When actor Jimmy O. Yang first read Interior Chinatown, he felt a spark of recognition. Charles Yu's National Book Award-winning novel tells the story of an Asian American waiter named Willis who becomes embroiled in a mystery after witnessing a crime. Though Yang hadn't been central to a crime story, he could relate to Willis' outsider status.
"I really felt like [the novel] spoke to me as an Asian American, as an actor, as an artist ... who felt like I was always in the background of my life and I always have to find a way to sneak in," Yang says. "It almost sounded like the book was based on my climb and struggle in my career."
Born in Hong Kong, Yang immigrated to Los Angeles with his family when he was 13. He found comedy while still in college, and started performing in clubs almost every night. But when he tried to break into acting, he often felt relegated to the background: "I was 'Chinese teenager No. 2,' I was 'person in line,'" he says.
Yang's big break came in 2014, when he was cast as tech guy Jìan-Yáng on the HBO series Silicon Valley. It was initially a two-line role, but Yang managed to spin it into a recurring character. Parts in the films Crazy Rich Asians and Patriots Day followed, as did numerous standup specials, and in 2018 Yang wrote a book called How to American: An Immigrant's Guide to Disappointing Your Parents.
Now Yang's playing Willis in the Hulu series Interior Chinatown. Like the novel it's based on, the show is a funny, sometimes fantastical take on the role Asian Americans play in pop culture and in real life. Yang notes that the series' tagline — "Break out of your role" — is something he takes to heart.
"It's breaking out of the role that society expects you off. It's breaking out of a role that your family expects you of ... like my family expecting me to be an engineer, a good student, definitely not a comedian and an actor," he says. "Society expects me to be the model minority, and then I have to kick my way or [get] kicked out of these certain windows … in order for me to kind of prove to myself that this is possible."
Interview highlights
On relating to Willis' "invisibility" on Interior Chinatown
I didn't go to Juilliard or NYU. ... I had to do open mics where I paid $5 for five minutes of stage time. ... Even Silicon Valley, I snuck in on that. I had a two-line part as a tech guy. And then I had to be funny and subvert people's expectations in order to get a bigger part. And then in Season 2, I became a series regular. 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 accept it. And in a way that's even more dangerous.
On buying a beat up car to get into the mindset of his Silicon Valley character — and then not being recognized on set
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 like D, R and N for like, reverse and drive — this doesn't have any letters on it. So you have to kind of guess what your shifter is. And in order to get into the driver's side, you have to crawl in from the passenger [side]. Just the anxiety and the trouble you have to go through to get to work, to get from [point] A to B, was very informative of someone who was 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. I felt pretty proud about that. 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 ID?" My legal name is a little different. So I was like, "Just check under Jimmy." And she's like, "Well, your name's not on there. Pull over to the side. You have two minutes. Call whoever people you're here to see. If not, you've got to turn around." I was like, "No, no, no, no. I'm the lead of this show!" She was like, "I don't know you. I don't care. Just just pull over." And I was treated so poorly. That really helped me get into character. …
That's the struggle that Willis and many, many people have been through. And that will either crumble you or light a fire under your butt. And I think that's what it did for Willis and that's what it did for me.
On finding his place in stand-up comedy
When I went to college, I studied 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 As at and those are the things I did the best at, because I was passionate about it. And then later on, after I graduated, when I was trying to figure myself out, standup was just one of many things that I've tried and it just spoke to me. You can literally create something out of thin air without anyone's permission. And I thought that was very liberating.
The thing about standup: There's no barrier of entry and you don't have to look a certain way. There's no certain look of a standup comedian. ... Like, the weirder you are the more like a standup 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 standup comedy because everybody was on equal footing. 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.
On his dad becoming an actor after his success
He 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. And he is naturally very good and a very charismatic guy. …
At first I found it kind of like ... he's kind of overstepping into my world that I created for myself, what is this nepo-daddy business? I don't like it. But now I'm like, if this is what's going to 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?
On getting his dad a job with him on the movie Patriots Day
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 … [but he] spoke Mandarin with a Cantonese accent. 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 would notice except Chinese speakers. But it's weird to me." And the story in Patriots Day was based on real people. So he was like, "No, no, we've got to get this right, to make it authentic. Why don't you sit in on a couple of auditions with me?" I'm like, "OK, I can do that or you can just hire my dad. He's great. He's acting and done commercials and things like that. And he speaks perfect Mandarin." And he's like, "Done deal." Boom. And the next day, my dad and I flew to Boston and he played my dad in Patriot's Day, and that's how he got his SAG card.
On some Asian American actors refusing to do roles with accents because of stereotypes
I have a slightly different perspective than people that were 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 oftentimes. But I live in a weird in-between where I was actually a foreigner. ... And I remember when I first came to the country ... it was sad that even Koreans and Chinese people who are 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. That felt kind of sad.
So in a way, I always have a soft spot for immigrant foreign characters and outsiders. ... It's a weird policy to say, "I don't play anybody with an accent." At this point in my career, I could choose to do certain things and not do certain things based on artistically, do I feel passionate about this or not? But any day of the week, if, say, the … character from Patriots Day comes to my desk, I would love to do it. That guy was awesome and … he just happened to be an immigrant that had a thick accent. And I think doing those kinds of roles are just as important, if not more at times.
Therese Madden and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
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