Jimmy O. Yang Fights Coronavirus Racism With Comedy

The Last Laugh

The Daily Beast

Comedy Interviews, Comedy, Interviews, Tv & Film, Society & Culture, Tv, Movies, Film

4.6 • 661 Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2020

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Comedian Jimmy O. Yang is best known for playing Jian-Yang on HBO’s ‘Silicon Valley.’ Now, he is finally revealing his true self to the world in a new stand-up special called ‘Good Deal,’ which is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime Video. In this episode, Jimmy tells the story of how he broke into comedy after moving from Hong Kong to Los Angeles at 13 years old and why he thinks humor might be the best way to combat anti-Asian-American racism during the coronavirus pandemic. We also talk about why T.J. Miller’s dramatic departure from ‘Silicon Valley’ was the “end of an era” for him, the “life-changing” experience of appearing in ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ and a lot more.

Stream ‘Jimmy O. Yang: Good Deal’ on Amazon Prime Video.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	What is up? This is the Last Laugh.
0:10.0	I'm Matt Wilstein from The Daily Beast, and today on this show, we have a guy who always makes me laugh, Jimmy O. Yang.
0:18.0	Like most people, I first encountered Jimmy as Jin Yang on HBO's Silicon Valley.
0:25.1	And as with his co-star, Thomas Middletich, who was on the podcast a couple of weeks ago,
0:30.2	it would be easy to believe he's actually liked that character in real life.
0:34.6	That's what makes his new stand-up special such a revelation. In Good Deal, which is available
0:40.8	to stream now on Amazon, Jimmy introduces his real self to the world for the first time. And his
0:47.3	story, which includes moving from Hong Kong to Los Angeles at 13 years old, before ultimately
0:52.5	finding comedy as an outlet in college, is wild.
0:57.0	In this clip from the special, he talks about what it's like to get recognized by fans
1:02.0	who were too scared to come up to him just in case they're wrong.
1:06.0	I see a lot of people out here in the streets, they want to come up to me, but they're not really sure.
1:15.1	There's a lot of debate amongst their friends.
1:16.8	They're like, hey, man, are you sure that's him?
1:20.4	If we go up there, we got to be sure.
1:24.7	Because if we go up there and it's not him, we're going to look super racist.
1:30.3	Are you sure that's not Ken Jong?
1:35.3	I don't know, looks kind of like Ali Wong, I don't know.
1:44.9	And it come up to me, there's always like the first thing they say, like, hey, man, aren't that dude Jingyang from Sjo Silicon Valley? And I was like, oh, oh, thanks, thanks, thank you.
1:48.8	I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, thank you, thank you, I appreciate that.
1:51.7	Yeah, I am.
1:52.2	And then they're like, oh, shit, I didn't even know you speak English in real life.
	...

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