In his new Hulu comedy series, Interior Chinatown, Jimmy O. Yang plays a waiter who inadvertently becomes central to a crime story. As an Asian American actor, he says he relates to the character's feeling of invisibility. Yang talks with Ann Marie Baldonado about auditioning for Silicon Valley, working alongside his dad, and feeling like an outsider among other Asians in California. Also, film critic Justin Chang reviews the Indian movie All We Can Imagine as Light. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
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This is FRESH AIR.
I'm Tonya Mosley.
Today our guest is actor and standup comic Jimmy O.
Yang.
He co starred 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 Baldonato.
What if one of the background characters at the beginning of an episode of a show like Law and 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 Ronnie Cheng and our guest Jimmy Oyang, are talking while they're bringing bags of garbage to the dumpster.
I'm not saying I want someone to die.
So what are you saying?
Well, I'm saying if someone's already dead, I would like to be the person who'll find the body.
That's weird, man.
Okay, you know how in cop shows there's usually a cold open, cold open the first scene before the main titles, Right?
Okay.