Stephanie Hsu

No, last year.

Yes, last year. We shot it really fast in Vancouver.

Okay, allegedly, but I don't remember this.

My reps are blockading you from me.

Every single movie slash TV show where there is one Asian person, you're in it.

I do have a funny story about shortcomings But this was not gonna be my surprise.

Okay my funny story about shortcomings is the thing we did together the first clip He didn't show the part where we smooch. We do smooch After Randall would call cut Ronnie would be like

We would, like, smooch, and then Randall would be like, cut. And he'd be like, yeah.

Married, yeah. No, I respected it. I was like, no, I really respect this man.

Right, I know.

Well, this is a good pivot to my surprise, which is that over the holiday, I watched your new comedy special, and it was so funny. I just want to shout that out.

No, it's not. Well, because, you know, people here come and talk about their stuff, but I want to shower you with some love.

This is a roast. We always miss each other geographically. Because you were doing it in LA, and then I was in New York, and then you were in New York, and then I was in Vancouver.

I'm on the mailing list.

It brought me a lot of joy. Yeah, but we're here to talk. No, don't talk about me.

No, it's embarrassing you in front of your loving fans.

Okay, yeah. Laid is a dark comedy rom-com. It's about a woman in her 30s, Ruby Yao, who's having a hard time finding love. And she starts to find out that everyone she's ever slept with is dying in mysterious ways in the order that she slept with them. So she has to be like, am I the problem? And sort of that's the umbrella of her life.

sort of like love quest search of warning all her previous lovers and then getting tangled in some triangles along the way.

No, no, no, it's not that.

That's obviously the... It's a comedy, you know? Right.

It's kind of like... I'm not sure you can... Yeah, I...

You just lost your chance in the comment section.

I do.

It's a lot of, like, rolling around on the floor, you know? And it's a lot of, like... Like, just...

You know what I'm saying?

Well, just like shapes. You know what I mean?

Just like abstractions. Yeah, it's weird. It is weird. But it's also, you know what it is, actually, what I think about it? I mean, there's like clowning involved, too, where people do like mask work or like clowning work. It's just like... big art space, actually.

It's not, like, things are maybe not as mainstream, but I actually think the thing that experimental theater gave me was permission to be, like, a full artist and be, like, fearless. And I think, you know, when we were first starting out, I just, like, that space was not available in a mainstream way for me.

Yeah.

Well, there was no joyride. There was no everything everywhere, you know? There was, like, 16 candles, you know?

I think because I wanted to, like, fully do what I was capable of doing. Right.

That's an art form, too.

Honestly, I did do comedy. I was, like, in the sketch world. And the reason why I decided to not continue down that path was because the hours are so crazy. You have to stay awake so late.

And even at an early age, I was like, how does one start at midnight?

No, I actually... There was a casting director who sort of discovered me and put me into a table read of the first ever potential... maybe one day this will be Spongebob musical on Broadway, Spongebob the musical on Broadway. So it was like when they were first developing it and they just needed extra, like, honestly non-equity actors, because I was not in the union.

They needed to hire some extra people to do funny voices.

And then I stuck with that for, like, five years. It was just this two-hour table read in the Viacom building, and they kept asking me back, and that sort of helped me transition into doing theater sort of full-time.

Yeah, well, we did, like, a table read, and then we did workshops developing it.

Then in the last few years, we did, like, out of town, blah, blah, blah, and then got a call one day that was like, we're going to Broadway, do you want to come? And I was like, okay. Yeah, so it was kind of... It wasn't ever, like, a conscious choice to leave experimental theater.

Yeah.

Yeah, totally.

Yeah, I was trying to get the shapes out of my body.

Well, honestly, you know, it was like, because we got to do it together with Michelle, Key, and the Daniels, with Jamie, like, it felt like a bunch of friends being like, we are going to stand in this light together. But also, before I decided to do Laid, before I decided to do Laid... You turned on my pilot. I allegedly turned on your pilot. You definitely turned it down. Oops.

Or I didn't see it. I'm really bad at texting and emailing.

I actually don't feel like I saw it. Yeah, okay.

Well, so I ran into Ali Wong on the airplane before I signed on to L.A.D.E. And she was on her way to the Gotham Awards for her performance in Beef. Yes. And she was like, it was the first award of award season. And she was like, what is, like, award season like? Like, I don't know. I feel like, ugh. Like, I don't want to stand in the light, you know? And I was like, you were amazing.

And you deserve to, like, stand and own all the effort that you've put in for all these years to get to where you are. And she won! And she won.

But then also, then at the tail end of that conversation, we, like, talked about award season. Then I was like, I was like, hey, have you ever heard of, like, you, she's worked with Ninochka Khan.

And Ninochka directed her comedy specials. Yeah. And I was like, what do you think of Ninochka Khan?

Yes. Well, you are in, if there's an Asian person, Ronnie was there. Yeah.

Cowboy Asian. Yeah, I knew that. Right, and that's what the pilot was about. Anyway, so... But Nach is our showrunner, one of our showrunners and the director of Laid, and I was like, what do you think of Nanachka Khan? And Ali was like, I would recommend any person to work with her if they got the chance. And after that flight, I was like, I'm gonna do Laid.

Was that an underwhelming story?

The Oscars were, I mean, yeah. It was like, yeah. It's really, well, you know, when you do something you care about, it feels... less crazy to, like, stand, stand... Sure.

And show up and, like, stand behind it. And that movie changed so many people's lives that it was like, thank you. That it was like, it's not even just for me. It's for every single person who's, like, watching and sees themselves a part of this.