In his new Hulu comedy series, Interior Chinatown, Jimmy O. Yang plays a waiter who inadvertently becomes central to a crime story. As an Asian American actor, he says he relates to the character's feeling of invisibility. Yang talks with Ann Marie Baldonado about auditioning for Silicon Valley, working alongside his dad, and feeling like an outsider among other Asians in California. Also, film critic Justin Chang reviews the Indian movie All We Can Imagine as Light.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Who is Jimmy O. Yang and what is his new show about?
This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. Today, our guest is actor and stand-up comic Jimmy O. Yang. He co-starred in the HBO show Silicon Valley and the film Crazy Rich Asians. Now he's the star of the new television show Interior Chinatown, based on the National Book Award-winning novel of the same name. He recently spoke to Fresh Air's Anne-Marie Baldonado.
What if one of the background characters at the beginning of an episode of a show like Law & Order became the main character? That's the premise of the new show Interior Chinatown. Here's the beginning of the first episode. It's the back alley behind a Chinese restaurant.
Two workers, played by Ronnie Chang and our guest, Jimmy O. Yang, are talking while they're bringing bags of garbage to the dumpster.
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.
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?
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 .
Somebody threw away an entire Peking duck with the sauce and everything.
You're a , man. I'm the . You were the one who was hoping it was a dead person.
Jimmy O. Yang's character, Willis Wu, then does witness a crime, and that launches him into the center of the story. The show takes place in an off-kilter version of Chinatown, both real place and the setting of a TV police procedural called Black and White.
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