like I fit in, man. Yes.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
A lot of the American movies, growing up in the 90s, it was a lot of action movies. Jean-Claude Van Damme, Bloodsport. That was the go-to Hong Kong movie because they shot part of that in Hong Kong. Still one of my favorites. And of course, the big movies like Forrest Gump. And my dad was kind of a cinephile, an American cinephile.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
I remember him watching Shawshank Redemption, and that had a lasting effect on me. But it's also a lot of local films. For me, it was the comedy of Stephen Chow, Zhao Shengqi. who later found a lot of international fame with Kung Fu Hustle, Shaolin Soccer. But I grew up watching him. And he had a deadpan kind of delivery. And it's just so, so funny.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
I think on TV, I really gravitated towards comedies at first. The Chappelle Show was a must-watch. You know, if you don't watch it Wednesday, you got nothing to talk about in high school on Thursday. And I think through Chappelle, I got into stand-up comedy.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
No. I didn't even think that was a possibility. I just thought these are what these funny people do on TV. I will probably just go on to be an engineer, a doctor, something like that. You know, the roles that the society has assigned you. But I've always had... an inkling, like an artistic drive to me.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
I remember when I was a kid, I would go to restaurants and like with chopstick wrappers or like disposable spoons, I would like build little art pieces. You know, it sounds really silly now. And then my mom would be like, you're messing up the table. Look at how messy your table is compared to everyone else. But then now looking back, I'm like, I'm trying to make something.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
I always want to create something. Whether it's with chopstick wrappers or a pen drawing on my arm. And then when I went to college, I studied economics. Well, first I studied mechanical engineering. And then I switched to economics, which was much easier. I just wanted to graduate.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Yeah, that was still appeasing Asian parents. Yeah, that was the joke in my first stand-up, which is true. I couldn't do, I don't know, archaeology. I don't know. I don't know what is communications. I don't think my dad would like that. Economics, at least, it sounded real. Not to disparage any communication majors out there. So I did economics, but I secretly had a minor in theater and music.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
It never came to fruition. I think you need seven classes, but I took like six classes on each of those. And I remember those are the things I got A's at and those were the things I did the best at because I was passionate about it.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
And then later on, you know, after I graduated, when I was like trying to figure myself out, stand-up was just one of many things that I've tried and it just spoke to me. You know, you can literally create something out of thin air without anyone's permission. And I thought that was very liberating.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
It was interesting because in the book and also in the script of the pilot, Willis is supposed to have trained in Kung Fu all his life, but he's not supposed to be very good. So how do you play that?
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
So then I wasn't sure if the producer was going to have me train in Kung Fu, but I'm like, guys, in order for me to look bad in Kung Fu, I have to be pretty good to at least understand the language of Kung Fu. It's like learning a new language in a way, right? I've never done martial arts before. In my life. So I had a trainer, Danny. He was Danny Ma. He was awesome.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
And I trained with him two, three times a week in Wing Chun, hitting the dummy, doing the basics. So at least I can look right in the form. And also martial arts is a language, is a culture in itself. You want to get in that mentality. It's like driving the Toyota Corolla. I want to get into Willis's mentality, somebody who is trained in martial arts all his life.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
And then I can still not be very good when it comes to the fight, you know? So that was how I was able to make it real. But it was also very interesting. Growing up in Hong Kong, Kung Fu was so prevalent and such a thing that you see on TV in real life. And of course, being Asian-American. You know, people almost expect you to know how to do Kung Fu and I don't know how to do any of it.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
So this kind of filled up a big void in my life and in my culture. Now, at least I can say I can hit a wooden dummy Wing Chun style and I'm pretty okay. Finally, finally, you know, in middle school, kids who used to like make fun of me when I first came to the country and they like, like, you know, bully me and like talk trash, whatever. But that's how I learned to defend myself with comedy.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
I would talk back. But one time this kid got to me and I don't know what what like got into me. Right. I just full on did turn around, did a roundhouse kick to his stomach, jumped up, karate chopped him in the back of the neck. And this is me with no martial arts training and 13 years old. And I just watched enough martial arts films growing up. And then all his friends got so freaked out.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
And they're like, yo, don't mess with him. That's Bruce Lee, man. And I was like, hey, you know, if that's a stereotype and that's a stereotype that's going to save me from getting bullied, I'll take it. I will be Bruce Lee for you.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
So in the documentary, the man who answers the ad is named Sergio, and he, like Charles in the show, is suffering from the fairly recent death of his wife, and he answers this ad, and it ends up really not only transforming his life, but the lives of all the people that he meets.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
He makes friends, and he is part of a community, and he finds a certain kind of purpose in just being around other people. And what was remarkable to me about the documentary, among other things, is that everyone I know who saw it had the same exact feeling, which was I should call my mom or I need to call my grandpa or I should hang out with my kids more.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Like it really had this universal effect on people of making them want to reach out to people that they love. And, you know, it's a rare piece of art, I think, that can cause everyone to have such a warm and positive feeling. So, you know, my longtime producing partner, Morgan Sackett, said we should remake that and have Ted play the main part.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
And as soon as he said it, I just knew he was right and that there was a very good, slightly fictionalized show that could hopefully sort of give people that same feeling. That was the objective.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Yes, we did a lot of it. We went into a number of them in the California area, talked to a lot of people toward the memory care units and the rooms and met a lot of really wonderful people whose job it is to look after folks when they check in. And it was eye-opening, I have to say.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
It was not maybe what you would expect, which is to say, I think your instinct would be that these are sad places because it's folks who are nearing the end of their lives and A lot of them are suffering from various ailments, physical or mental. But they were places of happiness and joy, largely.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
They were sort of flourishing communities of people who were very happy to be with each other and to be part of a community. And that sort of matched up with what I was hoping for.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Yeah, well, that is 100% a huge part of the experience of being in these facilities, no question. There are folks who have moved in for a very wide range of reasons, and one of them is cognitive decline. But at least in the facilities that we toured, there is another part of it that's just folks who maybe they had a physical ailment or maybe they just were tired of living alone.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
And they wanted to be around other people. And that's at least the part of it that we mainly focused on, although we didn't shy away from the actual realities of assisted living. If we had pretended like that wasn't a part of it, I don't think we would have been giving an honest portrayal of what it's really like.
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Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Oh, we did ask ourselves as writers over the course of the show whether what Charles was doing was, strictly speaking, ethical. It's a question that the documentary asks, too. You know, you're creating a pretense, a false pretense, and you're getting to know folks without them really knowing who you are. The way we decided to answer that question—
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Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
In the documentary, Sergio, the main character, ends up moving out without anyone learning what he was really there for. He doesn't get caught. And we decided that what was important was for Charles to suffer the consequences of having been essentially dishonest to the folks that he was interacting with. And so that is a part of our show in the final episodes. He does have to confront Charles.
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Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
The reality of what he did and the circumstances under which he entered the facility.
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Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Oh, man. This is going to sound like a strange thing to say. He loves acting. And that, you would think, would be true of any actor, but it's more true for him. He just loves it. He's so passionate about it that even now, decades after... he had to seek anyone's approval for anything he's done, he still wants to be good. And he's constantly asking you, is there something else I should do?
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Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Did I get this right? Can I try that again? He just has this unrelenting desire to be as good as he can be, even now after how many successful series and shows and movies and everything else. And When you work with someone like that, it just makes everything better because it feels like a real collaboration.
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Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
It doesn't feel like you're, you know, writing a script and then just hoping that he'll, you know, that the actor will like want to do it more than once. It's a constant dialogue with him. It's a constant discussion and experimentation and a poking and prodding at the script to make sure we're getting it right. There's just no substitute for that.
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Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
And it's, you know, one of the many reasons I love him.
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Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Well, it's simply a question that I've been asking myself for a really long time. I used to play this game as I drove around in traffic in L.A. where someone would cut me off on the freeway or we would be in traffic and someone would pull onto the shoulder and speed past me and cut the line.
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Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
And as a way of trying to stem off what you would call road rage, I would play a game in my head where I would say that guy just lost 10 points. Like I was imagining a scenario in which there was some kind of omniscient observer of human behavior. And I satisfied my own anger or displeasure with other people by imagining that that cost them in some cosmic way.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
I think on TV, I really gravitated towards comedies at first. The Chappelle Show was a must-watch. You know, if you don't watch it Wednesday, you got nothing to talk about in high school on Thursday. And I think through Chappelle, I got into stand up comedy. He's still like my favorite.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
I didn't even think that was a possibility. I just thought these are what these funny people do on TV. I will probably just go on to be an engineer, a doctor or something like that. the roles that the society has assigned you. But I've always had an inkling, like an artistic drive to me.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
I remember when I was a kid, I would go to restaurants and like with chopstick wrappers or like disposable spoons, I would like build little art pieces. You know, it sounds really silly now. And then my mom would be like, you're messing up the table. Look at how messy your table is compared to everyone else. But then now looking back, I'm like, I'm trying to make something.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
I always want to create something. Whether it's with chopstick wrappers or a pen drawing on my arm. And then when I went to college, I studied economics. Well, first I studied mechanical engineering. And then I switched to economics, which was much easier. I just wanted to graduate.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
You're a , man. I'm the . You were the one who was hoping it was a dead person.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Yeah, that was still appeasing Asian parents. Yeah, that was the joke in my first day, which is true. You know, I couldn't do like, I don't know, archaeology. I don't know. I don't know what is like communications. I don't think my dad would like that. Economics, at least it sounded real. You know, not to disparage any communication majors out there.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
So I did economics, but I secretly had a minor in theater and music. It never came to fruition. I think you need seven classes, but I took like six classes on each of those. And I remember those are the things I got A's at and those were the things I did the best at because I was passionate about it.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
And then later on, you know, after I graduated, when I was like trying to figure myself out, stand-up was just one of many things that I've tried and it just spoke to me. You know, you can literally create something out of thin air without anyone's permission. And I thought that was very liberating.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Yeah. Even open my comics. And we still do that now. It's called giving each other tags. If you have a tag after the punchline that makes the joke better or switching a couple lines together. I listen to my openers sometimes and they'll give me great ideas that I didn't think of. And yeah, it was just like a sense of community. And the thing about stand-up, there's no barrier of entry.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
And you don't have to look a certain way. There's no certain look like... Of a stand-up comedian. It's everyone. And almost it's like the weirder you are, the more like a stand-up comedian you are. So all the angst and insecurity of me not fitting in in this country, it kind of got washed away on the stage of stand-up comedy because everybody... was on equal footing, you know?
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
It's not about who you are, how rich you are, how tall you are, what ethnicity you are, it's just how funny you are.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
And what did they say? I don't know. I think I invited my dad out to like when I finally got a showcase at the Laugh Factory. I don't think he came. And then it was later, way, way, way later when I was finally doing well and selling tickets in like San Francisco. And then I think my dad came. And he loved it. Not just for me, but I was talking about him in my set.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
So like he was getting a lot of attention and people wanted to take pictures of him too. So I think he liked that.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
My dad is also an actor, but he started acting after I did. Because he was like, it's so easy, you can't do it. I can, okay. I'm like, dad, fine. If you think my life's so easy, why don't you go to some open call auditions and you understand how hard it is, how much rejection I face every day at my job. He was like, okay. And he went to all these auditions and he started booking everything.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
True story. He got on this show in China, in mainland China, called Little Daddy, Xiao Baba. Half a billion people watched that show. It's like the Big Bang Theory of China, and Richard blew up. And he was like, this isn't easy. I don't know why. My plan completely backfired.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
And my aunt in Shanghai, she watched the show, and she would call the house in LA, and she's like, congratulations, Richard. You're such a good actor. Did your son teach you how to act? And he's like, no, no, I'm a natural. Oh, that's very good. You and your son, same business, you know? You two are very funny. He's like, no, no, Jimmy's are not funny. And I'm like, dad, that's bullshit, okay?
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
You got one good role, good for you, I'm happy for you. But you're not a real actor yet. Real actors, we gotta cry, we gotta laugh. Do you even know how to cry in front of camera? He was like, yes, I just think about how much you suck at ping pong.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Exactly that. I think he has always wanted to be an artist. He always wanted to draw to paint. He was a film buff and things like that. But to him, truly, it was impossible when he was growing up. So when he saw me able to do it, he was like, well, let me try it. And apparently there's a lack of older Asian guys in the talent pool. And he started booking a lot of stuff.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
And he is naturally very good and a very charismatic guy. So he's doing it. If you guys need an older Asian dad in your movies, call Richard O. Yang.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Wow, man, you did your research. I forgot about that. I did. We did have the same agent back then. And they were looking for like a Chinese scientist that they imagined to be older. I was quite young and I looked quite young also at the time. So I think my dad got the audition first. And it was a lot of pages. It was a pretty juicy guest star role. And I think he or my agent said, I don't know.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
I just don't know if he's ready for this. Why don't you try it? And then I tried it and I went in and I booked the job. But I was very afraid to call him, be like, hey, dad, sorry. You know, I finally told him he was like, oh, yeah, yeah. No, no. You were great at that. It was good. That was your job. So I was like, oh, that's nice.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Yeah, that's how he got his SAG card. I think with everything I do, especially when it comes to language, Cantonese, Mandarin, I want it to be very authentic. But on Patriot's Day, they hired someone to play my dad. It was just a simple FaceTime call. And this might sound weird to you guys, but I hope it makes sense. The dad spoke Mandarin with a Cantonese accent.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
And that, to me, is very unrealistic. So I told Peter Berg, the director, I was like, hey, I'm sorry to bring this up, but this is kind of weird. Nobody will notice except Chinese speakers, but it's weird to me. And the story in Patriot's Day was based on real people. So he's like, no, no, we got to get this right. We're going to make it authentic. Why don't you sit in a couple auditions with me?
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
I'm like, okay, I can do that. Or you can just hire my dad. He's great. He's acting in a few commercials and things like that. And he speaks perfect Mandarin. And he's like, done. Done deal. Boom. And then the next day, my dad flew to Boston. And he played my dad in Patriot's Day. And that's how he got a SAG card.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
We do, and I keep telling him to take acting classes because naturally he's got great instincts and he's really charismatic. But he's like, I'm too old to learn, whatever. But I think there's a fear of him. He's afraid of failure. So he doesn't want to go take a bunch of acting classes and then fail. That means he's not good. So he just likes stuff that comes easy to him. And he loves to accolade.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
In a way, I think he is... much more attention seeking than me and he loves taking selfies and being on you know social media i'm i had to make him put his instagram on private it was getting too wild um but but uh he loves all that stuff and in a way at first i found it kind of like i'm like man like he's like kind of overstepping into my world that i created for myself you know
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Like what is this nepo daddy business? I don't like it. But now I'm like, if this is what's gonna make him happy truly, if a little bit of fame and recognition makes him really happy and he gets to be a part of my journey as well and I get to be a part of his, that's really nice. How many people can say they can do that with their father?
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Like I did a Toyota commercial with him and we were out in the woods in Colorado And even just the four-hour car ride there from the airport and stuff like that, we share so many father and son stories that usually we don't get to talk about. So I felt that was, like, really nice. So I'm taking the good with the bad.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Like, I think everything else, like, if he wants to take a selfie with my co-stars or whatever, great. Let him do it. Who cares? He's not bothering anyone. But I think the father and son bond and that extra connection, you just can't recreate that, and I'm grateful for that.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
I know. And I think to go back a little bit to Interior Chinatown, there's an unspoken love between family, especially Asian family members. But we don't ever say I love you. Like there's a scene in the pilot you see like Willis has such a strained relationship with his father. You can tell there's a deep love, but there's also so much stubbornness and stuff and the relationship has deteriorated.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
And I think at times in my life, I felt like we don't talk enough and I can't get myself to talk about the sensitive stuff to my father. But now I feel like because we're doing this, I'm able to have more of an open conversation with him. And it's such a blessing that I think a lot of people would have missed that opportunity, you know, and myself included.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Thank you so much, Anne-Marie. First of all, I'm a big fan. And second of all, I think you should introduce me at every single one of my shows from now on.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
I think it's a comedy show, so it has to be funny. But I think to me, whenever the funniest happens, whether it's on stage or on the screen, it's when somebody said, oh, that seems so real. You know, it has to be based on authenticity.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
So I just felt like I knew this guy, whether he's an amalgamation based on people I knew myself when I first came to this country or some of my uncles with that very specific Mandarin accent. I walked into an audition with like socks, sandals and like, you know, really like I think a T-shirt with like chemical bonds on it. I just felt like I knew this guy.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
And then when I got the job and I showed up on set, one of the first discussions me and Mike had, once again, it was about authenticity. I was like, Mike, I want to do a Mandarin accent for this character. I feel like that'll make more sense. He should be from mainland China instead of Hong Kong. And he was like, I don't know the difference. Just do it both ways, and then we'll figure it out.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
And that's how I kind of landed in the body of that character was... based on my own observations of myself being an immigrant and also people that I've seen and I've been around, whether in Hong Kong or in China.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
In the beginning, I was just trying to get a job. Like I said, there's not a lot of jobs going around. And then, yeah, I did see some, you know, writers write about it. And a lot of it was Asian-American writers. And I don't know. It didn't feel good, right?
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
But at the same time, I'm like, well, what am I supposed to do? You just want me to not work? I can just quit, and then you wouldn't even have me at all. But I remember approaching the role always from authenticity, from a realness, and not just making a caricature, but making a real human out of this person. And then as the season transformed—
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
and grew and his character grew, he went from just being the foreign guy to being kind of like the one that always got under this guy, T.J. Miller's character, Skin, who was such a bully. So he's like the anti-bully. And then he himself becomes the bully, which I thought was pretty cool. And it's not about the accent necessarily. It was about...
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
him being more and more three-dimensional of a character.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Well, first of all, when I first got the script, I knew that it was based on a book. I love reading books, but I get distracted very quickly. And I'm like, oh, man, I got to read the script and the book. That's a lot of pages. But then I rifled through a book in like half a day. It was just so engaging. And I really felt like it spoke to me.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Yeah, I think I have a slightly different perspective than people that are born here in America because I get it. It's very unfair to have that constant foreigner stereotype. And it is something that we internalize. But I live in a weird in-between where I was actually a foreigner. So how can I lie to myself and be like, no, this person's lame because he was foreign. I was foreign, man.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
And I remember when I first came to the country... Sure, I kind of expected white people, black people, Latinos to kind of not accept me in a way. But it was kind of sad that even Koreans and Chinese people who were born here, ABCs, American-born Chinese, they didn't accept me because they didn't want to be associated with me because I made them look foreign too because I was actually foreign.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
So that felt kind of sad. So in a way, I always have a soft spot for immigrant foreign characters and outsiders, especially even an outsider within Asians. And I think it's a weird policy to say, oh, I don't play anybody with an accent. Now, okay, at this point in my career, I could choose to do certain things, not do certain things. based on artistically do I feel passionate about this or not.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
But any day of the week, if, say, the Danny Mang character from Patriot State come to my desk, I would love to do it. You know, the guy was awesome, and he's amazing, and he just happened to be an immigrant that had a thick accent. And I think doing those kind of roles are just as important, if not more at times.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
It was interesting because in the book and also in the script of the pilot, Willis is supposed to have trained in Kung Fu all his life, but he's not supposed to be very good. So how do you play that?
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
I wasn't sure if the producer was going to have me train in Kung Fu, but I'm like, guys, in order for me to look bad in Kung Fu, I have to be pretty good to at least understand the language of Kung Fu. It's like learning a new language in a way, right? I've never done martial arts before. In my life. So I had a trainer, Danny. He was Danny Ma. He's awesome.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
And I trained with him two, three times a week in Wing Chun, hitting the dummy, doing the basics. So at least I can look right in the form. And also martial arts is a language, is a culture in itself. You want to get in that mentality. It's like driving the Toyota Corolla. I want to get into Willis's mentality, somebody who is trained in martial arts all his life.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
And then I can still not be very good when it comes to the fight, you know? So that was how I was able to make it real. But it was also very interesting. Growing up in Hong Kong, Kung Fu was so prevalent and such a thing that you see on TV in real life. And of course, being Asian American, People almost expect you to know how to do Kung Fu and I don't know how to do any of it.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
as an Asian American, as an actor, as an artist, and I think just as an outsider, as someone who felt like I was always in the background of my life and I always have to find a way to sneak in. And I'm like, man, It almost sounded like the book was based on my climb and struggle in my career. From Willis being a background guy, which I was. From Willis having a bit part, which I was.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
So this kind of filled up a big void in my life and in my culture. Now at least I can say I can hit a wooden dummy Wing Chun style and I'm pretty okay. Finally, finally, you know, in middle school, kids who used to like make fun of me when I first came to the country and they like, like, you know, bully me and like talk trash, whatever. But that's how I learned to defend myself with comedy.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
I would talk back. But one time this kid got to me and I don't know what what like got into me. Right. I just full on did turn around, did a roundhouse kick to his stomach, jumped up, karate chopped him in the back of the neck. And this is me with no martial arts training and 13 years old. And I just watched enough martial arts films growing up. And then all his friends got so freaked out.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
And they're like, yo, don't mess with him. That's Bruce Lee, man. And I was like, hey, you know, if that's a stereotype and that's a stereotype that's going to save me from getting bullied, I'll take it. I will be Bruce Lee for you.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
The gorgeously enveloping new drama All We Imagine is Light opens on a warm, muggy evening in Mumbai. You feel immediately transported, caught up in the bustle and flow as young men stack crates on the sidewalk, older women sell food in open-air markets, and commuter trains rattle their way across a glimmering cityscape.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Over this scene, we hear the voices of unidentified locals, talking about how invigorating, but also how draining, life in the city can be. It can be especially overwhelming for the many who moved here from distant villages, leaving their families behind.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
The writer and director Payal Kapadia, who was born in Mumbai herself, made her first feature a few years ago with A Night of Knowing Nothing, a documentary that blended fiction and non-fiction elements. In a way, All We Imagine is Light, her first dramatic feature, also blurs the boundaries.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Some of the stories we hear in that opening sequence were drawn from interviews with actual Mumbai residents. and Kapadia introduces us to her two leads so deftly and casually that it takes us a while to even realize that they are, in fact, the leads. One of them is a woman named Prabha, who works as a head nurse at a hospital. The other is a younger nurse at the hospital named Anu.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Prabha and Anu are roommates, and about as different as can be. Anu, played by Divya Prabha, is flirty, fun-loving, and a little impetuous. Prabha, played by Kani Kuzruti, is quieter and more responsible. She's the one who does most of the cooking, and reluctantly agrees to cover the rent when Anu comes up short.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Even so, there's a real sisterly warmth to Anu and Prabha's relationship, and the more they get to know each other, the more their similarities, as well as their differences, come into focus. Both Prabha and Anu came to Mumbai from the southern state of Kerala, and while they rarely see their families back home, both are still governed by strict expectations, especially of their romantic lives.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Anu is dating a young man named Shiaz, and because he's Muslim and she isn't, she must keep their relationship a secret. Prabha, meanwhile, has a husband who moved to Germany some time ago for work. She's barely heard from him since, and fears that their marriage, which was arranged by their parents, is long over. All we imagine as light, in other words, is about a lot of things.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
It's about the distances people travel to make ends meet, the difficulty of calling anywhere your home, and the way a populous city can feel like the loneliest place in the world. It's about how Mumbai looks and feels during the monsoon season, when the rain turns the city into a warm, shimmery blur.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
I was Chinese teenager number two. I was person in line. And to Willis becoming the tech guy, which I was on Silicon Valley. So I just really connected to the role. And of course the book and the script were so well written by Charlie Yu. I felt really passionate about it. Rarely does a script or something land on my desk where I felt a personal connection with.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Crucially, too, it's about solidarity between women, as they extend to each other the empathy and understanding that society denies them. At a key turning point, Prabha and Anu support an older hospital colleague, Parvati, who's being forced out of her long-time apartment by greedy developers. Gender inequality is at least partly to blame.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Parvati was widowed not long ago, and any property rights she has seem to have died along with her husband. Parvati decides to move back to her coastal home village, and Prabha and Anu come along to help. The effect on all we imagine as light is startling. It's a shock to suddenly find ourselves on a sunny beach, far from rainy, crowded Mumbai.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
It's enough to make Prabha and Anu wonder, do they belong in the rural villages where they grew up, or in the city that has adopted them? And what does home even mean if they can't be with the men they love? Kapadia is too emotionally honest a storyteller to supply concrete answers to these questions.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Instead, her filmmaking becomes ever more sensual, harrowing, and dreamlike, as it ushers these women to a beautiful moment of recognition— of how much they care for and need each other. Society has placed no shortage of obstacles in their way, but friendship in this wonderful movie can be its own powerful act of resistance.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
And from then on, I was like, man, I got to get this. I got to do this.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
For sure. Before meeting him, I actually listened to a lot of his interviews, talks of his book. And the man is very smart and a deep thinker. And then when I got the part, I started talking to him more and more of what his ambition is about the show and how the book would adapt to the show. Which is, first of all, very rare for a novelist to be the showrunner.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
But the show actually, I think, goes above and beyond the book. The book has a lot of metaphors and surrealism that the show captures. But at the same time, within the show, it's so grounded in reality. With Willis' parents, you know, he has a strained relationship with his father, which a lot of us Asians know, especially different generations who grew up in different countries.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
And him and his mother trying to get over the grief of his brother. And of course, you know, just... the sheer will and want of someone who's been in the background like Willis Wu, and he wants to do more. He wants to be more and be something else. It's not just an Asian story.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Yeah, I think, first of all, that scene, it really made me smile when I think about it. It's almost like an old school physical comedy scene where Willis, me, I was trying to get into this door in the police precinct and I can't. Like a Monty Python or something, like a sketch. So it made me laugh and I had a lot of fun doing it.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
But there's such a deeper meaning on, hey, you don't belong here, you know. And then he had to find a lot of ways to like sneak in, which in a way I kind of felt like that in my career. I didn't go to Juilliard or NYU, like a fancy acting school or something like that. I had to do open mics where I pay $5, five minutes of stage time, and then kind of snuck in by doing some commercials.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Even Silicon Valley, which you mentioned, I snuck in on that. I had a two-line part as a tech guy, right? And then I had to be funny and subvert people's expectation in order to get a bigger part. And then in season two, I became a series regular.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
So in a way, I think that's very true to my own experience. And I think to the Asian American experience, where a lot of times we feel invisible and that invisibility has been internalized. That we don't think about it every day, but we just accepted it. And in a way that's even more dangerous.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Yeah, in a way, like, or we're only good for this job or that job. You know, like the tagline of the show, the poster of the show is me getting kicked out of a window, you know, and, which is a fun scene. I'm not going to give too much away. But, it's break out of your role. That's the tagline of the show. And I thought it really is that it's breaking out of the role that society expects you of.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
I'm not saying I want someone to die. So what are you saying? Well, I'm saying if someone's already dead, I would like to be the person who'll find the body. That's weird, man. Okay, you know how in cop shows, there's usually a cold open? Cold open? The first scene, before the main titles. Right.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
It's breaking out of a role that your family expects you of, you know, and we all have that Asian or not, you know, like my family expected me to be an engineer, a good student, definitely not a comedian, you know, and an actor. And society expects me to be the model minority, you know, And then I have to prove to myself that this is possible.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Oh, man, that was a very interesting experience. I wouldn't call myself a method actor, but I do find the process of doing certain things for the character very interesting, right? Yeah. So I was like, Willis has never left Chinatown. He's lived in an SRO all his life, and he's struggled all his life. I've done that. I have drove Uber. I have been a waiter in a restaurant, many things.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
But that was years ago. So I'm like, let me re-experience some of that. And I bought a $1,500 Toyota Corolla on Craigslist. It barely worked. It was like a 1998. And on the paddle shifter, you know how you have D, R, and neutral for reverse and drive? This doesn't have any letters on it. So you have to kind of guess where your shifter is.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
And in order to get into the driver's side, you have to crawl in from the passenger. Just the anxiety and the trouble you have to go through... to get to work, to get from A to B, was very informative of someone who's struggling. But then it was interesting. I showed up to work the first day on set. I'm the lead of the show. I'm number one on the call sheet, right? I felt pretty proud about that.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
I worked all my life to get there. And then when I got to the gate at Fox Studios, the gate guard was like, do you have your ID? And then I was like, I gave her my ID and my legal name's a little different. So I was like, oh, it's just check under Jimmy. And she's like... While your name's not on there, pull over to the side. You have two minutes. Call whoever people you hear to see.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Okay, so for a couple of minutes, you follow this random character who you've never met, who's not one of the leads. And part of you is thinking, why am I even watching this guy? Why are you watching this guy? You're watching because either he's about to get killed, or... Or... You've seriously never seen a cop show? How is that even possible? Video games and weed. Okay, what was I saying?
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
If not, you got to turn around. I was like, no, no, no, no. I'm the lead of the show. She was like, I don't know you. I don't care. Just pull over. And I was treated so poorly. That really helped me get into character. Because I kind of forgot about that. And that's the struggle that Willis and many, many people has been through. And that will either crumble you or light a fire under your butt.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
And I think that's what it did for Willis. And that's what it did for me.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
There's so much nuance within Chinese culture. With Shanghainese parents, I grew up speaking Shanghainese to them. I still speak Shanghainese to them, which is a local dialect. In Hong Kong, it's its own place, especially when I was growing up.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
it spoke Cantonese and Cantonese people love making fun of people speaking Cantonese with an accent, whether it's Shanghainese accent, a Mandarin accent, whatever. So I grew up even in Hong Kong, like somewhat foreign because my parents were from Shanghai. Like my dad would show up to school, pick me up. And they'll call him 上海佬, which in Cantonese means, you know, the Shanghai guy.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
You know, they're making fun of him as a foreigner, although he's also Chinese, of course. So there's cultural differences, even when I was born in Hong Kong. But I think it helped shape my, I don't know, maybe linguistic skills to have to learn Shanghainese at home, to have to learn Cantonese in school. and to have to learn Mandarin in between when I was watching Chinese TV shows.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Maybe that eased my transition when I moved here to America to learn English.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
I think there's many sides of Beverly Hills. They lived in like an apartment in Beverly Hills. That wasn't very fancy at all. It was like one block away from not being Beverly Hills. And eventually my dad actually used that address. as a fake address to get me into Beverly Hills High School. I'm telling you this now. I think the statute of limitations is up. I don't think he'll go to jail.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
My Beverly Hills certificate? I don't think so. But yeah, it was culture shock because Hong Kong is a big metropolitan, very vertical city, much like New York. You can walk anywhere. There's life on the streets. There's subways. You don't need a car. Whereas LA is the opposite. Everything is six lanes wide. Everything is concrete, strip malls. You can't walk.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Absolutely. The one thing that I really loved was hip hop when I first came to this country. It was so foreign to me in a way, but I was like, wow, this is the most American thing ever. And in high school, I really got into hip hop. I got into rap. I started making beats. I thought that would like make me instead of like the weird foreign kid into like the cool kind of hip hop kid.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
But of course it's weird, you know, for me to try to rap, like, you know, but I really kind of dove into that. And then in college, I went to UC San Diego. It was a big Asian population. But there's also like a stoner surfer culture. So I remember I was like... I really got into like the stoner culture thinking that was mainstream America college kid that I want to get behind.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Somebody's about to find a dead body? Yes, that's the rule. The person in the first scene of a procedural is either a victim or a witness. Holy .
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
And even now, I think... Like, inadvertently? I can't even talk today.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Sorry, English is my fourth language.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
You're fourth or fifth. Inadvertently, I'm still doing that. Where I... I am the commissioner of my fantasy football league. I watch every single NFL game. I love drinking a Coors Light on the weekend with my buddies or five or six, you know, just to be like really American. You know, I love very American things.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Like I went to shop for like a Yeti cooler the other day and it made me felt like I fit in, man. Yes.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
A lot of the American movies, growing up in the 90s, it was a lot of action movies. Jean-Claude Van Damme, Bloodsport. That was the go-to Hong Kong movie because they shot part of that in Hong Kong. Still one of my favorites. And of course, the big movies like Forrest Gump. And my dad was kind of a cinephile, an American cinephile.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
I remember him watching Shawshank Redemption and that had a lasting effect on me. But it's also a lot of local films. For me, it was the comedy of Stephen Chow, Zhao Shengqi. who later found a lot of international fame with Kung Fu Hustle, Shaolin Soccer. But I grew up watching him, and he had a deadpan kind of delivery, and it's just so, so funny.
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Actor/Comic Jimmy O. Yang Breaks Out Of The Background
Somebody threw away an entire Peking duck with the sauce and everything.
Fresh Air
Comedian Ronny Chieng Didn't Tell His Parents He Got A 'Daily Show' Job
I'm not saying I want someone to die. So what are you saying? Well, I'm saying if someone's already dead, I would like to be the person to find the body. That's weird, man. Okay, you know how in cop shows, there's usually a cold open? Cold open. The first scene before the main titles. Right.
Fresh Air
Comedian Ronny Chieng Didn't Tell His Parents He Got A 'Daily Show' Job
What was I saying? Somebody's about to find a dead body? Yes. That's the rule. The person in the first scene of a procedural is either a victim or a witness. Holy s***.