WIRED
  • last month
Actor and comedian Jimmy O. Yang visits WIRED to answer his most searched for questions on Google. When did Jimmy O. Yang begin his career in comedy? Who did Jimmy O. Yang play on HBO's 'Silicon Valley?' How did Jimmy O. Yang first become famous. When did he start uploading his standup to TikTok? Jimmy gives answers to these questions and many more on the WIRED Autocomplete Interview


All episodes of Interior Chinatown are available to stream exclusively on Hulu.

Director: Justin Wolfson
Director of Photography: Kevin Dynia
Editor: Cory Stevens
Talent: Jimmy O. Yang
Line Producer: Joseph Buscemi
Associate Producer: Brandon White
Production Manager: Peter Brunette
Talent Booker: Mica Medoff
Camera Operator: Caleb Weiss
Sound Mixer: Sean Paulsen
Production Assistant: Sonia Butt; Ryan Coppola
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Post Production Coordinator: Ian Bryant
Supervising Editor: Doug Larsen
Assistant Editor: Billy Ward
Transcript
00:00Hey, I'm Jimmy O. Yang and this is the WIRED Autocomplete Interview.
00:06Can't say I've Googled myself. No, actually, I've actually Googled myself many times.
00:13All right, very excited about this. How did Jimmy O. Yang become famous? People Google this?
00:21Like, how did he become famous? It's different for different people. Usually when white people
00:26come up to me, they say, oh, Silicon Valley, Jin Yang, hilarious. When Asian people come up to me,
00:33they know me from stand-up. They know me from Crazy Rich Asians. A lot of immigrants come up
00:38to me, like Chinese immigrants, Japanese. They're like, your stand-up special got, you know,
00:42subtitled and translated in Chinese and that's how I know you. And a lot of times Chinese people,
00:47they call stand-up comedy talk shows. They're like, we love your talk shows. Oh, and a lot of
00:51girls, younger, older, come up to me because of Love Heart, this rom-com I did with Nina Dobrev
00:58on Netflix. So, fame is in the eye of the beholder. Was Jimmy O. Yang in Patriot's Day? Yes, that was
01:04actually one of my proudest projects to date based on real-life movie about the Boston Marathon
01:12bombing, which was a very dark day in our country. And I get to play this character, Danny Mang,
01:16that kind of became the hero and saved the day. He was a Chinese immigrant student,
01:21and he got carjacked and kidnapped by the Boston bombers, and he ran away, escaped,
01:26and was able to call the cops, remember his tag numbers, and that's how they found the two bombers
01:30that led to the shootout in Watertown and the capture of these bombers. So, I get to kind of
01:34talk to and interview Danny every day. I had a great time in Boston, and I thought it was just
01:39such an important story. And it was the first drama I did, and Peter Borger was a great director,
01:44and it was good to kind of prove to myself that I could be a good dramatic actor, and it gave me a
01:49lot of confidence in that sense. But also, it was just such a great story to tell. Jimmy O. Yang,
01:54dad joke. Who Googles that? Jimmy O. Yang, dad joke. I do have a lot of jokes about my dad,
02:00and those have became some of the most popular jokes. And yeah, my dad is just naturally like
02:04a pretty funny, charismatic person, pretty easy to make fun of. He started acting after I did,
02:09and that is true. Now, he's a full-on SAG actor. We just recently did a commercial together.
02:15He loves it. At times, I'm like, is this kind of seeping into my life a little too much? Like,
02:21is he overstepping as a father? But I love it. I love it. Jimmy O. Yang? Oh, I don't know.
02:28I think that's a line maybe I said in my standup, or my character Jing Yang has said
02:35on Silicon Valley. I'm not so sure how that became a top search, but that's a really interesting
02:41phrase, because for every character I play on TV, on film, I try to have a mantra. Right
02:47before every scene when I was that Jing Yang character, I would say, I don't know in Chinese.
02:54Either he doesn't care to know, or he doesn't care about these people to know,
02:57or he truly is a bit lost. So that was kind of like my mantra for the Jing Yang character
03:02is, I don't know. Thank you very much. Does Jimmy O. Yang sing in Love Heart? Yes, I do.
03:09That was actually my voice. I impressed myself. I didn't think I was that good of a singer,
03:14but it all came together pretty well. We pre-recorded the song in the studio. This is
03:18the remix of the lyrics of Baby It's Cold Outside to a more appropriate lyrics, and it's me and
03:23Nina Dobrev doing a kind of duet. Jimmy O. Yang? Economics. Is it like searching Jimmy O. Yang
03:30net worth? I do that all the time. My dad does that to me. He'll be like, oh, your net worth
03:35went up. I'm like, I wouldn't listen to any of these sites. But Jimmy O. Yang, Economics,
03:39I'm pretty sure it's because I was an econ major in college. I went to school in UC San Diego.
03:45I went in as a mechanical engineering major, and I was too much of a slacker. I never went to class.
03:49I was smoking too much weed, and I was like, I'm never going to graduate as a mechanical engineer.
03:55So I picked the easiest major that would still appease my Asian parents, which was Economics.
04:01Jimmy O. Yang, this is a long one, it seems. Disappointing Asians. That's not what it seems,
04:06okay? I don't think I've disappointed any Asians. I hope I made Asians out there proud.
04:11But this was the subtitle of my book, which is How to American, The Immigrant's Guide to
04:16Disappointing Your Parents. I think there's a lot of jokes about me disappointing my parents being
04:21a disappointing Asian to my parents. I hope that's what it means. I hope I'm not actually
04:26out there disappointing Asian people. I started doing standup, and that's not a very Asian thing.
04:30You know, that's not something that my parents consider as a real job. They wanted me to be
04:35in finance, in, you know, be a lawyer, doctor, like real jobs to them. So me being a standup,
04:41an actor, I disappointed them for many, many years. But like I said in my book, to me,
04:47it was better to disappoint my parents for a couple years than to disappoint myself for the
04:52rest of my life. So I had to take a risk, take a chance, and try something that I love.
04:57Jimmy O. Yang, jacket. This became a thing, the kind of light blue jacket I wore on my second
05:03special, Guess How Much. It was a really cool jacket, and a lot of people start Googling where
05:07I got it from. I don't even know where I got it from. It was a brand that my stylist at the time
05:11hooked me up with, and I think it was a Chinese brand that has since went out of business.
05:14Of course, if there's enough demand, I think there's now a site that sells the Jimmy O. Yang
05:19Guess How Much jacket, like a bootleg one. Let's see. When did Jimmy O. Yang start comedy? I
05:26started standup comedy when I was 21 years old, junior year of college. This is when you could
05:31go into a comedy club. Anybody usually under the age of 21, you have to wait outside a comedy club
05:36and then get in your set when it's your turn. So it's been two years. I've only been doing
05:41comedy for two years. I'm 23 years old. When did Jimmy O. Yang start acting? I started acting
05:48maybe a couple years after I started standup, probably like 15 years ago now. There's a lot
05:54of things that are similar. The charisma on stage, the command of the stage, I think that translates
06:00oftentimes on camera. Standup is a stage act, and it's a vocal act. You want to project, you want to
06:06touch the audience in the balcony, right? Whereas acting, oftentimes, especially TV film acting,
06:12it's very close on your face, and it's about what's going on inside. It's a little more internal. And
06:18one of the things I noticed for me and many standups, the hardest part to learn, and maybe in
06:23life, is to listen to your partner. Because standup, it's all you. You're one person by yourself.
06:28Whereas acting, it's about the connection with you and your partner. So I learned to be a better
06:33listener, which is probably good for my life in general. Where was Jimmy O. Yang Guess How Much
06:39filmed? My second comedy special called Guess How Much, it was filmed in Austin, Texas. And it was
06:44actually a really interesting and fun thing, because Austin is not as Asian as most of my crowds.
06:50It leaned more white, and the cool part was the jokes still hit, you know? Like, my jokes weren't
06:56just for the Asian people. So that felt good. I knew if that was going to work in Austin, it was going
07:01to work for most people in America. And of course, it ended up working not just in America, like
07:06around the world. Like, a lot of it got translated into Chinese, and it's played in China, and Hong Kong,
07:12and Taiwan, like, and a lot of places in Asia. I got people telling me from China, that's how they
07:16started learning English for my standup special. So that felt pretty special to me.
07:22Breaking lights over there. Jimmy O. Yang, I love you. Is this just a fan, like, hoping they'll get
07:28to me and say, Jimmy O. Yang, I love you. That's very sweet. I appreciate that. But I think it's
07:35actually based on one of my jokes, where I say, Asian, we don't really say I love you to our
07:40parents. The joke goes that one time in college, I got high. And I called my mom. I was like, Mom, I
07:46just want to tell you that I love you. And then she started crying. She was like, Jimmy, are you okay?
07:50Do you have cancer? Jimmy O. Yang, improv. I improvise a lot on Silicon Valley, on Space Force,
07:57and a lot of comedy projects I do. And even dramatic stuff. You know, we find rooms to
08:01improvise, which is fun. And it's cool. And it gets you into the character, into the story. But also,
08:07the improv is one of my favorite comedy clubs in LA and all over the world. I try all my materials
08:12there before I take it on the road. And big shout out to Rita at the improv, who's been the booker
08:17there for a long, long time. And she has made a lot of people stars and given them the opportunity.
08:23Jimmy O. Yang.
08:24Jing Yang. That was the character I played on Silicon Valley for six seasons. I started off
08:30as just a very tiny part, two lines in one episode. And then it became two lines in three
08:34different episodes. And by the second season, I became a series regular. And it was a whole,
08:39like, villain arc with Jing Yang. At first, he started off as kind of just like a random
08:45person that lives in the incubator, played by T.J. Miller and his character Ehrlich Bachman.
08:51And they start standing up to Ehrlich. And we had this very cool Lauren Hardy kind of comedy
08:56duel. And it was a lot of improvisation, a lot of fun, a lot of great scenes that
09:00is still very fond in my memory. Jimmy O. Yang.
09:06Interior Chinatown. That is the new show I'm gonna be on. I feel like everything I've worked
09:12on, I've worked for in my career, it's all in this show. It's really interesting. It's kind
09:16of like Truman Show. It's about a background actor, played by me, Willis Wu. He's stuck in a
09:21show that's similar to A Law and Order, but he doesn't know it. He just doesn't know how to get
09:26out of his role in Chinatown. And there's, like, a ceiling, there's a glass window, he just can't
09:31get out of it. At the same time, he's dealing with a lot of stuff with his family, his disappearance
09:35with his brother. So he starts uncovering the mystery. By doing so, he has to sneak in to the
09:41actual Law and Order show. So episode by episode, he goes from a background actor to a guy having
09:47two lines to actually the tech guy, which is like my journey in my life, too. It's kind of like Law
09:53and Order meets Twilight Zone. Was Jimmy O. Yang in Crazy Rich Asians? Yes, I was. I played this
10:00character, Bernard Tai, the crazy kind of billionaire playboy, and I had so much fun. And we're still
10:05all best friends. I actually just went out to dinner with Awkwafina and Ronnie, and we still
10:11have, like, a hundred people group chat on WhatsApp. Jimmy O. Yang, love languages. My best love language
10:17is acts of service. You know, I love cooking, that's what my parents did for me, you know, and I love,
10:22you know, just doing things, fixing things. And words of affirmation, I didn't think it was important
10:27to me, but I think it is, you know. That's why I think I'm a stand-up. You get the live audience
10:33reaction, every laughter is a word of affirmation for me. And sometimes if I don't do stand-up for
10:39a prolonged period of time, I don't get the immediate feedback, the accolades, I start to
10:44wilt a little bit. And I think that's every artist, you know, we want our work to be seen and to be
10:48loved. But at the same time, I'm also learning to be a little, a little self-love, that you don't need
10:53the external validation. You do a lot of these projects, these art projects for yourselves. And if
10:59it's good enough for me, I had a great time. That's the most meaningful part of it.
11:02Jimmy O. Yang, LinkedIn. I don't think I have a LinkedIn account. I never had like a real job.
11:10My first high school job was, I worked at Big 5 Sporting Goods, a discount sporting goods store.
11:15I loved it. I worked there for many summers. I was a waiter for a Chinese restaurant. I was a used car
11:20salesman. I was once a strip club DJ. So I don't think any of those things go on LinkedIn. I don't
11:25think my LinkedIn says strip club DJ at Fantasy Show Girls in San Diego. Jimmy O. Yang, chicken
11:33wings. Oh, I know what this is about. During the pandemic, I started a little cooking show called
11:38Jimmy's Kitchen on YouTube. And it was really cool. Actually, I get to learn how to cook with
11:42the people and then teach people some things that I learned. And I also got really into the food
11:46space. I wrote a quarterly column on Bon Appetit. I wrote about my hate for boneless wings,
11:52how they're not wings. They're just little cut up pieces of white meat chicken lies. Chicken wings,
11:58if you really go for the chicken wings, get the bones, get the flavor, not just little chunks of
12:02meat. That's for babies. And then years later, recently, I did a commercial for Popeye's boneless
12:08wings. So for the right price, I'm ready to sell out at any time. That's the moral of the story.
12:13No, it was actually, they let me try their wings and it was actually so good. I was like, yeah,
12:17sure. I was like, this is actually legit boneless wings. Jimmy O. Yang. Kumon. As you know, Kumon's
12:23like an afterschool kind of tutoring, like a thing a lot of Asian people go to. I don't know
12:27if you guys seen the Kumon logo, but even the logo itself looks miserable. It's just an emoji,
12:34like two dots and a line, but it's not even like a happy face. It's just like,
12:38I guess I'm a Kumon and my life sucks. Jimmy O. Yang. TikTok. I didn't really know about TikTok
12:45and then people start telling me about it. And we started uploading just some clips of my standup
12:48on it and it blew up. Now I got like 4 million or maybe 5 million followers on TikTok. And it's
12:54just been a great space, great outlet for my standup comedy. I would argue that maybe more
12:58people saw my comedy special on TikTok than on Amazon Prime when it came out. And it's really
13:02cool. It's reaching a younger generation. Also, there'll be kids coming up to me like little 12
13:07year old kids like, oh my God, I love you. You're the TikTok comedian. I love you on TikTok. And
13:12I'm like, I don't know how I feel about that. Like a TikTok comedian somehow sounds kind of weird,
13:16but sure. And that's all the boards. It was kind of interesting. I didn't realize people would
13:21Google Jimmy O. Yang, I love you. And maybe I would start typing in my own Google search,
13:26Jimmy O. Yang, I love you. And that's how I practice self-love. So till next time,
13:30thank you very much, Wired.