Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Bowen Yang Reflects on His SNL Fame and "Wicked" Breakthrough

Episode Date: April 13, 2025

Willie sits down with "Saturday Night Live" cast member Bowen Yang to talk about his extraordinary rise to fame. Yang opens up about his upbringing as the son of Chinese immigrants and his conflict of coming out to his parents. Bowen also discusses his role in the hugely popular movie musical "Wicked."  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks as always for clicking and listening along. I am extraordinarily excited to bring in my conversation today with S&L star Bowen Yang, one of the funniest, smartest and most charming people you'll ever have the good fortune to sit down and have a conversation with. He's come so far in his life. I don't think most people realize he kind of burst onto the scene on Saturday Night Live. Of course, he's had movie roles. including most recently a huge role in Wicked and the second Wicked movie, part two that's coming out this Thanksgiving. But man, his parents are from China. They're immigrants to the United States. They actually went from China to Australia, then to Montreal, and then to Aurora, Colorado in the suburbs of Denver, where I think the breakdown in Bowen talks about it is he lived for only six months in Australia, then he lived from zero to nine. in Montreal, 9 to 18 in Colorado and then went to New York to go to school to NYU. But always kind of dreaming of performance, loved SNL. But his family, his father is from Inner Mongolia, literally

grew up and lived as a young man in straw in mud huts. Bowen Yang is one generation removed from that. And he talks about his parents, who he loves, but has a fraught relationship while he's growing up because he's gay and that is not something that his parents are ready to accept or come to terms with and in fact try to help him change. You'll hear about that incredible part of the story. Always with a good sense of humor about it. Just a really fun conversation. He's in a new film that is called The Wedding Banquet. It's a remake of a 1993 Ang Lee movie and he'll tell you all about that. But obviously we talk about SNL 50, what it was like to be there. The 50th anniversary is a guy who grew up loving the show and now was on the show to be surrounded by the people he so looked up to for all those years.

So I really think you're going to enjoy spending a little time as I did with Bowen Yang right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Owen, Willie. So happy to see you. I am loving this casual Willie Geist lean back into your seat. I'm getting the real you. You know, this is us at like a little lunch in town, right? I mean, I invited a bunch of people to come on other. They should be here anyway.

I know. It's not the hottest spot as we throw us. No, I guess not. No, it's great. It's a great. We love it. I'm so happy to see you. And thank you for doing this in the middle of an S&L week,

because I think, as most people know, these are crazy weeks for you guys on the cast. I guess, is this the official sort of sign that I'm a little too comfortable there? Is that, like, it's no problem. Like, my first few seasons, anything on my schedule for Tuesday would have been cataclysmic. Right. And yet this is so relaxing and grounding for me, and I'm, like, looking forward to going into the office later.

I don't know. This is all good. This is maybe a sign that I've gotten to, I don't know, too complacent. Well, I think you're comfortable, which is a good thing, and you're not, like, looking over your shoulder. No. You're an established star of S&L, which is nice. Thank you. Established. Which, that's such a wild word, because I feel like no one, the whole story of that place is that no one. one except for one person feels comfortable there. Right. And that one person is Keenan Thompson. No, it's Lauren Michaels and Keenan, two people. Two people. So this week,

Jack Black is coming into host, the musical guests. Elton John and Brandy Carlisle together. How exciting is it for you to go into a week like this where you just know it's going to be a good show? You've got a comedian who knows what he's doing and two of the greatest artists on earth. I feel like you can sort of, there's a dissonance where you want to be able to push yourself and give these people your best. And then there's also this part of you that's like, but it would also be a great week if I just sat back and like relaxed and just took this show in like the rest of the audience. And so that's sort of the thing about SNL is that it brings in all these different people from all different career advantages and you get the benefit of just absorbing it. I can't believe it. Do you still feel that pressure of today you'll go

in, you want to make sure you get something on the show, you're writing, you're pitching doing all those things? Yes, that never goes away. I'm giving you such an inconsistent story here. Either I'm so comfortable or nothing's or panicked. Or I'm panicked.

I think this week because it's Jack Black, because that's someone who was so confident and inviting in his, has been so confident in inviting his career, I feel like I just want to, like, give him something, you know? Like, Heidi Gardner and I were just talking yesterday about how excited we are for him. It's been 20 years since he hosted. It's amazing, isn't it? You figure he's the kind of guy who comes around every couple of years. Right. It makes it more special. It makes

it way more special. I feel like he has one of the most enviable careers, but also, like, no one else could have that career except him. Right. I'm like, oh, right, he was in high fidelity and he was in the holiday and then he was in you know he's he's voiced every franchise IP you know like he's he's a great entertainer in the truest sense it's gonna be a great show and I want to talk more about your history with SNL in a little bit but we've got to start with the wedding banquet which I just finished this morning is such a beautiful movie because it's funny it's heartbreaking it's all the things a really good movie can be I think most people are not familiar with the history.

Yes. In 1993, it was an Ang Lee film. Yes. And that you guys have sort of updated it in some way? Is that a fair way to describe it? That's the perfect. That's the most printable version of what we can say. No, just because it's so convoluted,

what we've done with it now in a way that is hopefully inviting and appealing to people. But it's this kind of story that would only work now because it was a whole marriage plot, comedy of errors in the original. and we've updated it now so that it sort of tracks with this fertility journey that one of the couples is going through and this like sham marriage that has to be put up

even though gay marriage is legal now not like it was back in the 90s but it has all these really great check-ins with how we feel about institutions like marriage in the year 2025 and I promise it's funny and it's not as academic as I'm making it sound no it's very funny

But it's also, I mean, there's some really powerful, difficult scenes. Do you enjoy stepping into that realm of acting because you're so known for comedy? I do like that exercise and that challenge. I just feel like it is sort of the flipped version of what most people in showbiz say, which is they say, oh, comedy is the hardest thing. And I think the thing that I've taken for granted working at S&L is that, like, I am, not that I'm great at it, but I just used to. to like cracking the coat on how to make something funny

in every small, granular way that like something big and dramatic and emotionally suffused like this, like this sort of dromedy, is a little bit of a delayed learning experience for me. And I really like doing it and I hope I get to do it more. Did you have any relationship with the 1993 movie, whether growing up or later in your life where it spoke to you in some way?

Absolutely. I feel like I got my, Aang Lee education in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, as did my parents. And then it wasn't until college that I would go through his filmography, and I watched the wedding banquet, and this was when I was still in the closet with my parents. Or I should say I was back in the closet with my parents, and then watching this movie, having it be about this acceptance narrative for this main character who is not brave enough to come out to his traditional Chinese parents.

was extremely resonant for me. And it ends on this sort of somber, but still hopeful note where he says goodbye to them at the airport after they find out about his life. And it kind of gave me this great sort of reality check, but also this vision and this fantasy for what might be possible in the future. And now my parents and I are very just steady and loving

and generous with that part of my life. And I feel like that's also an amazing. way for me to personally check in with this movie is that the last time I had any encounter with it, I was in a very different place. And it's really special to be part of the updated version. If you think about 32 years ago, there weren't many places, if any, for someone like you to see a story about who you were at the time, right? Absolutely. And it gets to the point where, I mean, if we're going to talk about being on SNL, like, I never had any vision for that. I never watched the show, even though I watched it every week, I never had the thought of,

I'm going to be on that show someday, because it just didn't seem close. It felt so far away. And just having this all sort of culminate in this movie, being in something like Wicked, being an S&L, just feels very surreal and also very gratifying at the same time. It's a wonderful cast. Yes. People are going to be very happy to see some familiar faces, maybe some new faces. is what was the experience of making the film like for you?

Because you've done Wicked, which is about as big as you can go. You've done SNL, which is a totally unique experience. What was this film like for you? This was a warm hug of a shoot, much like the film is a warm hug. And it's about family. I think the biggest compliment that my friend Matt Rodgers has given to this film

is that you can tell the layout of the house that they live in. That is how intimate and inviting this is. But shooting, it was so lovely. I met Lily Gladstone at 30 Rock, at her beloved 30 Rock. She was doing Seth Myers, and I went down to say hi to her. At that point, we had both been attached. She has this amazing story where she had a sibling who was, let me take this again.

She has this amazing story where her mother, before Lily was born, her mother was going to have a son named August. The pregnancy did not come to term, unfortunately. But in indigenous culture, there's this concept of star siblings and rainbow children. Lily's a rainbow child because she was birthed into the world because of this son. And then my first season on SNL, Lily Gladstone's mother is watching the TV and going, that's my son. She sees me on screen and she goes, that's your brother, Lily.

Like she just felt this sort of cosmic metaphysical connection. connection to me. Oh my God. I didn't realize this until Lily and I had met that like we're siblings already. It made me sort of so, so touched and it just made that experience of working with her and still being connected with her and still being friends with her so special. I got to meet Lily's parents. I think that's indicative of the whole experience of watching, of doing the film was that

it was this familial experience. And that comes across on the screen too. It's really a really beautiful film. Congratulations on it. Just hearing you talk about your own experience growing up, you really do see reflections of it in this movie. What were those, I mean, we were just talking about your journey, which is born in Australia, moved to Montreal when you're like six months old. Then at nine, you moved to Aurora, Colorado outside of Denver.

So you've had all these different sort of, and of course, your heritage is Chinese. So you have all these different cultures. in the mix. So what was it like to be you growing up, we can start in Montreal, assuming you don't recall Australia. I don't. What was it like?

We still had begemite in the house. So there's that. What I recall from Montreal was just being in a place where there were so many different things coming at you. You had French culture coming out. You had to learn French in school, but then you also had to learn English

in order to sort of like get around. and on Sundays you would go to Chinese school and learn Mandarin. Like I was just this sponge that was kind of oversaturated with all of these different languages and cultural touchstones in terms of like, you know, listening to Mandarin music in the house, but then going to school and talking about the spice girls with the other kids. Like there was just this multitude of things that I was taking in anything. think that's probably shaped something about me now where I'm like, give it to me. Like, I'll

take it all. Like, I love, I love everything. I really feel like this maximalist in terms of what I like and what I want to play with and the things that I want to do. And that was what I remember most from Canada, was just letting it all come to you. And I didn't have to go very far to like get, get something interesting culturally. And then we moved to the suburbs of Colorado where it was very, very different, but very, very fun. It was where I started to love comedy because you would get this syndication block of like The Simpsons, Seinfeld, and then you'd watch

SNL, you'd watch Mad TV, you'd watch all these different comedy shows, and that felt like it was dovetailing off of the Canada experience of just like absorbing it. And those are the distinct things that I think. You should go back one step further and say that your father lived, to call it rural poverty, as to sort of understate what it was, I think, right? He lived in mud and straw huts and inner Mongolia.

This is one generation ago. So the cultural, I'm thinking about the cultural clash that was going out in your house, which is a very traditional Chinese family at home. And then you're out in the suburbs of America, right, absorbing pop culture. Right. And without, I think you didn't even have cable.

You were just watching these syndicated shows, right, on network TV? Kids, there were things called bunny ears, antenna, on TV sets. And I would have to, like, orient it in such a crazy way. I was like, oh, I think the radio tower is, like, east of us. Like, I was so wild. But, yeah, it was a very manual experience for me to get my culture, you know. I remember. I remember.

And so how were those in conflict in your life? would you say that traditional Chinese culture at home versus American popular culture that you were loving and absorbing? I don't think they were ever in conflict, especially now that I'm older. I feel like they were just balances. They were counterweighing each other in the sense that like you could appreciate all this culture and then get this perspective that like, oh, but there are things that are permanent. There are things that are built to last, and, like, family is one of those things. And something about SNL, even back then as I was watching it as a kid, I knew that it was this ephemeral, regenerative thing, recursive thing, that, like, we're never going to get the same show twice.

And, I don't know, conceptually, I know I'm getting a little deep, but, like, even back then, like, I knew that there were things that you had to, like, invest in for the future and things that you could enjoy in the present. And, like, those are things that live alongside you. each other. And yeah, I think that's the thing that I know now as an adult is that like both of those things are valuable. Both of those ideas are things that kind of get you through. Yeah, maybe enrich each other a little bit too. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. Hey guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stick around to hear more from Bowen Yang right after the break.

Welcome back now more of my conversation with Bowen Yang. We were talking before we started about SNL, there's just something about being a young kid. I grew up in the suburbs of New York and New Jersey and it's late at night and it's Saturday and you're staying up later than you should probably stay up and you're making it all the way to one o'clock and then showtime at the Apollo comes on after that, maybe watch a little of that to start. As a young kid growing up in the suburbs, what was it about SNL that's so clicked with you? What did you love about it? What I loved about SNL as a young kid in the suburbs was that it was pop culture boot camp.

It was like this digest, this weekly digest on what was happening in the world and what was happening in entertainment. And especially moving to the U.S. Having to like reprioritize my languages even. It was like, okay, French has to be on the back burner. I got to beef up my English within a matter of like weeks so that I can like be sociable at school. Like, watching SNL was my way of gathering information so that I could go into the week at school and be like, oh, yeah, do you see what happened on like TRL?

Like, it was that kind of thing. Like, I wasn't getting cable. SNL was my lifeline in terms of knowing what was up. And something about watching SNL at home made New York feel so close because New York felt so far away. And, I mean, there was just something. in my bones that I felt about wanting to move here. And S&L just made it seem like the most fun, shimmering, glittery place that was still edgy and a little bit gross and gritty

and still so mesmerizing. And something about S&L watching these people at good nights, like hug and congratulate each other. over, you know, saxophone music just felt so mythical and mystical. Yeah. And then at some point, you actually start to perform. You still keeping up your grades, a really good student. I don't know if it was a great student. On a path to a great college, so you did something, right? But you do find some of those theater people. You do find improv kids. Yes. And you pursue that a little bit simultaneously, right? Yeah. In a way that is, I, I,

I don't know if it's precocious or if it's ill-conceived. I was going to, like, I would go to, like, these improv theaters in downtown Denver that had, like, a liquor license. Like, what is a 14-year-old kid doing here? My parents had no idea. And I'm glad they didn't because they would not have allowed me. But, yeah, you would go every Monday to the Bovein Metropolis Theater in Denver, Colorado. Bovine Metropolis Theater, which is a play on Cowtown, which I did not realize until I was in the 20s.

It's right there. And you'd go there every Monday. You would just bomb in front of 30-year-olds who are like, what are these teenagers doing here? And it got me, I think it kind of like, inured me to something. It gave me this, I didn't give me chops, but it gave me this, like, armor in terms of, like,

failing at comedy. Yeah. And I remember watching a Tina Faye interview where she says the greatest thing she learned from Second City was that you bomb regularly at improv because it's improv and you realize that you're okay in the end. You didn't die. Right. You're okay. And that's a valuable thing to learn, especially if you work at S&L, because every week feels like the most important week of your life. And if things don't go your way, it feels fatal.

And you just have to build some mechanism to cope with the fact that it's, fine, that it's okay. That it's, things didn't go your way and that's fine, but you will rise above and figure it out the next time. And that's what I love about the show is that there are more chances at bad as long as you want to take them. Right. It's like that didn't work.

Let's do something else tomorrow. Exactly. You know, live to improv another day. Exactly. So while this is all going on and you're kind of finding yourself with performance, you have this conflict at home, right, where you're starting to understand who you are. Yes. And that's going to be a difficult thing for your parents to know and to understand someday. How did you work through that as a teenager? I didn't really get to work through it. I think I probably wasn't brave enough back then to express that or to package it in a way that they can understand because it felt completely foreign to them. And it was completely foreign to them.

I came out, quote unquote, in the sense that my parents just sort of stumbled upon something. And they were like, oh, we didn't realize this is what we were dealing with. Where we come from, this doesn't happen. That was sort of their concept of it. And so I give them a lot of grace for that because they just had no context for it. And so we went to conversion therapy. and part of the ultimatum was if you take, if you go to therapy,

then you can go to school at NYU where your sister is. This poor people did not realize that it's one of the gayest schools in the country. But the ultimatean was either you take conversion therapy and you go to NYU or you don't and you stay and stay and you live with us and you go to school in Denver

and that would have been a great outcome as well. I just knew like that thing about New York is that I just knew I had to live there. And so I kind of played along. And I kind of just humored them and myself into seeing what it was and not knowing that it was ultimately very painful and detrimental. And there was a lot of healing that happened after that. But identity is this really fickle thing.

Like, you know, it's not something that you arrive until much later in life, I think. Like, I think I didn't really get a grasp on who I was until like two years ago. Come on. Truly, I think like working on Wicked and just doing the back and forth between Wicked and S&L, not to jump ahead, but that was something that like flattened me psychologically

because I was so burnt out that I had to like really come to grips with who I was and I had to face myself. And I feel like that's like a beautiful human journey that we get to go on if we're lucky. I'm getting so deep with you. No, it's great. No, it's such a beautiful way to put it. Yeah.

But I think people, you seem so, I don't know if self-assured is the right word, but you carry yourself so well that I think people will be surprised to hear you say. You're still working through it in some ways, but I guess we all are, aren't we? I think so. I think like it's still, this is what my therapist says, is that identity is this, like, cobbled together thing at any given moment. But as you sort of move through life, like, it goes, through the kiln, I'm mixing up my metaphors, you know, you kind of go through this crucible

where it sort of starts to firm up. Yeah. And how did that play out at NYU? So you finally, you checked the box. Okay, mom, dad, I did that crazy thing you asked me to do, go to meet my sister at NYU. Was it everything you hoped it would be in New York City? It was. Oh my gosh, I loved moving here. I still love it here. And I think I'm going to go through my cycles maybe. But I just remember moving here, living in the East Village, feeling like I was in rent,

and just so, so blown away by the reality of my life now, which was that I was a New York City resident. And I remember I was living off campus. I was living with my sister, wasn't in the dorm, And so I was really banking on making it into the improv group at NYU. Because I was like, this is my only social channel. This is the only way I'm going to really meet people is if I work on this improv group.

I remember I got the call that I was in while I was watching the SNL cold open where Tina Fey was Sarah Palin for the first time. Oh, wow. It all just felt so cosmic. And then, yeah, just did that. graduated NYU, stuck around in the city, pulled out of my med school applications, decided I'm going to go for this comedy thing, took classes at UCB, did sketch comedy throughout the city, produced my own shows in Brooklyn, met so many people through all of these experiences, built community. That's the thing that I think that I can't put a price tag on, is that I like met people that I still work with today. And fast forward, and here we are. Everything you just laid out at about 20 seconds took 10 years, right?

From the fall of 2008 till you get the writer's job on SNL. But an important stop a couple years before that with the podcast. Yes. Plus cultureistas with Matt, the wonderful Matt. That established you and kind of gave you a thing, right, before you even got to SNL. Usually it works backwards. Right. Okay, you're well known now.

Get a podcast. Yeah. You sort of flipped it the other way. That's right. Did that feel like a breakthrough moment when that started to become sort of a thing, the podcast? Definitely. Definitely. It was the first time where it felt like Matt and I had our stamp on something that other people wanted to join in on.

Because all you're doing, pounding the pavement in New York, especially as a comedian coming up, is you're begging people to come and watch you. And it felt like for the first time we had built something and they came and they did come. And I feel like that was just this cosmic alignment of all these things. Like, that was never the plan. We never expected it to take off. But yeah, we're dinosaurs in podcasting. Like, we're nine years in. That's a long time.

Yeah. But I think we've kept it going because it's pretty low concept. It's just two people hanging out. We get guests on every now and then. Pretty good ones. Good ones. We've really looked out with our guests. And Matt is such a great interviewer.

I've learned a lot from him in terms of asking, questions were no willie geist but we're we're we're learning i don't know it's pretty popular you're doing pretty well it's fun but yeah that was that was a thing too we're um going into s and l like it felt like we had this community building thing around the podcast we would do shows where we had 50 comedians on and we would tour it we toured it one year with you know we would book 30 comedians from each city from like Philly, Austin, Dallas, L.A., Chicago, like, Toronto, Vancouver. And we got to meet people in those cities in a very fast-tracked way where we just kind of understood the landscape in a very unique way, too.

Yeah, and I mean, we should point out that Matt went to school. You guys went school together. At NYU, Matt Rogers and went to school together. So I mentioned you get the job as a writer in 2018. Yep. And then the next year, they make you a part of the cast. Yeah. What was that jump? Was that an audition again?

Was that Lauren saying, I think you're ready now? Or how did that play out? The journey is so interesting. And I would not have changed it for the world. It was over two years, two summers, it was four auditions. So my manager at the time in 2017 said, SNL is looking for new people if you want to send it a tape of five minutes of characters and impressions.

And I was like, they're never going to hope. and a feminine Asian man. I am just going to have fun and do this for me. No one's going to see this. Somehow it slipped with the cracks, and it made it through each stage gate. And then I did the showcase live, and then got invited to do the screen test,

where I was basically doing that tape, but doing it live. Then they asked you a week later to come back in with five minutes of new material. At that point, you're like, I just gave you my greatest hits. Like, I got to go back to the drawing board. And that was a second round of auditions.

Then they put me on a holding deal for a year. Then I auditioned again in March of 2018. They weren't going to hire anyone new until the summer. I'd go back in August of 2018. Then I fly to L.A. to meet with Lorne because he was producing the Emmys that year. We have a great conversation. And he says, I think you should start off writing. And there was no like plan to do.

put me on the cast, but I think that was his like vetting process for me because he ended up telling me when he gave me the call that I was moving to cast was that he said, I knew and I know that you will have a special kind of scrutiny, that people will look at you in a very specific way because of who you are. And I need to make sure you knew how the sausage was made, that you knew how things worked here so that I could set you up for success. And I think that's part of his vision. Like that's the thing about Lord Michaels that no one can really tap into. You know, you know, you know how things worked here so that I could set you up for success. And I think that's part of his vision. Like, that's the thing about Lord Michaels that no one can really tap into. You. You because he's seen it all. He's seen every kind of showbiz development in like an individual life and in the collective sense. Like he knows what this is. And I really appreciate that. It sounds like the kind of thing that might have been disappointing in the moment. Oh, I wanted to be on the cast, but now it sounds wise in hindsight. Oh, yeah.

And I still am so, so, so grateful that I had that writing experience is that, you know, you sweat bullets sitting next to Lauren Michaels on a dress rehearsal under the bleachers as he like kind of picks your sketch apart in real time. That is something that like gives you the thickest skin within an instant. Like you can really take any sling air that comes your way, whether it's from people internally or if it's from the audience, like you just let it slip like water off a duck's back. Like I really, I think I've developed a pretty good sense of like, well, like we did our best,

you know? And if people didn't like it, then that's too bad. and we'll just try again. Like, that is the thing that S&L builds into you in a way that I'm really, really grateful for that. I don't think I could have gotten anywhere else. Kind of have to, right? You can't die with every sketch, right? You just got to keep moving.

Yep. Stick around for more of my conversation with Bowen Yang right after a quick break. Welcome back now to the rest of my conversation with Bowen Yang. So you are in the first sketch of your first season, the open, the cold open, right? Playing Kim Jong-un. Yes. As a kid who grew up watching S&L and loving the show, what is that countdown like 30 seconds,

and you're about to be on Saturday Night Live? Do you remember? I do. I do. What I remember from that was feeling my feet, was just grounding myself because I think what I developed from all those times auditioning where you're being held in a dressing room for hours

in your head, running your audition over and over again, was what I learned was just the basics of meditation. I was just like, I need to be very present with this. I need to focus on one thing, and I need to really just not let my thoughts spiral out of control. And that's another thing about that long vetting process is that I just learned the pace of things at that show, and I learned that you just have to hold on to yourself really tight.

I just remember that first countdown, like being in this ridiculous dictator get-up to just like feel the clothes on my body, feel the weight of myself on like the studio floor, knowing that it was this big swing. And what a wild first shot for me as a cast member to be Kim Jong-un. But yeah, that was a really special moment. Is there a phone call home that night or the next morning? There was, my parents were in the audience, I think. Oh, they were there. They were there. And so that was nice, too.

That's great. Just kind of sharing the space with them for a pretty unbelievable moment. A moment that no one had any expectation of was it was wild. And saying, see, it was all worth it. I told you. I told you it someday, someday. I mean, yeah, but like, if one thing had gone differently, it's just, I, I understand how delicate things are now,

how, like, circumstance is so, so fragile. Like, if I had moved back home, or if I didn't come to school in New York, or if I didn't say, sure, why not? I'll put together a tape for SNL. Like, it just would have, things would have ended up so differently. I know I'm one millionth person to ask you this, but I have to ask you about the iceberg.

Yes. Just because it does feel like, a lot of us were like, oh, he's good, he's funny. That felt like the breakthrough moment where it was totally undeniable because it was the performance, the writing, the whole thing. Ridiculous. Was so brilliantly ridiculous. Did you feel that impact after that sketch? Like, oh, something has changed here?

Yes. I knew something was different about that sketch because while the show was still on air, while I was getting out of the makeup, I check my phone and Will Ferrell emails me. And he goes, that was amazing. You need to do that every week. And I was like, Will Ferrell, you know how the show works. That's not possible. That's not something they do here. But that felt like just the signal that this was very, very, very cherished for me.

And yeah, and I think even the days after, my manager called and she was like, so Sandra Bullock wants you to be in this movie called The Lost City with her. Do you have time to fly down to the Dominican Republic to do like five lines? And I was like, sure, but I was like, I think she had seen that. I was like, all of a sudden these doors were opening. And I completely agree that that was this inflection for me.

And Anna Dresden who wrote it with me, I'm very great for Kate Rusick, who designed the headpiece and the costume. That is also my favorite example of like just the convocation of different talents that come together when when making like a moment like that is just it takes a village and Lorne understands that is that it's by committee and by collaboration these things happen in this magical way and also those departments up for anything I need to be the Titanic iceberg got it

we'll get to work yep yep whatever you throw at them they're like okay they're amazing it doesn't really work like that in a lot of places yeah and just the the flexibility the mobility the experience is something that you just don't get anymore. Yeah. We're talking a minute ago about SNL 50 and how special that night was. I felt lucky just to be on the red carpet talking to you guys and to watch some of the show. What was it like for you to think, wow, here I am at this cultural moment 50 years later.

Yeah. And I'm in the cast on the show and looking out into the crowd and seeing so many of your heroes. I mean, it was something that I'll never forget. I journaled extensively about it because I didn't want to forget it because I really wanted to remember this feeling I had, which was awe, like true awe, meeting people who had completely different experiences from me, still come to the show and still be grateful, still have like none of the anxiety that does cling on to you, that does. stay with you for better or worse, like, have that all kind of melt away. Everyone was just so happy to be there. And it gave me this, like, four-dimensional tapestry on what life, just life is. I was going to say, like, life after the show or life during the show is, because everyone

was sharing experiences about, like, oh, I mean, yeah, that's where Farley would hit his head, or that's where I would, you know, have my little panicked moments, like, in between sketches, is like things that are universal that have lasted through time in the decades. But meanwhile, I just look at that whole week and just think, that's like the human experience there in a nutshell. It's like people go through that place and then they come out and then they have kids and they have families and they remain friends with people or they mourn the loss of others. And every emotion gets sort of braided into that one moment.

And I can't believe I got to be a part of it. What was funny to watch for me interviewing so many people was before we would start, even for Will Ferrell or Amy Poehler, they had sketches, so there was a little bit of like, you know, still get a little butterfly, maybe a little rewrite in their head while they're going through it. Like, it was still there. You know, they've been gone all these years, but like, as you said, it doesn't really ever actually leave you, right, that feeling. In a way that is terrifying and also so beautiful.

Right, right, thrilling, exactly. Really. We're going to go visit the Wicked Theater, just about the Gershwin. Yep. I'm not surprised how that movie took off just because people love the story. They love the musical. They love all you guys who were in the cast. What was it like to be at the middle of this wicked phenomenon as it really took off?

I mean, I cannot believe that it culminated in me. me wearing my costume at the Oscars. That is something, just to speak for myself, I know I'm not the main character of the movie, but I cannot believe that I got to have this like, beginning, middle and end. And it's not even over. There's another movie coming out, everybody.

To be clear. Oh, my goodness. But that is something that I could have never expected. And that is something that also was born out of Lorne and Mark Platt and John M. Chu and everyone involved and everyone at Universal just making it work and making it work for me in a way that meant everything. I mean, we're about to go to the Gershwin. The same day that I went to the Gershwin when I was 14 years old,

coming to New York City for the first time, we couldn't get tickets to the show. It felt so far away that all I wanted to do was just push my face up against the glass of the Gershwin. just to feel like a tactility, a contact with this, this musical that I loved. And then we went down the street to 30 Rock to take the studio tour with the page that we sat in the bleachers at S&L.

That's wild, by the way. Wild. Wicked at S&L on the same day. And now... And I remember watching Wicked for the first time, there was an opportunity to see it with the people at S&L. I think it was the week that Ari Yana Grande was hosting. And I wasn't going to do it.

I was like, no, I want to watch something that I'm in by myself usually just so I can have my vein spin out thoughts. But I was like, wait a minute. The last time these two things intersected was 20 years ago on my first trip to New York City when I did the tour and I went to the Gershwin. I need to have this bookend just one last time. And I went and it was so nice.

and Sarah Sherman was in tears, I mean, which is not an unusual occurrence, but she was crying. And I can't believe I got to share that sort of intersection once again. I can't believe I got to be part of these two things that I think meant so much to me and being a lot to other people. And you touched on this a minute ago,

but I didn't fully appreciate until I was reading what you did just to get that movie made, which is shuttling across the Atlantic between New York and London. and it wasn't necessarily an easy time for you, although the product is beautiful and has been thrilling for you, but it was hard. Yeah.

Right? And that was the thing that Lauren warned me about. He was like, you're going to travel a lot, and you're not going to be, you're not going to be like the principal on this cast, and you're valued here, and it's going to be different going back and forth between these two very different experiences,

where I got to, you know, you get to call the shots at Estenelle in a way creatively. It's very bottom up instead of top down. Like, it all starts with your idea as a cast member or writer. Whereas on a huge movie like Wicked, you are purely in service of the project in this beautiful way. And it's an amazing project. And so there are two very different modalities. And I, and my hubris was like, yeah, yeah, Lauren, whatever. I got this.

I have my, you know. I have all my medications at the ready. Nothing could have prepared. Nothing could prepare anyone for that. Truly, there's just something, until we invent teleportation. We need to. We need to, by the way.

It's time. It's time. We've been talking about it forever. I know. Come on. Come on. I'm going to do it. But yeah, it's just, it catches up to you.

Yeah. And it got me, but I think it also got me to this place where I was really having to, like, confront myself because I wasn't sure what I was bringing to either thing at a certain point. I was like, who, who am I? Why am I in these things? Am I worthwhile in these things? Like, am I just a piece of furniture in either setting?

Like, it really got me to figure out, like, how I value myself and how other people might value me. And it turned out that both of those, the answer to both of those questions was a lot. I value myself a lot. Other people value me in a way that I really appreciate. And I'm very, very glad I got through that, like, Ozian experience. I felt like I was going to Oz myself, coming back and just having an appreciated sense of, like, where I was and what I had. How have you dealt Bowen with the fame side of this? because, you know, even in the early years of S&L, it's New York,

people just give you a wave, you can walk down the street. To me, the wicked of it all, and I'm talking about around the world, changes all of that. Yes. How are you coping with that part of it? I think I've gotten the most incremental sort of, like, arc with this. Like, I have a podcast that a niche audience in Brooklyn might listen to. I'm going to get some hellos and some waves.

that like your dingy bars here and there. Great. Oh my goodness. How fun. How fancy. And then getting SNL was another step up or just writing on SNL and made me kind of known to like a broader comedy community that puts track of these things. And then getting on the cast was another expansion. It just felt, it just feels like concentric circles. I feel like I've been so lucky in that way where I haven't gotten too overwhelmed with it.

You know, like also my life is pretty much the same. as it was 10 years ago. I can like walk to the grocery store and buy a bagette for myself. The entire baguette for myself. Yes. I support that by the way. 100%. It's also sort of what you make it. If you have it in your head, I can't go to the grocery store anymore, then that becomes a thing. Totally. Just go to the grocery store. Exactly. I mean, yeah. It's a, sometimes, you know, you put the locks on the door yourself. Yes. And I don't, I don't have too many locks. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. Well, why don't we hop up and go see the Gershwin.

Great. If you're up for it. I'm so up for it. Thanks, Bowen. After Bowen and I sat down, we went upstairs to the Broadway Blue Room that exhibits all kinds of memorabilia from across Broadway, including a key piece from Wicked that figures into his role in the movie. Is this like a planet Hollywood stuff? Is that?

It feels like it. A familiar hat? Very familiar. Wow, look at that. There it is. I mean, this is pretty amazing. Do you feel some sort of cosmic energy from this? I do. I was just telling you, Phantom was my introduction to Broadway in the 80s, so I still feel, took my kids to see it. It felt the same. You know, there's something about it. It feels like home.

Right. I mean, this is going to sound so nerdy, but I remember seeing Wicked in the West End. A few summers ago with my friend, Celeste, who's also a writer at SNL, and I was like, and they came up as a playwright, and I was like, wow, theater's amazing. Yeah. And then Celeste goes, I mean, yeah, it's the most immediate sort of art form in a sense. Like, you're sharing space with the performers in a way that is not unimportant. Right. I know that sounds weird.

It's like, it's a very essential part of this form where, like, you are in the same space as the audience. And that's what I love about SNL, too. It's like you've got to play to the audience in the room, and hopefully that means it plays to the audience. Yes. There's also an excitement to theater that you can't replicate, which is like building, building. You come in, the orchestra music's playing, the ticket,

you get your playbill, you sit down, you don't know what's about to happen. And then these people are out there. There they are, right? There's a smell to it, like the paint or something, right? It's all there. And there's a line at the bathroom. It's wonderful.

Everyone's just filing in and out of the urinals. Yes. People opening Twizzlers while you're trying to act on stage. That's always exciting too. Spilling their rum and coax. I don't know. They think they're on an island or something. No, they're in Broadway.

I think they have too many sometimes and they get interactive with the show too. It's like this is not, no, we're not taking improv suggestions. We're not taking improv suggestions. We're doing wicked. We're doing wicked. Have some respect. I mean, this is amazing. It's cool.

It's very cool. my character in the movie is the one who finds the hat i know and i feel like that's you know Aussian history would have been very different had he not found that's right so fanny is an important part of the canon that's that is central the hat goes right the halla to alpha alpha and then that's her that's her uniform without you it doesn't happen there's no movie no franchise exactly well do you have it do you have an article of clothing that defines you is i think You're a watch guy? Yeah, but not like those crazy expensive watch.

No, it doesn't have to be crazy expensive. No, I like a watch. This is a Shinola from Detroit, Michigan. Yes, I love a Shinole. Shianola's a nice watch. An article of clothing that defines me. Like, I'm glasses, you know what I mean? Right.

I don't think I do, which makes me sad and now I feel like I need one. No, I don't think you do. I mean, a blue jean. I wear a jean a lot, but that's boring. Sneakers sometimes. Not these, per se, but like out in the world, a little more interesting collection. I've seen Willie Geist in a nice linen suit.

Oh, right. And I feel like that is your, that's your power. Okay, that's good. Yeah. Okay, power fit for the summer. And then we do a little black tie for S&L 50. We can go in all different directions. Clean up nicely.

He cleans up very nicely, Willie Geis. Very generous. Anyway, this is cool. Great. Playing it, Hollywood. It is. After we knocked around and looked at all that memorabilia, we went down the street to the Gershwin Theater,

where they're still putting on Wicked every night. It is a place that is so special to Bo and Yang. He loved the idea of Wicked when his family came there when he was 14 to see New York City. He said they couldn't get tickets. They didn't know how to get them. So they never went. So he just literally went and pressed his face against the glass to get as close to Wicked as he could. And now, by God, he's in the Wicked movies.

So this is the theater where you came when you were 14 with your parents. Yes. And pushed your face against the glass. My parents parked their Toyota Sienna right down there, and I ran out of the car with my dad. We only had, I would say, 45 seconds for me to, like, make contact with the glass. But I just wanted to see the lobby. How wholesome and pathetic is that?

Pretty wholesome and pathetic. And did you feel like that was enough for me? I'll be back someday, or? I think I did say to myself, I'll be back someday with Willie Geist. And yet we still can. can't get in. And I still can't get in. Darn it.

I mean, for all times' sake, should we just touch it? Yeah. I think we should just touch the glass. But it literally was, like, right here, probably, like, a whole foot shorter and just like, just like this. Just to feel it. Just to feel it. And it's so ridiculous.

Like, you're in the biggest movie in the world. It's wicked. It's too. It's wild. Like, it just, this felt so. again, far away. And all that mattered was that I was close to it for just like a moment, you know? And I remember doing the movies and all the people who were involved with this Broadway

production were like, I mean, the movie is endgame. And then it like hit me that like, oh, this is what the vision was all along for all these decades. Yeah. These people just wanted to make the movie version. And even being like a small part of it is huge. I feel like you've had a series of pinch me moments, whether it's even getting to New York, but going to NYU, getting on SNL, the show you loved growing up, and then ultimately here.

I know. You've had a lot of them, haven't you? Yeah, it's pretty wild. And I don't have, like, occasions to, I'm not, like, a, I don't get too wrapped up in, like, my own mythology or anything, or my lore. But, like, being here with you is, I think it gives it the right occasion to, like, reflect on it and think, wow, that's pretty amazing. So thank you for bringing me here. Let's touch it again. Let's touch it again.

It's perfect. Thank you, Mom. So good to see you. So much fun. Thank you. Let's get you back to Westchester. Get the stand back home. Let's get you to 30.

My big thanks again to Bowen for a great conversation. You can see his new movie, The Wedding Banquet, in theaters, April 18th. And my thanks to all of you for listening again this week. If you want to hear more of my conversation with our guests every week, be sure to click follow so you never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC to see these interviews with your very own eyes. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week in the Sunday Sit Down podcast.