Jimmy O. Yang takes 'Interior Chinatown' tagline 'Break out of your role' to heart

TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley. Today our guest is actor and stand-up comic Jimmy O. Yang. He costarred in the HBO show "Silicon Valley" and the film "Crazy Rich Asians." Now he's the star of the new television show "Interior Chinatown," based on the National Book Award-winning novel of the same name. He recently spoke to FRESH AIR's Ann Marie Baldonado.

ANN MARIE BALDONADO, BYLINE: What if one of the background characters at the beginning of an episode of a show like "Law & Order" became the main character? That's the premise of the new show "Interior Chinatown." Here's the beginning of the first episode. It's the back alley behind a Chinese restaurant. Two workers, played by Ronny Chieng and our guest, Jimmy O. Yang, are talking while they're bringing bags of garbage to the dumpster.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "INTERIOR CHINATOWN")

JIMMY O YANG: (As Willis Wu) I'm not saying I want someone to die.

RONNY CHIENG: (As Fatty Choi) So what are you saying?

YANG: (As Willis Wu) Well, I'm saying if someone's already dead, I would like to be the person who finds the body.

CHIENG: (As Fatty Choi) That's weird, man.

YANG: (As Willis Wu) OK, you know how in cop shows there's usually a cold open?

CHIENG: (As Fatty Choi) Cold open?

YANG: (As Willis Wu) The first scene before the main title.

CHIENG: (As Fatty Choi) Right.

YANG: (As Willis Wu) OK, so for a couple of minutes, you're following this random character who we've never met, who's not one of the leads. And part of you is thinking why am I even watching this guy?

CHIENG: (As Fatty Choi) Why are you watching this guy?

YANG: (As Willis Wu) You're watching because either he's about to get killed or...

(SOUNDBITE OF METAL RATTLING)

CHIENG: (As Fatty Choi) Or?

YANG: (As Willis Wu) You've seriously never seen a cop show? How is that even possible?

CHIENG: (As Fatty Choi) Video games and weed.

YANG: (As Willis Wu) OK. What was I saying?

CHIENG: (As Fatty Choi) Somebody's about to find a dead body?

YANG: (As Willis Wu) Yes, that's the rule. The person in the first scene of a procedural is either a victim or a witness.

CHIENG: (As Fatty Choi) Holy [expletive]...

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

CHIENG: (As Fatty Choi) Somebody threw away an entire Peking duck with the sauce and everything.

YANG: (As Willis Wu) You're a [expletive], man.

CHIENG: (As Fatty Choi) I'm the [expletive]? You're the one who was hoping it was a dead person.

BALDONADO: Jimmy O. Yang's character, Willis Wu, then does witness a crime, and that launches him into the center of the story. The show takes place in an off-kilter version of Chinatown, both the real place and the setting of a TV police procedural called "Black And White." The show "Interior Chinatown," like the book it's based on, is a funny, dramatic, fantastical take on the role Asian Americans play in pop culture and in real life. And it's a perfect fit for Jimmy O. Yang. A lot of his comedy is about what it means to be Asian in America.

He was born in Hong Kong. His family immigrated to Los Angeles when Jimmy was 13. He found comedy while still in college and started performing in clubs almost every night. His big acting break came in 2014 when he was cast in the HBO comedy "Silicon Valley." Roles in the films "Crazy Rich Asians" and "Patriots Day" were to follow. He has numerous stand-up specials, and he wrote a book called "How To American: An Immigrant's Guide To Disappointing Your Parents." Jimmy O. Yang, welcome to FRESH AIR.

YANG: Thank you so much, Ann Marie. First of all, I'm a big fan. And second of all, I think you should introduce me at every single one of my shows from now on.

BALDONADO: OK. I'll be there.

YANG: That was wonderful. Thank you.

BALDONADO: I want to start by talking about your new show, "Interior Chinatown." I read that when you heard about this project, you felt like you had to get the role of Willis. Why did you feel so strongly about this story?

YANG: Well, first of all, when I first got the script, I knew that it was based on a book. I love reading books, but I get distracted very quickly. And I'm like, oh, man, now I got to read the script and the book. That's a lot of pages. But then I rifled through the book in, like, half a day. It was just so engaging. And I really felt like it spoke to me as an Asian American, as an actor, as an artist and, I think, just as an outsider - as someone who felt like I was always in the background of my life, and I always have to find a way to sneak in.

And I'm like, man, it almost sounded like the book was, like, based on my, you know, climb and struggle in my career, from Willis, you know, being a background guy, which I was, from Willis having a bit part, which I was - I was Chinese Teenager No. 2. You know, I was Person in Line. And to Willis becoming the tech guy, which I was on "Silicon Valley" - so I just really connected to the role. And, of course, the book and the script were so well-written by Charlie Yu. I felt really passionate about it. Rarely a script or something laying on my desk where I felt a personal connection with. And from then on, I was like, man, I got to get this. I got to do this.

BALDONADO: Yeah, the book, "Interior Chinatown, " was written, like you said, by Charles Yu. He's a writer for TV shows as well as a novelist, and he wrote the book and adapted it for TV. Did you talk about his ideas for the book and also the show, like, what he was trying to get across, what frustrations he wanted to address?

YANG: For sure. Before meeting him, I actually listened to a lot of his interviews, talks of his book. And the man is very smart and a deep thinker, you know? And then when I got the part, I started talking to him more and more of what his ambition is about the show and how the book would adapt to the show, which is, first of all, very rare...

BALDONADO: Right.

YANG: ...For a novelist to be the showrunner. But the show actually, I think, goes above and beyond the book. You know, the book has a lot of metaphors and surrealism that the show captures. But at the same time, within the show, it's so grounded in reality. With Willis' parents, you know, he has a strained relationship with his father, which a lot of us Asians know, especially different generations who grew up in different countries - and him and his mother trying to get over the grief of his brother. And of course, you know, just the sheer will and want of someone who's been in the background like Willis Wu, and he wants to do more - he wants to be more and be something else. It's not just an Asian story.

BALDONADO: There are all these ways the show sets up Asian American stereotypes and then subverts them. Like, one example is - it's a small example, but at one point, you know, Willis' character isn't able to enter the police station...

YANG: Yeah.

BALDONADO: ...To work on a case. And he tries, and he just can't get in. But then he gets this idea of pretending to be a delivery guy, and that gets him in so he can start working on the case. And that keeps happening. He becomes all of these background characters - delivery guy, tech guy - and that's just one example. But can you talk about how the show plays with stereotypes like that and tries to invert them?

YANG: Yeah. I think, first of all, like, that scene, it really made me smile when I think about it. It's almost like a old-school physical comedy scene, where Willis, I was trying to get into this door in the police precinct and I can't - like a Monty Python or something, like a sketch. So it made me laugh, and I had a lot of fun doing it. But there's such a deeper meaning on, hey, you don't belong here, you know? And then he had to find a lot of ways to, like, sneak in, which, in a way, I kind of felt like that in my career. I didn't go to Juilliard or NYU, like, a fancy acting school or something like that. I had to do open mics where I paid $5 for five minutes of stage time, and then kind of snuck in by doing some commercials.

Even "Silicon Valley," which you mentioned, I snuck in on that. You know, I had a two-line part as a tech guy, right? And then I had to be funny and subvert people's expectation in order to get a bigger part. And then, you know, 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 accepted it. And in a way, that's even more dangerous at times.

BALDONADO: Right, it's like accepting that you're only good for the background.

YANG: Yeah, in a way, like, or we're only good for this job or that job. You know, like the tagline of the show - the poster of the show is me getting kicked out of a window, you know, and - which is a fun scene. I'm not going to give too much away. But it's break out of your role. That's the tagline of the show. And I thought, it really is that. It's breaking out of the role that society expects you of. It's breaking out of a role that your family expects you of, you know? And we all have that, Asian or not, you know? Like my family expected me to be an engineer, a good student, definitely not a comedian, you know, and an actor. And society expects me to be the model minority, you know? and then I have to prove to myself that this is possible.

BALDONADO: I read that to get into this character, you bought a beat-up Toyota Corolla...

YANG: This is true.

BALDONADO: ...And drove it around town. Why did you decide to do that? And what did you learn?

YANG: Oh, man. That was a very interesting experience. I wouldn't call myself a method actor, but I do find the process of doing certain things for the character very interesting, right? So I was like, Willis has never left Chinatown. He's lived in an SRO all his life, and he's struggled all his life. I've done that, you know? I have drove Uber. I have been a waiter in a restaurant, many things, but that was years ago. So I'm like, let me reexperience some of that, you know? And 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, like, neutral 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. Just the anxiety and the trouble you have to go through to get to work, to get from A to B, was very informative of someone who's struggling.

But then it was interesting. I showed up to work the first day set. I'm the lead of the show. I'm No. 1 on the call sheet, right? 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 your ID? And then I was like - I gave her my ID, and my legal name's a little different. So I was like, oh, just check under Jimmy, and she was 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 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 pull over.

And I was treated so poorly. That really helped me get into character, you know, 'cause I kind of forgot about that, you know? And that's the struggle that Willis and many, many people has been through. And that will, you know, 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.

BALDONADO: Let's take a short break here, and then we'll talk some more. My guest is the actor and stand-up comic, Jimmy O. Yang. His new TV show is "Interior Chinatown," based on the award-winning novel of the same name. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

BALDONADO: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Ann Marie Baldonado, back with stand-up comic and actor Jimmy O. Yang. You may know him from "Silicon Valley" and "Crazy Rich Asians" or from his stand-up specials. Now he stars in the new TV show "Interior Chinatown," based on the award-winning novel of the same name.

I want to ask you about your childhood. You were born in Hong Kong, but your parents were from Shanghai. Can you talk about what that was like when - what you remember about being a kid before you moved to the U.S.?

YANG: There's so much nuance within Chinese culture. With Shanghainese parents, I grew up speaking Shanghainese to them. I still speak Shanghainese to them, which is a local dialect. In Hong Kong, it's its own place, especially when I was growing up. It spoke Cantonese, and Cantonese people love making fun of people speaking Cantonese with an accent, whether it's Shanghainese accent, a Mandarin accent, whatever. So I grew up, even in Hong Kong, like, somewhat foreign because my parents were from Shanghai. Like, my dad will show up to school, pick me up, and they'll call him (speaking Cantonese), which in Cantonese means, you know, the Shanghai guy. You know, they're making fun of him as a foreigner, although he's also Chinese, of course.

So there's cultural differences, even when I was born in Hong Kong, but I think it helped shape my - I don't know - maybe linguistic skills to have to learn Shanghainese at home, to have to learn Cantonese in school and to have to learn Mandarin in between when I was watching, like, Chinese TV shows. Maybe that eased my transition when I moved here to America to learn English.

BALDONADO: Now, your family - your parents, and you and your older brother - immigrated to the U.S. when you were 13.

YANG: Yep.

BALDONADO: Your grandparents, I think, and other relatives were already living in the LA area. What was it like when you first got there and your grandparents lived in Beverly Hills, which you thought would be way fancy. You thought it would be fancy more.

YANG: I think there's so many sides of Beverly Hills. You know, they lived in, like, an apartment in Beverly Hills that wasn't very fancy at all. It was, like, one block away from not being Beverly Hills. And eventually, my dad actually used that address as a fake address to get me into Beverly Hills High School. So I think - I'm telling you this now. I think the statute of limitation is up. I don't think he will go to jail.

BALDONADO: Yeah. They won't revoke your...

YANG: My Beverly Hills certificate. I don't think so. But yeah, you know, it was culture shock, 'cause Hong Kong is a big metropolitan, very vertical city, much like New York. You can walk anywhere. There's life on the streets. There's subways. You don't need a car. Whereas LA is the opposite. Everything is six lanes wide. Everything is concrete, strip malls. You can't walk.

BALDONADO: I think sometimes when immigrants or people of color are growing up, they end up overcompensating. Like, in order to fit in, they become, like, uber, quote-unquote, "American"...

YANG: Yes.

BALDONADO: ...Or try to be extremely mainstream. I think that happens with immigrant kids, kids of immigrants. I know what happened with me at points when I was a kid. Did this happen to you, like, in the interest of belonging or assimilating?

YANG: Absolutely. The one thing that I really loved was hip-hop when I first came to this country. It was so foreign to me in a way, but I was like, wow, this is the most American thing ever. And in high school, I really got into hip-hop. I got into rap. I started making beats. I thought that would, like, make me instead of, like, the weird foreign kid into, like, the cool kind of hip-hop kid. But, of course, it's weird, you know, for me to try to rap, like, you know? But I really kind of dove into that.

And then in college, I went to UC San Diego. It was a big Asian population. But there's also, like, a stoner surfer culture. So I remember I was like, I really got into, like, the stoner culture, thinking that was mainstream America college kid that I want to get behind. And even now, I think unadvertently (ph), like - inadvertently. I can't even talk today.

BALDONADO: Inadvertently.

YANG: I'm sorry. English...

BALDONADO: No, no, it's OK.

YANG: ...Is, like, my fourth language.

BALDONADO: No, we learned that, yes - your fourth or fifth.

YANG: Inadvertently, I'm still doing that, where I am the commissioner of my fantasy football league. I watch every single NFL game. I love drinking a Coors Light on the weekend with my buddies - or five or six, you know, just to be, like, really American. You know, I love very American things. Like, I want to shop for, like, a YETI cooler the other day, and it made me - felt like I fit in, man.

BALDONADO: Yes. What kind of TV and movies did you love as a kid?

YANG: A lot of the American movies growing up in the '90s. It was a lot of action movies - Jean-Claude Van Damme "Bloodsport." That was the go-to Hong Kong movie 'cause they shot part of that in Hong Kong - still one of my favorites - and, of course, the big movies like "Forrest Gump." And my dad was kind of a cinephile, an American cinephile. Like, I remember him watching "Shawshank Redemption," and that had a lasting effect on me. But it's also a lot of local films. For me, it was the comedy of Stephen Chow, Chow Sing-chi, who later found a lot of international fame with "Kung Fu Hustle," "Shaolin Soccer." But I grew up watching him, and he had a deadpan kind of delivery. And it's just so, so funny.

BALDONADO: And then when you moved to the U.S., what kind of stuff were you watching?

YANG: I think on TV, I really gravitated towards comedies at first. The "Chappelle's Show" was a must-watch. You know, if you don't watch it Wednesday, you got nothing to talk about in high school on Thursday. And I think through Chappelle, I got into stand-up comedy. He's still, like, my favorite.

BALDONADO: Now, when you were watching comedy when you were in high school, you didn't think, though, that you wanted to do it yet, did you? Or is that...

YANG: Absolutely not.

BALDONADO: OK.

YANG: No. I didn't even think that was a possibility. I just thought these are what these funny people do on TV. I will probably just go on to be an engineer or doctor or something like that. You know, the roles that the society has assigned you. But I've always had an inkling, like, like, an artistic drive to me. I remember when I was a kid, I'd go to restaurants and, like, with chopstick wrappers or, like, disposable spoons, I, like, built little art pieces. You know, it sounds really silly now. And then my mom would be like, you're messing up the table. Looking at how messy our table is compared to everyone else.

But then now looking back, I'm like, I'm trying to make something. I always want to create something, whether it's with chopstick wrappers or a pen drawing on my arm. And then when I went to college, I studied economics - well, first, I studied mechanical engineering, and then I switched to economics, which was much easier. I just wanted to graduate.

BALDONADO: I think your joke is that economics is the easiest major that you could do that's still acceptable for Asian parents.

YANG: Yeah, that will still appease your Asian parents. Yes. Yeah, yeah, that was the joke in my first stand-up, which is true. You know, I couldn't do, like, I don't know, archaeology. I don't know. I don't know what is, like, communications. I don't think my dad would like that. Economics at least it sounded real, you know? Not to disparage any communication majors out there. So I did 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 'cause I was passionate about it. And then later on, you know, after I graduated, when I was, like, trying to figure myself out, stand-up was just one of many things that I've tried, and it just spoke to me. You know, you can literally create something out of thin air without anyone's permission. And I thought that was very liberating.

BALDONADO: Let's take a short break here, and then we'll talk some more. My guest is the actor and stand-up comic, Jimmy O Yang. His new TV show is "Interior Chinatown," based on the award-winning novel of the same name. More after a break, I'm Ann Marie Baldonado, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF BRIAN TYLER'S "TEXT TING SWING")

BALDONADO: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Ann Marie Baldonado, back with actor and stand-up comedian Jimmy O. Yang. He's the star of the new Hulu series "Interior Chinatown," based on the novel of the same name, which was awarded the National Book Award. The author of the book, Charles Yu, is a TV writer and adapted the book for the screen. It's about what happens when one of the background characters in a TV procedural becomes the main character. Jimmy O. Yang's films include "Crazy Rich Asians" and "Patriots Day." He co-starred in the critically acclaimed HBO comedy series "Silicon Valley." He's had numerous stand-up specials, and his memoir is called "How To American: An Immigrant's Guide To Disappointing Your Parents."

I'm going to ask you about getting into stand-up comedy. In your book, you talk about how comedy clubs ended up being, like, a place where you felt like you belonged and you had community, and people were, like, respectful of your jokes. Like, they helped you work on your material and make your jokes better.

YANG: Yeah, even open mic comics - and we still do that now. It's called giving each other tags. You know, if you have a tag after the punchline that makes the joke better or switching a couple of lines together. You know, I listen to my openers sometimes, and they'll give me great ideas that I didn't think of. And yeah, it was just, like, a sense of community.

And the thing about stand-up, there's no barrier of entry, and you don't have to look a certain way, you know? There's no certain look, like, of a stand-up comedian. It's everyone. And almost it's like the weirder you are, the more like a stand-up 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 stand-up comedy because everybody was on equal footing, you know? 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.

BALDONADO: When was the first time that your parents saw you do stand-up?

YANG: Oh, God.

BALDONADO: And what did they say?

YANG: Jeez. I don't know. I think I invited my dad out to, like, when I finally got a showcase at the Laugh Factory. I don't think he came. And then it was later, way, way, way later, when I was finally doing well and selling tickets in, like, San Francisco, and then I think my dad came. And he loved it - not just for me, but I was talking about him and my set. So, like, he was getting a lot of attention, and people wanted to take pictures of him, too. So I think he liked that.

BALDONADO: Well, it's interesting that originally, you felt that you were disappointing your parents by becoming a comedian and an actor. But now your dad is an actor. I want to play a clip from one of your stand-up specials. It's the special "Good Deal" from 2020, and you're talking about your dad becoming an actor.

(SOUNDBITE OF COMEDY SPECIAL, "JIMMY O. YANG: GOOD DEAL")

YANG: My dad is also an actor, but he started acting after I did. 'Cause he was like, it's so easy you can't do it. I can, OK.

(LAUGHTER)

YANG: I'm, like, Dad, fine. If you think my life's so easy, why don't you go to some open-call auditions, and you'll understand how hard it is, how much rejection I face every day at my job? He was like, OK.

(LAUGHTER)

YANG: And he went to all these auditions, and he started booking everything.

(LAUGHTER)

YANG: It's a true story. He got on this show in China, in mainland China, called "Little Daddy," "Xiao Ba Ba." Half a billion people watch that show. It's like the "Big Bang Theory" of China, and Richard blew up. And he was like, this is easy. I don't know.

(LAUGHTER)

YANG: My plan completely backfired. And my aunt in Shanghai - she watched the show, and she would call the house in LA. And she's like, congratulations, Richard. You're such a good actor. Did your son teach you how to act? And he's like, no, no, I'm a natural.

(LAUGHTER)

YANG: Oh, that's very good. You and your son - same business, you know? You two are very funny. He's like, no, no, Jimmy's not funny.

(LAUGHTER)

YANG: I'm like, Dad, that's bull****, OK? You got one good role. Good for you. I'm happy for you. But you're not a real actor yet. Real actors - we got to cry. We got to laugh. Do you even know how to cry in front of a camera? He was like, yes. I just think about how much you suck at pingpong.

(LAUGHTER)

BALDONADO: That's a clip from Jimmy O. Yang's stand-up special. So how did it actually happen that he became an actor?

YANG: Exactly that. He - I think he has always want 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, you know? And apparently, there's a lack of older Asian guys in the talent pool. And he started, like, booking a lot of stuff. And he is naturally very good and a very charismatic guy. So he's doing it. If you guys need an older Asian dad in your movie, call Richard Ouyang.

BALDONADO: So there's one time where you actually took a role from your father. It was for the show "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia." How did that happen?

YANG: Oh. Wow. You're - man, you did your research. I forgot about that. I did. We did have the same agent in back then. And they were looking for, like, a Chinese scientist that they imagined to be older. I was quite young, and I looked quite young also at the time. So I think my dad got the audition first. And it was a lot of pages. It was a pretty juicy guest star role. And I think he or my agent said, I don't know. I just don't know if he's ready for this. Why don't you try it? And then I tried it, and I went in, and I booked the job. But I was very afraid to call him and be like, hey, Dad. Sorry, you know? I finally told him. He was like, oh, yeah, yeah. No, no, you were great at that. It was good. That was your job. So I was like, oh, that's nice.

BALDONADO: And then you did end up getting your dad a job years later when you were in the film "Patriots Day."

YANG: Yeah. That's how he got his SAG card. I think with everything I do, especially when it comes to language, Cantonese, Mandarin, I want it to be very authentic. But on "Patriots Day," they hired someone to play my dad. It was just a simple FaceTime call. And this might sound, you know, weird to you guys, but, like, I hope it makes sense. Like, the dad 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 will notice except Chinese speakers, but it's weird to me.

And then Peter - and the story in "Patriots Day" was based on real people. So he's like, no, no, we got to get this right. We got to make it authentic. Why don't you sit in a couple of auditions with me? I'm like, OK, I can do that, or you can just hire my dad, you know? He's great. He's acted in a few commercials and things like that, and he speaks perfect Mandarin. And he's like, done - done deal, boom. And then the next day, my dad flew to Boston, and he played my dad in "Patriots Day." And that's how he got his SAG card.

BALDONADO: What is it like working with your dad?

YANG: (Laughter).

BALDONADO: Have you also had conversations - I mean, now you're both actors. Do you talk about acting?

YANG: We do, and I keep telling him to take acting classes because he's naturally - he's got great instincts, and he's really charismatic. But he's like, I'm too old to learn - da, da - whatever. But I think there's a fear of him, like - he's afraid of failure, you know? So he doesn't want to go take a bunch of acting classes and then fail. That means he's not good. So he just likes stuff that comes easy to him, and he loves the accolade. In a way, I think he is much more attention-seeking than me. And he loves taking selfies and being on, you know, social media. I had to make him put his Instagram on private. It was getting too wild.

But he loves all that stuff. And in a way, at first, I found it kind of like - I'm like, man, like, he's, like, kind of overstepping into my world that I created for myself, you know? Like, what is this nepo daddy business? You know, I don't like it, you know? 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?

Like, I did a Toyota commercial with him, and we were out in the woods in Colorado. And even just the four-hour car ride there from the airport and stuff like that, we shared so many father and son stories that usually we don't get to talk about. So I felt that was, like, really nice, so I'm taking the good with the bad. Like, I think everything else, like - if he wants to take a selfie with my costars or whatever? Great. Let him do it. Who cares? He's not bothering anyone. But I think the father and son bond and that extra connection, you can't recreate that, and I'm grateful for that.

BALDONADO: What a gift do you have that you're getting to forge this, like, different kind of relationship with your Asian dad.

YANG: (Laughter) I know, right?

BALDONADO: How many of us would've killed for that (laughter)?

YANG: I know. And I think, to go back a little bit to "Interior Chinatown, " there's a unspoken love between family, especially Asian family members, but we don't ever say I love you. Like, there's a scene in the pilot you see. Like, Willis has such a strained relationship with his father. You can tell there's a deep love. But there's also so much stubbornness and stuff, and the relationship has deteriorated. And I think at times in my life, I felt like we don't talk enough, and I can't get myself to talk about the sensitive stuff to my father. But now I feel like, because we're doing this, I'm able to have more of an open conversation with him. And it's such a blessing that I think a lot of people would've missed that opportunity, you know, and myself included.

BALDONADO: Let's take a short break here, and then we'll talk some more. My guest is the actor and stand-up comic Jimmy O. Yang. His new TV show is "Interior Chinatown," based on the award-winning novel of the same name. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

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BALDONADO: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Ann Marie Baldonado, back with stand-up comic and actor Jimmy O. Yang. You may know him from "Silicon Valley" and "Crazy Rich Asians," or from his stand-up specials. Now he stars in the new TV show "Interior Chinatown," based on the award-winning novel of the same name.

Mike Judge wrote an introduction to your book, your memoir, "How To American." And you are friends, of course. He cocreated "Silicon Valley," which was the show that you costarred and was kind of your big acting break. And in the introduction, he says that when they cast you, he didn't know that you weren't exactly like your character. Can you describe your character and how you approached auditioning for that show?

YANG: I mean, it's a comedy show, so it has to be funny. But I think, to me, whenever the funniest happens, whether it's onstage or on the screen, it's when somebody said, oh, that seems so real, you know? It has to be based on authenticity. So I just felt like I knew this guy, whether he's an amalgamation based on people I knew myself when I first came to this country or some of my uncles with that very specific Mandarin accent. I walked into an audition with, like, sock sandals and, like, you know, a really - like, I think a T-shirt with, like, chemical bonds on it. I just felt like I knew this guy.

And then when I got the job and I showed up on set, one of the first discussions me and Mike had, once again, it was about authenticity. I was like, Mike, I want to do a Mandarin accent for this character. I feel like that'll make more sense. He should be from mainland China instead of Hong Kong. And he was like, I don't know the difference. Just do it both ways, and then we'll figure it out. And that's how I kind of landed in the body of that character, was based on my own observations of myself, being, you know, an immigrant, and also people that I've seen and I've been around, whether in Hong Kong or in China.

BALDONADO: I think, you know, when the show was just starting, there may have been some criticism that they got a lot of jokes out of your character having this fresh-off-the-boatness. But I think that changed after your character developed over the course of the show. Can you talk about how it felt at the beginning and sort of what it became?

YANG: In the beginning, I was just trying to get a job. You know, like I said, there's not a lot of jobs going around. And then, yeah, I did see some, you know, writers write about it, and a lot of it was Asian American writers. And I don't know. It didn't feel good, right?

BALDONADO: Right.

YANG: But at the same time, I'm like, well, what am I supposed to do? You just want me to not work? I can just quit? And then you wouldn't even have me at all. But I remember approaching the role always from authenticity, from a realness, and not just making a caricature but making a real human out of this person. And then, as the season transformed and grew, and his character grew, he went from just being the foreign guy to being kind of, like, the one that always got under this guy, T.J. Miller's character, skin, who was such a bully, you know? So he's like the antibully, and then he himself becomes the bully, which is - I thought it was pretty cool. And it's not about the accent necessarily. It was about him being more and more three-dimensional of a character.

BALDONADO: In your book, you write sort of about this topic - that you've talked to Asian American actors who won't even audition for a role if it has an Asian accent because they think that it reinforces the stereotype of Asians being, like, a constant foreigner. But you disagree. Can you talk about what you mean?

YANG: Yeah. I think I have a slightly different perspective than people that are born here in America 'cause I get it. It's very unfair to have that constant foreigner stereotype. And it is something that we internalize. But I live in a weird in-between where I was actually a foreigner. So how can I, you know, lie to myself and be like, no, this person's lame because he was foreign? I was foreign, man, you know?

And I remember when I first came to the country, sure, I kind of expected, you know, white people, Black people, Latinos to kind of not accept me, you know, in a way. But it was kind of sad that, you know, even Koreans and Chinese people who were born here - ABCs, American-born Chinese - like, 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. So that felt kind of sad.

So in a way, I always have a soft spot for immigrant, foreign characters and outsiders, especially even an outsider within Asians. And I think it's a weird policy to say, oh, I don't play anybody with an accent. Now, OK, at this point in my career, I could choose to do certain things, not do certain things based on, artistically, do I feel passionate about this or not? But any day of the week, if, say, the Danny Meng (ph) character from "Patriots Day" come on my desk, I would love to do it. You know, the guy was awesome, and he's amazing, and he just happened to be an immigrant that had a thick accent. And I think doing those kind of roles are just as important, if not more at times.

BALDONADO: In the first episode of "Interior Chinatown," there's a fight scene, a huge fight scene. And, you know, the trope of, you know, kung fu guy, that kind of character that Asians play in pop culture - that's also part of the show. But what was it like training to do those fight scenes to be an action hero?

YANG: It was interesting because in the book and also in the script of the pilot, Willis is supposed to have trained in kung fu all his life, but he's not supposed to be very good. So how do you play that? So then I don't - I wasn't sure if the producer was going to have me train in kung fu, but I'm like, guys, in order for me to look bad at kung fu, I have to be pretty good to at least understand the language of kung fu. It's like learning a new language in a way, right? I've never done martial arts in my life.

So I had a trainer, Danny. He was - Danny Ma. He's awesome. And I trained with him two, three times a week in Wing Chun, hitting the dummy, doing the basics so at least I can look right in the form. And also, martial arts - it's a language. It's a culture in itself. You want to get in that mentality. It's like driving the Toyota Corolla. I want to get into Willis' mentality, somebody who's trained in martial arts all his life. And then I can still not be very good when it comes to the fight, you know?

So that was how I was able to make it real. But it was also very interesting. Growing up in Hong Kong, kung fu was so prevalent and such a thing that you see on TV and in real life. And, of course, being Asian American, you know, people almost expect you to know how to do kung fu, and I don't know how to do any of it. So this kind of filled up a big void in my life and in my culture. Now at least I can say I can hit a wooden dummy Wing Chun style and I'm pretty OK.

BALDONADO: Finally.

YANG: Finally. You know, in middle school, kids who used to, like, make fun of me when I first came to the country and they, like, you know, bully me and, like, talk trash, whatever - but that's how I learned to defend myself with comedy. I would talk back. But one time, this kid got to me. And I don't know what, like, got into me, right? I just full-on did turn around, did a roundhouse kick to his stomach, jumped up, karate chopped him in the back of the neck. And this has - this was me with no martial arts training at 13 years old. And I just watched enough martial arts films growing up.

And then all his friends got so freaked out, and they're like, yo. Don't mess with him. That's Bruce Lee, man. And I was like, hey. You know, if that's a stereotype and that's a stereotype that's going save me from getting bullied, I'll take it. I will be Bruce Lee for you.

BALDONADO: Jimmy O. Yang, congrats on the TV show, and thanks for joining us.

YANG: Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.

MOSLEY: Jimmy O. Yang speaking with FRESH AIR's Ann Marie Baldonado. His new TV series, "Interior Chinatown," premieres tomorrow on Hulu. Coming up, film critic Justin Chang reviews "All We Imagine As Light." This is FRESH AIR.

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TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Earlier this year, "All We Imagine As Light" became the first Indian movie in three decades to compete at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Grand Prize. Our film critic Justin Chang says it's a luminous and affecting story about the friendship between two Mumbai-based women. Here's Justin's review of "All We Imagine As Light."

JUSTIN CHANG, BYLINE: The gorgeously enveloping new drama "All We Imagine As Light" opens on a warm, muggy evening in Mumbai. You feel immediately transported, caught up in the bustle and flow as young men stack crates on the sidewalk, older women sell food in open-air markets and commuter trains rattle their way across a glimmering cityscape. Over the scene, we hear the voices of unidentified locals talking about how invigorating but also how draining life in the city can be. It can be especially overwhelming for the many who moved here from distant villages, leaving their families behind.

The writer and director Payal Kapadia, who was born in Mumbai herself, made her first feature a few years ago with "A Night Of Knowing Nothing," a documentary that blended fiction and nonfiction elements. In a way, "All We Imagine As Light," her first dramatic feature, also blurs the boundaries. Some of the stories we hear in that opening sequence were drawn from interviews with actual Mumbai residents, and Kapadia introduces us to her two leads so deftly and casually that it takes us a while to even realize that they are, in fact, the leads.

One of them is a woman named Prabha, who works as a head nurse at a hospital. The other is a younger nurse at the hospital named Anu. Prabha and Anu are roommates and about as different as can be. Anu, played by Divya Prabha, is flirty, fun loving and a little impetuous. Prabha, played by Kani Kusruti, is quieter and more responsible. She's the one who does most of the cooking and reluctantly agrees to cover the rent when Anu comes up short. Even so, there's a real sisterly warmth to Anu and Prabha's relationship. And the more they get to know each other, the more their similarities, as well as their differences, come into focus.

Both Prabha and Anu came to Mumbai from the southern state of Kerala, and while they rarely see their families back home, both are still governed by strict expectations, especially of their romantic lives. Anu is dating a young man named Shiaz, and because he's Muslim and she isn't, she must keep their relationship a secret. Prabha, meanwhile, has a husband who moved to Germany some time ago for work. She's barely heard from him since and fears that their marriage, which was arranged by their parents is long over.

"All We Imagine As Light," in other words, is about a lot of things. It's about the distances people travel to make ends meet. The difficulty of calling anywhere your home and the way a populous city can feel like the loneliest place in the world. It's about how Mumbai looks and feels during the monsoon season when the rain turns the city into a warm, shimmery blur. Crucially, too, it's about solidarity between women as they extend to each other the empathy and understanding that society denies them.

At a key turning point, Prabha and Anu support an older hospital colleague, Parvaty, who's being forced out of her longtime apartment by greedy developers. Gender inequality is at least partly to blame. Parvaty was widowed not long ago, and any property rights she has seem to have died along with her husband. Parvaty decides to move back to her coastal home village, and Prabha and Anu come along to help.

The effect on "All We Imagine As Light" is startling. It's a shock to suddenly find ourselves on a sunny beach, far from rainy, crowded Mumbai. It's enough to make Prabha and Anu wonder, do they belong in the rural villages where they grew up or in the city that has adopted them? And what does home even mean if they can't be with the men they love? Kapadia is too emotionally honest a storyteller to supply concrete answers to these questions. Instead, her filmmaking becomes ever more sensual, harrowing and dreamlike as it ushers these women to a beautiful moment of recognition of how much they care for and need each other. Society has placed no shortage of obstacles in their way, but friendship in this wonderful movie can be its own powerful act of resistance.

MOSLEY: Justin Chang is a film critic at The New Yorker. He reviewed "All We Imagine As Light." Next time on FRESH AIR, Selena Gomez joins me to talk about her role in the musical melodrama "Emilia Perez." In it, she plays the wife of a brutal Mexican drug cartel leader who desires to live another life. Selena and I also talk about her musical career and her relationship with her co-stars Martin Short and Steve Martin in the Hulu series "Only Murders In The Building." I hope you can join us.

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MOSLEY: To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram @NPRFreshAir. FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our senior producer today is Therese Madden. Our technical director is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer is Adam Staniszewski. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producers are Molly Seavy-Nesper and Sabrina Siewert. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tonya Mosley.

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