A note from Wild Card host Rachel Martin: 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-they're-good genre of holiday movies. A few years ago, the streaming algorithm recommended a movie to me called Love Hard. 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 that 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 How to American: An Immigrant's Guide to Disappointing Your Parents. Yang 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.
This Wild Card interview has been edited for length and clarity. Host Rachel Martin asks guests randomly-selected questions from a deck of cards. Tap play above to listen to the full podcast, or read an excerpt below.
Question 1: What do you admire about your teenage self?
Jimmy O. Yang: Wow. Wow.
Rachel Martin: Jimmy, I'm not messing around.
Yang: This is so unlike me to try to congratulate myself. You know what I mean? To admire myself.
Martin: Yeah.
Yang: That's very hard.
Martin: Oh, that's interesting. That's not your natural default.
Yang: 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. And I'm like, "What am I supposed to say?" Like, if you were going to say, "Oh my God, hey, that show was great." I'm like, "It's okay…" Like, you know, I start 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?"
Martin: OK, well, I mean maybe your answer is, like, "I didn't admire anything about my teenage self."
Yang: No, I think I did. I think maybe because I was so young that my ignorance gave me a fearlessness in making friends. And I didn't feel bad about myself, although I was quite othered and foreign. You know, I was very positive. I tried to have a good time, although it was very difficult.
Martin: Yeah. So what were those specific challenges?
Yang: Well, I think, whether it's like verbal bullying or people just like talking trash, making jokes, I think maybe that's how I developed a sense of humor. With the limited English language that I knew, I found a way to talk back and fight back, you know, and not let someone get the best of me.
Martin: I mean, are you still that fearless? Or when you look back, it does feel like a difference?
Yang: 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 when 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.
Question 2: What's an expression of love you're trying to get better at?
Yang: 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?
Martin: Not everybody knows what these things are. So there is, like this, this rubric about love and how you express it. And so you're saying you're good at, like, doing things for the person.
Yang: Yeah, like cooking.
Martin: Yeah.
Yang: Like just thinking about, you know, actions. And, you know, words of affirmation is not a big thing in Asian culture. I don't think, you know – not how I grew up.
Martin: But, like, do you want to do that?
Yang: Yeah. Being more complimentary of people, more motivating and saying, "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 in my family, being more open, vulnerable and being a little better with my words of affirmation.
Martin: Did your parents embrace that part of American culture?
Yang: 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." And they've been pretty receptive — I will say — whenever I do come from a truthful, real place.
Question 3: Does the idea of an infinite universe excite or scare you?
Yang: Infinity scares me.
Martin: Does it? Truly?
Yang: Yeah. If it's something that I can, you can put a number on. It could be a billion, trillion, 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, and then I'll get to come back for one day and then I'm dead again – then I'm fine. Ok. But if I'm gone forever? Very scary. So infinite universe is a little scary. Anything infinite is scary. I look at the ocean at night, I get a little scared. It seems so vast and infinite.
Martin: Oh, yeah. I know this is a controversial opinion, but oceans — I find it all very unsettling.
Yang: Thank you! Too vast.
Martin: It's too big.
Yang: People people pay extra for ocean views. I'll pay extra to not look at the ocean. Give me the city view.
Martin: The parking lot!
Yang: I'll look at, yeah, your parking lot, your utility closet, you know. Give me a room with no windows. I'm not paying extra to see the cliff of my death into a vastness of infinity.
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