Wild Card with Rachel Martin - Jimmy O. Yang can't take a compliment

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

Jimmy O. Yang finds his own success unlikely. He says as an Asian-American immigrant, he "snuck in" to show business. He's worked his way from bit parts to big roles in Silicon Valley and Crazy Rich Asians, and, now, the lead role in Hulu's Interior Chinatown. He talks to Rachel about learning how to take compliments, being afraid of oceans and why his fantasy football draft is sacred.To listen sponsor-free, access bonus episodes and support the show, sign up for Wild Card+ at plus.npr.org/wildcard See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Does the idea of an infinite universe excite or scare you? Infinity scares me. If you're telling me I am dead for a trillion billion, million years, and then I'll get to come back for one day, then I'm fine. But if I'm gone forever, very scary. I'm Rachel Martin, and this is Wildcard. The game where cards control the conversation. Each week, my guest chooses questions at random from a deck of cards.

Pick a card one through three. Questions about the memories, insights, and beliefs that have shaped them. My guest this week is actor Jimmy O. Yang. Anything infinite is scary. I look out the ocean at night, I get a little scared. It seems so vast and infinite. I first saw Jimmy O. Yang in a Christmas rom-com. It's my little personal tradition to lock myself in my downstairs guest room and wrap presents

while watching the so bad their good genre of holiday movies. A few years ago, the streaming algorithm recommended a moment. movie to me called Love Hard. No, it wasn't adults only fair. It was just the worst name for a Christmas movie ever. That, however, did not stop me. And I'm so glad because I got to watch Jimmy O. Yang cut through the saccharine mush of those movies and deliver the most authentic, maybe even subversive performance I'd ever seen in a holiday rom-com. Yang had already made a name for himself as a recurring character on the HBO show Silicon Valley. He was only supposed to be in a few episodes, but the showrunner loved him so much, he made him a central part of the story.

It's happened to him a lot in life, people underestimating him. It comes up in his memoir, titled How to American, an Immigrant's Guide to Disappointing Your Parents, being immigrated to the U.S. from Hong Kong when he was 13. Being underestimated also comes up in his stand-up comedy and is a major theme of his new show on Hulu Interior Chinatown. I, for one, will never underestimate him. Jimmy O Yang, it is a pleasure to welcome you to Wildcard. Thank you. What an intro. I was worried there for one second. And you brought it back in such a great way.

Thank you. I seriously loved that movie. It was so good. Oh, my God. Okay. So this is how this game goes. I've got a deck of cards in front of me. Each one has a question on it.

And you're going to choose one at random to answer. Okay. And there are two tools at your disposal. So if you get a question and you're just not into it, you can skip it, and I'll replace it with another one from the deck randomly. And you can also flip it on me. So I will answer the question before you do. Cool. We're breaking it up into three rounds, a few questions in each round.

Are you ready? Let's do. First three cards. One, two, or three. I'll take the middle one. Where would you go to feel safe as a kid? Oh wow That's what we're doing here Jimmy

Like that huh Just go to level three real quick I grew up in Hong Kong So For me It was a lot of food That I remember A lot of comfort food

And there's certain like street food stalls That my mom would take me to And then when I got slightly older Like before I moved to this country When I was like 12 She would let me go downstairs and buy certain things myself. And I remember there's this particular snack.

It's very famous in Hong Kong. It's like stuffed peppers but with fish cake. In Hong Kong, it's called Jin Yang Sambo. So I remember like every night I got back from school. I hang on my mom and I went downstairs and got a couple of those. And it felt very homey. Yeah. And I imagine you felt that was like an expression of your independence.

And also, I mean, the question is about safety. Did it feel, well, does that word even resonate with you? Did you need to feel safe as a kid? I guess I felt pretty safe. Crime rights pretty low in Hong Kong and it was always my home. Maybe when I came here, I was still a kid. You know, I was like 13 years old, learning a new language, going to a new school. And to make friends, I think maybe safety in this sense could be,

like video games. I remember I made some of my first few friends when I also saw him playing Madden when I also FIFA and things like that. And that made me feel safe. It made me feel like I belong and we played the same thing although I was from like a different country.

Otherwise I was oftentimes intimidated. Yeah. Yeah, some of my best friends that I've made it's all from playing video games. Really? Mm-hmm. Like in high school, you know, like I'll go to my buddy's house to like study

and then I see him and his cousin playing GTA. I'm like, hey, let me get down on that. And then we played all year and we became best friends, still good friends. Are you? I love that. Okay.

Three more. One, two, three. Are these all new? These are all new. Three new parts. I'll pick number one. Okay. What do you admire

about your teenage self? Wow. Wow. Jimmy, I'm not messing around. This is so unlike me to try to congratulate myself. You know what I mean? To admire myself?

Yeah. That's very hard. Oh, that's interesting. That's not your natural default. No, I don't think so. I think I had to go to my therapist to talk about how I can't take a compliment. I'm like, what am I supposed to say? Like, when people come on and say, oh my God, hey, that show was great.

I'm like, ah, you should, it's okay. Like, you know, I started saying some stupid things. And then she's like, no, no, just say thank you. Just take it in and say thank you. I'm like, really? That's what people do. Okay. Well, I'll ask you to this.

I mean, maybe your answer is like I didn't admire anything about my teenage self. No, I think I did. I think maybe because I was so young, the ignorance also gave me a fearlessness. Yeah. You know, making friends. And I didn't feel bad about myself, although I was quite othered and foreign. You know, I was very positive. I try to have a good time, although it was very difficult.

Yeah. So what were those specific challenges? I mean, when you would come upon the othering, like you just brush it off, you somehow just... Well, I think it's whether it's like verbal bullying or something like that or people just like talking trash, making jokes. And I think maybe that's how I developed a sense of humor is, although with the limited English language that I knew,

I found a way to talk back and fight back. And not let someone get the best of me. I mean, are you still that fearless? Or when you look back, it does feel like a difference. Your teenage self was more. I guess I still am in a way because I don't overthink these kind of things. I overthink many things. I'm very neurotic.

It comes to like buying a new lamp or something. Or a new pillow, forget about it. I went through like a hundred different pillows. But yeah, I don't know. Just life stuff day to day. I just go for it. Okay, so before we get to round two, I'm going to pull out of this game

to talk about Interior Chinatown. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah, it's a great show. So this is on Hulu. And this is based on novel by Charles You. It's about a guy named Willis Wu. He's a waiter at this restaurant,

his uncle's restaurant, in Chinatown, in L.A. He's obsessed with crime shows, like TV crime shows, and finds himself entangled in this mystery about his missing brother. So that's the plot, but I mean, the themes are so much bigger. It's not the easiest show to describe.

It took me a long time to try to describe it to my friends. But I think breaking it down maybe in a way that everybody can understand. And I think that's the brilliance about Charles Hughes' writing. It's this guy, Willis Wu, he doesn't know it, but he's a background actor inside of, like a law and order type procedural show. So Charles is using a procedural, which is a common form that everybody can understand, to kind of fit in and make you feel psychologically

how an outsider stuck in the background of life would feel. So what was it about this particular character, Willis, that you connected with? Even when I read the book, I was like, wow, this is so similar to my journey. of coming to terms with who I am, as an immigrant as an Asian American, you know, always feel like I was invisible,

which is a common experience, I think, sadly, for a lot of Asians in this country. I mean, when I first started acting, I was a background actor. Yeah. And then I had a two-line part. I was Chinese teenager number two. I was person in line.

And, but all those parts, I felt like, even those small parts, I felt like I snuck in and I scored, you know, because I wasn't supposed to be here. That's how I felt. And then they're just, much growth from that to get to this point in an almost unlikely unbelievable journey that at times I didn't believe.

It was just step by step, proven to myself, I can do it. So in a way that, that resonated quite a lot. And of course, dynamic between his family, you know, the strife with his father, the kind of unspoken, like Asian people would never really say, I love you, like at least not me to my parents, and Willis doesn't to his parents, but there's a deep love, but at the same time, very conflicted generational relationship. So there's a lot of nuances and stuff that I think people can discover and feel, but at the same time, I just think it's an entertaining show. Yeah, it's lovely. It's lovely. Everyone should check it out. Thank you.

Okay, so you're ready to get back into it? Let's do. We have new cards. It's a new round. The cards are blue. I'll take the middle one again, please. Middle number two. Okay. What's something you still feel you need to prove to the people you meet? Huh. Wow.

That's a great question. I think in a broad stroke, everyone does this, and maybe I do it a little more, to prove my worth. And for years, because I'm a stand-up or even before that, I felt like I didn't quite belong. I try to be funny. I try to be endearing, charming, whatever, to win them over.

Whereas, like, why am I doing that? You know, I should just be me and me should be enough. But I think it's because for years I felt othered and I didn't feel like I'm enough. So now I have this tool of comedy. So I try to win people over by charming them, by making them laugh, whatever.

And that's where I think my value is a lot of times. Yeah. So I try to use that. I mean, we all do that to some degree, right? you walk into a new room, you want to make a good impression, you're trying to be on your A game. For you, that means, like, being funny

because that's what people expect you to do. But it also feels like it would just be very tiring. Yeah, I think, well, maybe this makes me an extrovert. I get a lot of energy if people do respond to say my jokes or whatever. But it gets very frustrating and for no reason, you know,

is when I'm trying and trying and I'm not getting a response. I'm not even saying from the audience, it's just from a personal but I'm like, what am I doing here? Like, why am I trying to show off and like it's not their job? Like we should just kind of sit down and have a connection,

you know? Yeah. Okay. Three more. One, two, three. I'll take the middle one. Middle number two. What's an expression of love you're trying to get better at? Oh, wow. It's like talking about love languages. I had a whole bit about this in my last special.

Yeah, I think I'm very good at acts of service, you know. Not everybody knows what these things are. So there is like this rubric about love and how you express it. And so you're saying you're good at like doing things for the person who's in your life. Yeah. You know, gift giving. That's another one. Yeah.

Just thinking about, you know, actions. And like I said earlier, you know, words of affirmation is not a big thing in Asian culture, I don't think, you know, not how I grew up. So, you know, I would love to get better at. Yeah, yeah, being more complimentary of people, more motivating. It's like, hey, you did great. Or saying, I love you. Like, when I mean it, like whether to a friend or to a partner or something like that. And being more communicative, even my family and things like that, being more open, vulnerable. And, and. and being a little better of my words of affirmation. Did your parents embrace that part of American culture? They're getting better, I think. My dad gives me a hug now, which is very weird to me, you know. That's not a thing, just in our culture.

I don't know if we say I love you yet, but we are getting a little more vulnerable and open. And sometimes it takes a newer generation like me to kind of break it down, be like, hey, I just want to have an open honest conversation. I don't want us to like get mad at each other and never talk about something. So, yeah, and they've been pretty receptive. I'll say whenever I do come from a truthful real place. Okay, so this is the last round. Three more cards.

One, two, or three. Red now, huh? I'll take the first one. Does the idea of an infinite universe excite or scare you? Infinity scares me. Does it? True? Yeah.

If it's something that I can, you can put a number, it could be a billion trillion plus one, whatever. It's fine. If I can wrap my brain around it. Infinity is something I cannot wrap my brain around. And I think it's why me and probably a lot of people are so afraid of death. because you are gone forever. If you're telling me I am dead for a trillion billion, million years,

plus a trillion years, and then I'll get to come back for one day, and then I'm dead again for another, then I'm fine, okay? But if I'm gone forever, very scary. So infinite universe is a little scary. Anything infinite is scary. I look out the ocean at night, I get a little scared. It seems so vast and infinite.

Yeah, no, I don't, I actually, I know this is a controversial opinion, but oceans, I like, I like them. I like to be on a beach. It's nice. But I, I, I find that it all very unsettling. Thank you. Too vast. It's too big. People pay extra. People pay extra for ocean views. I'll pay extra to not look at the ocean. Give me the city view. I'll look at, yeah, your parking lot, your utility closet, you know, don't give me, give me a room with no windows. I'm not paying extra. to see the cliff of my death into a vastness of infinity. Okay. All right. There we go. Three more. I'll take number one again. What's a place you consider sacred?

Sacred. Sacred. Wow. That is, that's a big word. Yeah, what does that word mean to you? Oh sacred Something you don't mess with

Something that almost Has almost like a religious A spiritual Meaning to it Yeah I think maybe I think of like Like to me Hong Kong Some place I grew up with

It's quite sacred to me And it holds You know a deep place in my heart But maybe it's not a geography It's not a place Doesn't have to be Maybe it's an event. I think my fantasy football drafts are very sacred.

I shouldn't have laughed. That was such a rude reaction. Come on. It's serious. I am going to ask you to explain to me why fantasy football feels like a sacred place. I love having birthday parties, whatever, this and that. It's all great. But fantasy football is so great.

It's like 12 of my closest friends from different walks of life that I pull together. And now they all became friends. and we all try to do an in-person draft. Some people are in San Diego, some people in New York, some people are in-L.A. And we try to do an in-person fantasy football draft where we can all get away from our lives for a weekend.

Doesn't matter how busy you are, how many kids you have. We are here and we get to live like and hang out like we were in high school. Every year we come together. There is a date like a birthday. And then we get to play together. Yeah. And it's very hard for adults to make fun.

friends. I agree. I think there's an article, especially for adult men to make new friends. So it's really sacred for me to keep my old friends, you know, and to make new friends and to continue the friendship and have something every year that we look forward to. Okay. I love fantasy football as your sacred place. I think it's a nice thing for like, you know, especially like kind of what I said earlier, you know, the love language, stuff like that. Adult dudes have like a hard time communicating feelings and things like that. So it's nice to have a consistent friendship thing that we can kind of continuously bond at, you know? Do people actually end up sharing intimate things within that context? Yes, yes and no. I think it leads to a deeper friendship because say these 12 people

in the league, there's probably like eight of them that I would have stopped talking to if we weren't in the league year by year. And then, okay, sometimes we call each other about trade, just about players or about how you did on Sunday, you know, this game or whatever. But because of these friendship has lasted so long, we became really close friends where any, anytime I have any life issues going through breakup, whatever, I can call any 12 of them and we're close enough to talk about it. We finished. We did it.

How did I score? Is there a score? I need a score. I mean, everyone's a winner, Jimmy. There's no score in life. I'll take this microphone with me as a prize. Thank you very much. You can have the microphone.

Don't tell anyone I said that. We end the show the same way every time with a trip in our memory time machine. Okay? So we're going there. We're going there. You get to revisit one moment from your past that you would not change anything about. You would just like to linger there a little longer. Wow.

Which moment do you choose? Boy, this is getting deep, huh? You know, when we're shooting crazy rich Asians, when we're shooting like the post-war, wedding scene. Everyone was in those scenes, but we had to shoot bits and pieces. So we all hang out in a hotel room like 20 of us, the whole cast. And then each one of us, we get called down to go shoot, to go shoot. And they're just in a small hotel room in Marina Bay Sands, and we all just kind of bonded and ate food and like just hung out, you know. And those moments are quite special because I still, like, they're still my closest friends. But it's hard to get

all 20 of us together again, you know. So. those moments are quite special to me. What was it about that cast and that movie that forged those connections for you that that would be your moment that you would want to revisit in a life? I think it was the first time for almost all of us to felt like we truly belong

and we can be our true selves. Because so often we were just a token Asian in something because all of us were from different walks of life. Like Gemma's from the UK. Henry's from Singapore. A lot of us from America, Australia, everyone's there. But we had such similar experiences.

So we all kind of, we were all about the same thing. It wasn't like, hey, do you want to go get Chinese food tonight? No, we're getting Chinese food tonight. You know, you want to go karaoke? Do you like karaoke? No, we all loved karaoke. So we all had very similar stories. And we just felt like we found our creed.

Instead of just being like, felt like lucky we snuck into this one project, being the Asian person. We found our creed. and that was like a real family unit there. We didn't know if the movie was going to succeed or not. But I've always said like when I was making it, when I was hanging out with everyone, if the audience can feel just a little bit of how we felt, the camaraderie and the love, it's going to work.

Jimmy O Yang, it was such a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much for doing this. The new show, Interior Chinatown, is on Hulu, check it out. Good luck with everything. Thank you so much. appreciate it. If you like this episode, you should listen to my conversation with Sterlin Hardo. He's the showrunner behind the brilliant and hilarious TV series Reservation Docs, which is about four Native American high school kids in Oklahoma. Sterlin talked to me about the pride he feels and having created a world where his kids are able to see themselves on screen. This episode was produced by Rommel Wood and edited by Dave Blanchard. It was mastered by Robert Rodriguez.

Wildcard's executive producer is Beth Donovan, our theme music. is by Romteen Arrobleau. You can reach out to us at Wildcard at npr.org. We love it when you do. We'll shuffle the deck and be back with more next week. See you then.