Bowen Yang's 'Wicked' White Lie

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This is Fresh Air.

I'm Terry Gross.

We've been hoping to get Bowen Yang on our show for a long time, and today it's actually happening.

The timing is great.

He's nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his performances as a cast member of Saturday Night Live.

This is his fourth time being nominated.

The first time was in 2021 for his first year as a performer.

He started on the show as a writer.

Back in 2016, a couple of years before he joined SNL, he and his good friend Matt Rogers started the podcast Las Culturistas, which is on Time Magazine's recent list of 100 best podcasts ever.

That show features Bowen and Matt giving their take on what's happening in pop culture and what's happening in their lives.

In 2022, they started doing a mock award show, the Las Culturistas Culture Awards, which Rogers has described as a comedy show disguised as an award show.

Earlier this month, the ceremony was televised for the first time on Bravo, and it was one of the most entertaining award shows I've ever seen.

It's streaming now on Peacock.

More about that later.

Bowen also starred in the movies Fire Island, this year's remake of the wedding banquet, and he was in Wicked.

Bowen Yang's parents are Chinese immigrants.

His father is from a remote region of Inner Mongolia.

Bowen flew there right after the Last Culturistas Award Show.

We'll get to that later too.

Bowen is the first Asian-American cast member of SNL and the third openly gay male cast member.

Some of the characters he's known for are the Chinese trade representative, Kim Jong-un, George Santos, the Chinese spy balloon, and the iceberg that sank the Titanic.

The premise of a couple of his sketches is that he's not really gay, he just pretends to be gay on SNL for the klout.

In one of the most talked-about sketches of this year, he played Vice President J.D.

Vance at that contentious White House meeting with President Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and Senator Marco Rubio, when Trump and Vance kept interrupting Zelensky, accusing Zelensky of interrupting them, of being disrespectful, and of not showing his gratitude to the U.S.

It's It's the same sketch in which Mike Myers made an appearance as Elon Musk with his chainsaw.

Here's an excerpt with Mikey Day as Zelensky, Bowen Yang as J.D.

Vance, and James Austin Johnson as Trump speaks first.

President Zelensky, you want to say a few words?

Maybe tell Mr.

Putin how much you love him and that you're sorry you invaded Russia.

Maybe offer him one night with your wife.

Mr.

President, with all due respect.

Excuse me?

I'm sorry, what?

I'm sorry, I have to jump in here because that's how we planned this.

What happened to thank you, okay?

Remember, thank you?

You haven't said thank you to us once in the past 15 seconds.

I've been yelling at you.

I've said thank you.

You didn't say it now,

but you didn't say it now.

When you walked in here, you didn't say thank you.

You didn't say anything about us being handsome.

We're my handsome little boys.

You didn't ask us that once.

Look, he's right.

And we're very handsome, okay?

Bo Yang, welcome to fresh air.

I laugh every time I hear that.

You are so much fun in that.

How did you get cast as Vance, and how did you approach playing him?

Well, first of all, it's lovely to be here.

And I want to say that my delay in arriving at the show is not for lack of interest or not because of my aloofness, my natural aloofness.

I've been wanting to be here for a very long time, so it's really nice to be here.

How did I get cast as Vance?

This was about a year ago in August,

right when the season was starting up.

Lauren had reached out and sort of had his

plan for how he wanted to cast the main players in the general election.

And

I was pretty resistant at first.

And after a few more conversations, I think I dutifully acquiesced.

And then I kind of went about it in the most

child of immigrants way, where I like hired a dialect coach.

And I requested a screen test where I tried out different contact lenses because I felt like so much of J.D.

Vance's sort of visual eeriness was in his eyes.

And I was like, we have to get that down.

And then we tried facial hair options.

And I, you know, I, I took it as like a serious charge, which may or may not have been the right way to go about it.

But it's been an interesting journey.

It's funny that you hired a voice coach because like J.D.

Vance is like so filled with anger.

Right.

And when I hear you, you sound sound like really bitchy.

I can't help it.

I think that's that's my own little wink through like whatever characterization I try to like cover this self with.

Like, you know, I do have to say, like, I am, I don't have the impressionist's ear the way that someone like James Austin Johnson does, who every time he approaches someone, as in he does an impression of them, it's just this exquisite pastiche of all of their qualities, doubtless to this very caricaturish, you know, maximum.

But I feel like, I don't know, I kind of maybe got overwhelmed by it.

Aaron Trevor Barrett,

when you were in high school, you got a senior superlative, something I've never heard of before,

as most likely to be on SNL.

So what is a senior superlative?

But the main question is, did you want to be on SNL when you were in high school?

And did everybody know that?

Well, a senior superlative,

just like you're most likely twos.

Most likely to.

Most likely to succeed.

Yeah, yeah.

Those things.

And then I think our class kind of embellished the language a little bit.

Instead of like class clown, they put the verbiage of most likely to be on SNL.

And it was, I think it's totally incidental.

It's like

their way of calling me like a hammy kid, basically, which I was.

I never, ever, ever set my sights on SNL, but I was only the most enthusiastic fan.

I would bring VHS tapes to school to like put them in.

I mean, kids, there were these things called tapes and you'd, you know, you would play them and

I would just bring those in and just like show people when there was like a substitute teacher in class one day or something.

Well, like, hey, I brought like this past weekend's SNL if people want to watch it.

And somehow these teachers let me play it like a handful of times and I can't believe I got away with it.

But I was just very

granularly obsessed with comedy and with SNL especially.

Something else in high school, you were named Homecoming King.

So I figure either it was a very gay-friendly school or you were very successful at staying in the closet.

I would say

yes to the first part, definitely no to the second part, not successful at all.

I think

there's this like common

trend among a lot of queer men my age.

who end up in some like communications forward position, whether it's like they are the hosts of shows or they're actors or they're writers or they, you know, are somewhat public facing.

Like a lot of us did the morning announcements and a lot of us were in the homecoming court.

And so I don't know what that says about a certain type of like gregarious gay male growing up in the aughts, but I feel proud to be in that cohort of people.

This is a thing, I'm telling you, Terry.

Okay.

Tell us what your auditions were like, because I know you auditioned several times for Saturday Night Live.

Yeah.

I mean, I shudder to watch them now.

And they even did this thing where they were

making documentaries in the lead up to the 50th anniversary.

And they played my auditions to me and filmed my reactions.

And it's, I'm stomping my foot.

Like, I have this visceral.

response to like not wanting to watch like that version of myself, like the person who, before he went down the chute of working at SNL, had no idea what the show was looking for.

And I think, and I think I sort of have to have to reevaluate that because that person is special.

Like he has something.

He has gumption to like just throw whatever at the wall and see what sticks.

Whereas now I feel like so much more prudent in my ideas.

I have fewer of them, it seems.

But back then, just because it was your first round was five minutes of characters and impressions.

And my manager at the time said, you should put in a tape.

And I, on a lark, I said, Sure.

I mean, they'll never hire an effeminate Asian man for that show.

And

I just

called up my buddy one day, Doug Weidick.

I went to his basement in Williamsburg, and I put on all these different wigs and hats and just ran through five minutes of characters and impressions.

Michiko Kakutani was one of my impressions.

It was really esoteric.

I was like, That's what I was going to say.

Like,

she was the New York Times book critic.

How many people really know who the New York Times book critic is?

Right.

And I think I was probably

leaning into it or counting on it being like, okay, the joke here is so hyperspecific that at least you know, like, as an audience, like, what the perspective is.

The point of view is like, okay, this is someone who, you know, is going to use the word limb in an oppression.

You know what I mean?

And I actually met her recently.

And she's,

oh, she knew.

And she was so, I was so starstruck to meet her and she's just this really

sweet lovely person who for a long time like commanded the way books were sold.

I mean it was it was just incredible to meet her and you know we talked about this and I mean my portrayal of her because she had only been photographed twice before

and there was no like vocal recording of her speaking like I took that as

an open interpretation of like what she would sound like.

So I like really leaned into like like this like aggressive, bullish person who was just tearing into Toni Morrison for whatever reason, you know, even though,

even though that's, you know, not what she did, but I, I, I just had fun with it.

And, you know, it was me like calling Jonathan Franz in a hack or something.

Like these are things that like Michigo Kakutani would never have done.

And I cleared all these rounds and then auditioned the first year in 2017, made it all the way to the Lauren meetings, did a callback where they tell you, okay, now come up with five more minutes of new material.

And it's like when an artist releases a sophomore album, it's like, well, the first album is what their whole life had led up to at that point.

And now you have to like ask them to do something new in terms of output.

And, you know, I had to really dip back into the well and there wasn't much water in there.

And so it was multiple rounds of that, you know, one year of not getting it.

coming back another summer, doing another few rounds, and finally getting hired to write there, which was very fun.

I think, like, some of the cast members have a hard time at first figuring out who they are on the show, where they fit in, what kind of characters they'll be best for, getting people to write for them and write in ways that the new cast members approve of.

What was it like for you figuring out, like, where did you fit in?

What sketches would you be best at?

Who were you on the show?

Yeah, I think my first season of writing on the show was probably so helpful in terms of understanding all of these non-verbal cues.

And I think learning the ropes and taking my lumps that first season where, you know, as a writer, you would have to sit next to Lauren each week and have him give notes on your sketch at dress rehearsal.

You know, you really develop this.

internal sense of, okay, I understand how the show works in this very

underpinned way.

That instinct will sort of guide you towards how to succeed on the show on both your own terms and on the writer's and Lauren's terms and on the audience's terms, most importantly.

And I really credit that first season that Lauren has told me since, like, was the intention.

He was just like, I wasn't going to put you out there without a paddle.

Like, you're going to be scrutinized in a very different way.

And I was not going to set you up for failure.

Right.

So in one of the 50th anniversary shows, you and Andy Samberg do a number that's about how everyone at SNL has anxiety.

And we also have IBS, irritable bowel symbols.

And I believe that that could be literally true.

So how do you deal with your anxiety when the show is in season?

And

it seemed like there's at least one, maybe two nights that are basically all nighters.

And then you have to perform live.

And you never know if your sketch is going to be cut or shortened at the last minute.

It feels like a lot.

Although it's not on every week, so there are, you know, a reasonable number of breaks.

Sure.

And those breaks are still not enough, I would say.

Like, I think everyone has this shared thing when we are in the season where we come back from those breaks and we're like, gosh, I was just getting back on my feet.

And here I am, like

about to get knocked down again.

Like, it is a very,

no matter what, no matter if you're succeeding or if you are struggling in some way, which is the universal SNL experience, as Andy really poetically rendered in that sketch, like I think that

you just have to develop some kind of emotional regulation, and that is a very hard thing to ask comedians to do.

Part of the reason why we become comedians is because we are dysregulated emotionally, right?

And like our way of sort of exercising something or just rationalizing something that we're going through is to do comedy about it.

But on top of the generative thing that we're doing at SNL, which is to write comedy, like it is just a very high-stakes situation that

I wasn't sure for a while, like

what the upside was.

I was like, okay, it's great that I'm on TV, but also like, I have no personal life.

I don't see my friends.

You know, I can't take opportunities opportunities that come during the season.

Like, I don't know how this balances out.

And then when we were doing the culture awards this year, our director was Liz Patrick, who's also our wonderful director at SNL.

A lot of SNL alums in terms of the production staff and the producers and the writers were from

SNL around the time that I was there.

And I realized in

the weeks leading up to the award show, I was like, oh, this is what SNL gives you in terms of like a boon or something.

Like you know how to handle a million different stimuli from a million different directions and you can manage that.

Aaron Powell, so this has

been a pretty tumultuous time for you because you're nominated for an Emmy.

The Last Culture Reesta's Culture Awards were just shown, you know,

in August, early in August.

And right after that, you flew to China, to like inner Mongolia, where your father is from.

So, how are you feeling?

I feel like the tumult has subsided, and I know that that is sort of in horror movie rules.

That just means that it is about to come up again.

Like, you know, the killer's going to jump out the pantry or something.

Not that there's a killer.

Like, you know, don't drop your shoulders just yet.

I mean, it's fine.

I think I'm a little bit wired for it, which is not necessarily healthy, but I feel okay.

I mean, the China trip was really special and not what I expected.

And it was a trip that we took all the time growing up.

And then since my sister and I have gone off to college, and this was about 17 years ago, like those trips have been a little bit more infrequent.

But it is always just a really nice check-in with myself, with my family, obviously.

And

I really cherish those journeys.

I want to get back to that in a few minutes.

Sure.

First, I want to talk with you about your Las Culturistas podcast with with Matt Rogers.

So to give a sense of what the podcast is like or what it was originally supposed to be like,

I'm going to play the beginning of the first episode, which is from March

19th, 2016.

And the subject of this episode was the Grammys.

So it's you and Matt Rogers.

Aye, yeah, yeah.

Ding-dong!

Hello, everybody.

This is the Las Culturistas podcast.

I'm Matt Rogers.

I'm Bowen Yang.

And yes, we are Las Culturistas.

What that means is we are your culture consultants.

We are out here to improve culture.

We're here to heighten culture.

We're here to talk about the big cultural events that you see happening on your television screens, on your laptops, on your mobile phones.

On so many.

We're in a three-screen world.

Yeah, let me tell you.

And look, Matt put this very eloquently a few moments ago.

But off the record, he said, we're going to attack culture.

We're going to improve culture.

And we're going to irrigate culture.

This attack on your senses right now, what this is, is Matt and Bowen's Lost Culture Resources podcast.

What we're doing is we're talking about big things that you've seen, like the Grammys,

the Oscars,

the Super Bowl, maybe some debates happening, election season.

We're talking about big, big, big-ass events that you're all talking about.

We're talking about talking about them too.

And let me tell you, we've got notes.

We've got notes, honey.

We've got some feedback that is constructive and and sometimes destructive.

Oh, absolutely.

Honey, we are not limiting this to events either.

We are going after some cultural institutions.

Yeah, like today, we're really coming for the music industry.

Honey, the music industry is a monolith.

And we're not afraid.

I'm not afraid.

To speak truth to power.

I mean, my voice is at a whole different octave.

Wow.

I heard you groaning.

I was groaning.

So what else were you groaning about?

This is, well, this is very similar to when they were showing me my audition from, you know, eight years ago.

This is the thing.

Like, these are all a series of larks.

Like, you know, we never thought that the podcast would get any listenership.

I mean, this kind of summarizes the whole premise of the podcast.

It's just two friends talking to each other.

It was just an excuse for Matt and I to have a play date every week.

We pitched this network.

All these ideas that were very high concept, we settled on the one that was the lowest concept, which was just a pop culture podcast, two people talking.

But we just somehow watched it grow.

And the same goes for the awards.

So the awards kind of budded out of this one summer, I think in 2021, when we didn't have a guest booked that week, and that was not a common thing at the time.

And so we just kind of made a stream of consciousness list of nominees and categories for theoretical Las Culturistas Culture Awards.

And this awards

things from all over the tapestry of human experience, from theme park attractions to breakfast foods to scenes from 90s television to clothing.

Like, you know, it was just completely maximalist and global and overwhelming.

It's meant to

be nonsensical almost.

And

we put that out, announced that we were going to declare the winners.

Didn't happen.

And so then one year, we threw an outdoor show and it was free.

We were overwhelmed by the crowds.

We had to turn people away.

And so then from that first year, we were like, okay, so the goal is to get this televised so that everyone can, you know, opt into this.

All right.

Time to introduce you again.

If you're just joining us, my guest is Bowen Yang, and he's nominated for an Emmy for his performances as a cast member of SNL.

And he also co-hosts the podcast Las Culturistas.

We'll be right back after this break.

I'm Terry Gross and this is Fresh Air.

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This is a question you often ask people on the podcast.

Like, what was the moment that they realized that like culture was their thing?

So, how did you become obsessed with pop culture?

I was obsessed with pop culture as a closeted Canadian kid who then moved to the States and had to sort of

reacclimate to this new culture.

It was this big shock to move from Quebec to Colorado, where I was speaking primarily French at school and Mandarin in the house.

And then, you know, suddenly I had to fast track to English.

I mean, pop culture was this expedited way for me to like

get on board with what people were talking about at school, like and what people were talking about at a birthday party or like the shows that we would watch when we would have play dates or something like that.

You know, I say this, like SNL was this crash course in pop culture for me every week.

But, you know, the thing that made me love culture was the way that it gets digested, which happens to be what SNL kind of is.

And, you know, I was going to bring this up earlier when we were talking about the awards.

Like Matt and I, we get this question asked, you know, in this inverted way when we're talking to people, they ask us, what was the culture that made you guys say culture was for you?

And then both of our answers are in the 1998 Oscars, where, you know, it was Billy Crystal hosting, it was James Cameron doing, I'm the King of the World, you know, it was

just the culmination of the year, which felt dominated by Titanic.

And it was all funneled into this one night where Billy Crystal was doing song and dance numbers and where the pageantry of showbiz was kind of like almost grotesquely on display.

And so like that was just, it was intoxicating to a child.

And it kind of is this you know poetic thing where we've gotten to do like our version of that in our adulthood

did you have to hide any of your pop culture from your parents because they would have considered it like too adult or just too like immoral right I didn't have to

too much

because SNL was hard to explain to them or they would just be like okay well at least he's staying in on a Saturday night you know like they didn't mind that too much I mean the only thing that I ever had to hide was a hardcover copy of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants because it was my sister's book.

And obviously she was allowed to like that, but it was cultural contraband for a teenage boy like me to have any interest in that.

And so I just remember loving reading those books and then hiding it under my bed.

You know, it was like that was the kind of cultural smuggling that I was doing in my own house.

As if it was pornography.

As if it was pornography.

And by the way, I mean, wow,

pre-smartphone days, I was having a sexual awakening to classical art books.

And I highly recommend today's youth to go about it the same way because you were learning about art and you were, you know, figuring yourself out.

And I don't think the kids have that anymore.

What were a couple of the TV shows?

or music or books that really meant the most to you in your formative years?

I mean, I would say SNL and Mad TV for sure.

I was really big into

Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives.

This was like the really imperial phase of ABC primetime television.

You know, I've said in the past, Sandra O kind of confused me occupationally because I was like, I'm obsessed with her.

I guess I'll become a doctor.

And then

after graduating with a chemistry degree in pre-med, I was like, wait, I made a mistake.

I actually wanted to be someone who was on TV.

And so, you know, that was such a weird like garbling of the signal.

But I mean, you know, I loved those shows.

I loved being more curious about the craft of writing because, you know, there would be like Shonda Rhimes podcasts even back then about like, this is what we were thinking and going through in the writer's room for this episode.

I mean, it opened the door to all of these other

particulars about how TV was made.

And I mean, I was watching The Simpsons and Seinfeld on syndication, and I feel like

I cherish this like three S's thing that a lot of like comedy nerds sort of hone in on, which is Simpsons Seinfeld SNL.

And those writers kind of rotate

were used to rotate

around those shows in the 90s.

And I kept tabs on like who wrote where, and I

just really kind of like nerded out on like the brainier aspects of comedy, which I'm lucky that I was exposed to at a certain age.

Let me reintroduce you again.

If you're just joining us, my guest is Bowen Yang.

He's nominated for an Emmy for his performances as a cast member of SNL.

We'll be right back.

This is Fresh Air.

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You were wondering lately if you'd gotten too personal on the podcast, Las Culturistas, in which you talk about pop culture and you and your co-host Matt Rogers share stories about your lives.

I'd love to hear how you draw and then redraw the line between what's public and what's private.

Like I know for myself, I'm always questioning myself

before I get interviewed.

Like, what do I want to share and what's really too private to share?

And I know the interview will probably be more interesting if I share more, but part of me just wants to stay private, which is strange considering that as the interviewer, I want people to tell me anything that they're comfortable telling me, the more the better.

So, you know, as somebody who is an increasingly public figure, does the line keep shifting?

And where is it now?

Whether or not I want the line to shift, I think it's not relevant anymore.

I think people

have probably

learned most of what there is to learn about me.

So it's too late.

It's too late, Terry.

And so you can probe away.

I just,

I mean, now like I have these

light red lines, these like pink lines on like what I don't want to talk about just in

any kind of public interview or any kind of public way where I'm like, oh, I think people have heard about my experience with, let's say, conversion therapy a million times, or people know about the struggle I was going through when I was shooting Wicked in terms of the travel back and forth.

And mostly I'm concerned with, like, okay, how many times have I like played this track?

You know what I mean?

Like, I don't ever want to be on a loop.

And that is the thing that I think maybe entraps some people, certainly myself.

If I keep playing the same thing over and over again, out loud or in my head, I feel like I get a little bit caged by it.

Like it calcifies around me in a way that makes me go, well, this is the definitive thing about me.

The definitive thing about me is that I have mental health struggles.

Who doesn't?

The definitive thing about me is that I, you know, don't know what the line is in terms of sharing my personal life even.

Not to get too meta about it.

But I feel like I just

And you're so good at this too.

It's like we just want to excavate something and peel back something that is somewhat new, that hasn't really been exposed before.

And I think I'm just in search of that constantly.

It's not that I don't want to talk about things.

It's that I want to figure out what else there is.

Aaron Powell.

But it's there's value in it.

There's value in sharing.

I mean, that's what I believe as an interviewer, even though I don't always come across that way as an interviewee.

But through comedy, through people confessing to their own like neuroses and fears and vulnerabilities, it's like, oh, God, I have company.

Right.

Of course.

And I think that's how everybody feels.

And

so, you know, I appreciate that sharing.

It's clarifying and helpful.

So let's talk a little bit about your life and obviously share what you're comfortable sharing.

And

I don't want to push you beyond that.

So your parents immigrated from China.

First to Australia, where your father got his degree in mining explosives.

I didn't even, never occurred to me.

Something I've never thought about is like, who are the people who deal with the mining explosives?

I just never ever thought about that.

But apparently your father is an expert in that.

And anyways, then they moved to Canada and then to Colorado.

I always think about how we lucked out moving here, here being the States in 98.

We, without much friction, I think threw a lot of different access points and luck, like got our green card within a couple of years.

And then they naturalized when you know, they hit that mark.

And so

we've kind of cleared all these stage gates in terms of our citizenship.

And it's remarkable.

I remember one year my parents had their friends visit from China who were interested in potentially immigrating.

And this was, I think, 2011.

And my parents were both busy.

So then they asked if I could drive this family to this immigration lawyer.

So I did, and I sat in with them on the meeting.

And it was kind of this heartbreaking moment where this lawyer, this Chinese immigrant lawyer, immigration lawyer said, it's just not going to happen right now unless you have this much money to have, you know, an investment immigration visa.

Like it's just, I mean, she just laid out all of the bureaucratic obstacles that kind of in the room.

I could sense like the hope sort of like leaving this family's

like consideration.

It just felt so heartbreaking.

And I feel like, I don't know,

that stayed with me.

And

it makes me certainly cherish and not take for granted the journey that they went on and how lucky we are to have ended up where we are.

I mean, we're just upper-middle-class immigrant family.

And

the other sort of existential sort of wrinkle in this is that, like, as the younger of two kids, if my parents had stayed in China, then I would not have been born because of the one-child policy.

And so there are all these different right place, right time scenarios in my mind about like, wow, like I am very, very fortunate to be where I am, where none of it would have materialized had this little butterfly effect thing not happened.

You recently traveled to Inner Mongolia where your father's family is from, and he grew up there, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

So describe what it was like when he was growing up and what it looks like now.

It's incredibly rural, still is.

I mean, there's been a lot of urban development there, but my dad was the first in his family to go to college.

And right at the tail end of the Cultural Revolution, you know, in the 80s, he was in the first class of Chinese youth with my mother to be able to, you know, study abroad and, you know, get their degrees elsewhere.

And they were allowed to leave the country.

And so there was this big wave of immigration out of China in the 80s.

So my mom is from a city in Liaonning, which is a province north of North Korea.

And And then Inner Mongolia, where my dad's from is a misnomer.

It's not in Mongolia, but it's the province that is south of Mongolia that borders it.

So my dad grew up in a family of subsistence farmers, just growing potatoes and canola and whatever the weather allowed.

And, you know, a town of, I would say, 200 people.

I mean, it was just an incredibly different life.

And so even going back this summer, right after the culture awards, the day after the culture awards, was such, I can't imagine a bigger whiplash.

You know, my dad showed me all of these things that he built into the house, these little closets, like where, you know, the fires would go to heat the beds, like all of these incredibly pre-technological things.

You know, they were, they were a happy family of farmers who had no access with urban life or any greater life outside of their township.

It's pretty remarkable to think about.

I get kind of overwhelmed at it, honestly.

You know, it was kind of refreshing.

I mean, it really was just to like go from this place where the value system was in comedy and in pop culture and in

glitz and glamour and fame.

And, you know, even though we're poking fun at it, like it was still buying into the system, right?

And so to go from there to China where no one had heard, no one even knows like what a red carpet is, you know, like what that looks like in LA or in the States.

I mean, it was just kind of,

it gave me so so much perspective.

So did he remain a mining explosives expert in the U.S.?

And did your mother remain an OBGYN?

Because that's what she had trained for in China.

Yes.

She was

top of her class at like, you know, this premier medical school in China.

And then, you know, it was always a trip, like going back and having her friends who went to school with her just like whisper in my ear, like, you know, if she had stayed, she would be like the surgeon general.

You know, like it's trippy.

And then I think about obviously how, like, that means that I would not be on this planet, you know, like it's, it's all these sliding doors, but my dad, you know, has all of these stories of like even him moving out of Inner Mongolia to the city to go to school.

Like he

had $11 in his pocket at the train station, tried fish for the first time at, you know, 22.

Like he was just eating potatoes and lamb for the first 22 years of his life.

Like he just had no concept of like how the world was so expansive.

Like to him, his world was just however many miles within the radius of his town.

Like

it is this really overwhelming thing that I feel anytime I think about how charmed my own life is.

I'm just like, none of this was for granted.

So your parents were initially upset you were gay.

What was the turning point for them in realizing like it's okay?

Yeah, I think

this was more about like a concern for how difficult life would be.

And I understand from that perspective.

Yeah, for me.

I think once they saw me sort of

becoming famous?

Well, yeah, this is like the thought experiment that I don't like to have necessarily.

But I think it was after I was like financially stable, because I think it was compounded by the fact that I was trying to be a comedian professionally and that

I was going on auditions and not booking the parts, which is so commonplace and it happens more often than not.

I think they were just seeing this as like, oh no,

he's struggling in all these different ways and therefore we are just worried about him.

And it all just, you know, they couldn't tell.

where one thing ended and another began, right?

And so I think once they saw certain dreams come to light, I think that's when they were a little bit more relieved.

Aaron Powell, Jr.: And maybe when they found what a huge following you had and how much people people loved you, that helped too.

I would always tell my parents, like, you know, I would book sundry jobs on comedy shows here and there.

Like, hey, mom, like, I'm on the show called Broad City or I'm on the show called High Maintenance.

Just things that New York comedians would book an appearance on.

And it was always like a very exciting thing.

Didn't mean anything to them until Matt and I did.

a segment of I Don't Think So, Honey, on the Tonight Show.

And then my mom went into work the next day.

And then all of her coworkers were like, you must be so proud that Bowen was on the tonight show doing comedy.

And oh my goodness, he was.

That was when it took some sort of external validation through like her peers for her to be like, okay, maybe he's going to be okay.

And I didn't really have an appreciation for like what the proof of concept had to be for her in order for her to feel a little bit more at ease with the idea that I was trying to be in showbiz.

You were in the closet, I think, for a good deal of college, in part because your sister was going to NYU and you were to, and your sister was supposed to keep an eye on you.

So did you have to suppress some of yourself in order to do that?

And what was it like when you came out?

And if you did suppress anything, you could just like start expressing it instead of suppressing it.

Both times that I came out to them, it was not really on my terms.

Like the first time in high school

was

through,

you know, the family computer.

Remember those?

And it was that my, you know, my mom had stumbled on like a chat window where I was talking about it.

And then fast forward to college.

I had gone back in the closet after conversion therapy.

And then I was

in senior year of high school and I was just at home.

And then out of nowhere, my mom had called a little bit distressed, or very distressed, I should say, and was saying how, you know, she would never accept me being gay.

And

this was

not

okay.

And I should fly home and talk it out with her and my father in person.

And just one day it just like happened.

Like it's very bizarre.

I

never had the opt-in to just tell someone on my own terms or not to tell someone, but just to tell my family.

And so that's been a thing that I've kind of like romanticized as someone who like hasn't been able to do that.

Like even in this trip to this trip to China, I'd hired a tutor in Mandarin to sort of help me with the vocabulary, the literal vocabulary of coming out.

And it never came up because I think Chinese social media sort of did it for me.

My uncles and my cousins and my aunts would be like, oh my gosh, Bowen, you're really blowing up on social media.

And the comments are so interesting.

And they're really, you know, trying to guess where you're from.

But then also, I mean, what they couldn't have missed were the comments that were saying, isn't it so funny how butch he is?

And, you know, like, you know, like, I think they were, it was, it was another don't ask, don't tell thing where they were like, we know.

And I had it confirmed by my sister by the end of of the trip.

She was like, they know.

And I was like, okay, great.

And so it's never been through me.

I have never worked up the nerve to tell someone in my family.

I don't know what the value is on if that's good or bad.

You know, I just kind of know that I have not had that experience.

And so therefore, I kind of romanticized that idea.

Let me reintroduce you again.

If you're just joining us, my guest is Bowen Yang.

He's nominated for an Emmy for his performances as a cast member of SNL.

We'll be right back.

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So you were in Wicked.

And I have to say, it's a pretty small part.

It was small.

It was very tiny.

Yeah, but Wicked means a lot to you.

When was the first time you saw Wicked?

And I assume that was on stage, obviously.

Yes.

What did it mean?

When was the first time you saw her?

How old were you?

And what did it mean to you?

Why did it reach you so deeply?

So the interesting thing about Wicked is that I didn't get to see it until I was well into my adulthood.

Like I was even,

gosh, I had this really weird compulsion around like not lying, but just like embellishing the truth growing up.

And it's developed into this thing now where I'm a terrible liar.

I can't do it as an adult, as someone in their 30s.

Growing up, it was this thing of like, well, if you didn't see Wicked, then like you have no business being, you know, someone in the, like a theater kid, or you know what I mean?

Like it was just, when it came out, it was just such a phenomenon.

Around 2003, I was in high school and I remember going to the library, getting the original Barbary cast recording, and

it was life-changing even in that entry point.

And the thing that I would embellish, especially around late high school, I was just like, yeah, yeah, I saw like the national tour of it.

I never did, Terry.

I think I just made up this lie because it felt like the right thing to say in order to like justify this passion that I had for like musical theater.

And I saw it finally for the first time on the West End in London in 2022, I would say, or 2021.

Like it was really crazy how I was like, wow, this is all culminating into this moment where I'm like finally seeing this show that has still meant so much to me.

And I knew it.

front to back.

And I just remember seeing it for the first time.

I saw it with my co-writer at SNL, Celeste M, and they were a playwright, they were a trained playwright, and I turned to them, I go, wow, like, this is incredible.

Like, theater is like the most emotionally immediate form of entertainment, right?

Like, and they were like, yeah, I mean, that's the beauty of it.

Like, it's just when Elphaba sings those high notes, like, you feel it in your soul.

And so, you know, the first time I saw it, it did mean a lot to me in terms of like going through my personal history and being like, why did I like feel the need to say that I'd seen this when I didn't have this actual material encounter with it until much later.

It was not the answer I was expecting.

No, I know.

It's unlike, you know, I've shared this, but it's not something that like I, it's weird.

It's like, I don't want it to make it seem like I was or still am like someone who doesn't tell the truth.

It was just this thing that I felt the pressure to like have some sort of social proof of where I had to be like, yeah, you know, like I, I, I did see it.

But we were just not a theater going family.

We just didn't have that access.

Like, thank goodness for public libraries.

Like I went to the library and I sought it out and I kept that CD in my Walkman for weeks.

Like, I really ran the overdue charge on it.

I just feel like intervening here and saying, I think it's really important when it comes to culture to stand up for what you believe in, no matter how odd that may seem.

Do you know what I mean?

To really endorse the things you love and feel free to criticize the things that you don't and feel honest about saying, no, I didn't have time to see it.

I love that now.

Oh, my goodness.

I mean,

this is the thing that I delight in now where I'm like, I didn't get a chance to see it and there's too much stuff.

You know what I mean?

Like that is just, that's something we can all agree on.

I mean, I think I did have this anxiety growing up around like making sure I was on top of everything that I did see every movie that, you know.

Well, that's part of the immigrant thing, isn't it?

Yeah, being the child.

Totally.

The child of immigrants who's also gay.

Uh-huh.

I mean, you had to work to fit in.

Totally.

And it still feels like this is the thing around being obsessed with The Simpsons and Seinfeld and SNL growing up.

It was like it felt like it was the required reading.

Like it felt like there was this syllabus growing up in terms of pop culture.

And now, you know, with all of the options, for better or for worse, like you can just sort of

chart your own path.

Bowen Yang, I am so glad we finally got to make this happen.

We've been trying to get you on for a long time.

Thank you so much for coming today.

It was really a pleasure.

This was sublime.

Thank you, Terry.

Bowen Yang is nominated for an Emmy for his performances on Saturday Night Live.

He co-hosts the podcast Las Culturistas.

The satirical Las Culturistas Cultural Awards Ceremony is streaming on Peacock.

Tomorrow on Fresh Air, our guest will be Spike Lee.

His new film, Highest to Lowest, is about a powerful music mogul targeted in a ransom plot who must fight for his family and his legacy.

It's a reimagining of Akira Kurosawa's 1963 film High and Low.

He'll talk about the inspiration behind this film and others from his long career.

I hope you'll join us.

To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPRFresh Air.

Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller.

Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham.

Our managing producer is Sam Brigher.

Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne Marie Boldonato, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman, and John Sheehan.

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I'm Terry Gross.

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