For Bowen Yang, becoming a writer on SNL in 2018 and a cast member the following year was the realization of a prophecy: Yang had been chosen as “Most Likely to be on SNL” in his senior year of high school. In retrospect, however, he maintains that the superlative was “totally incidental.”
“It’s like their way of calling me a hammy kid, basically, which I was,” he explains. “I was just the biggest fan, but I never once ever put my sights on Saturday Night Live. I used to show folks when there was a substitute teacher in class by bringing VHS cassettes to school.
Yang notes that SNL wasn’t the only show that influenced him; after being “obsessed” with Sandra Oh’s role on Grey’s Anatomy, he first studied chemistry and pre-medicine in college.”After graduating, I realized that I had made a mistake. In fact, I aspired to be a TV personality.
Yang claims that although he was pleased to be shown wrong, he never imagined that SNL would hire “an effeminate Asian man” for that program. Because of his work on the program, he is presently nominated for an Emmy for outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series. In retrospect, he claims that his career on screen was first facilitated by his hiring as a writer rather than a cast member.
“My first season of writing on the show was probably so helpful in terms of understanding all of these non-verbal cues,” he claims. “Sit[ting] next to [SNLcreator and executive producer] Lorne [Michaels] each week and hav[ing] him give notes on your sketch at dress rehearsal, you really develop this internal sense of, ‘OK, I understand how the show works in this very underpinned way.'”
Along with his work on Saturday Night Live, Yang has appeared in Wicked and co-hosts the well-liked podcast Las Culturistas with his friend Matt Rogers. The two hosted Bravo/Peacock’s satirical awards presentation, the Las Culturistas Culture Awards.
Interview highlights
On becoming enamored with pop culture while growing up as the kid of Chinese immigrants
Moving from French Canada to Colorado, where I was speaking Mandarin at home and French at school, was a huge shock for me as a Canadian kid who was closeted before moving to the United States. I had to switch to English right away.
Pop culture was a quick method for me to catch up with what people were talking about at school, at a birthday party, or on the shows we watched during playdates or something.Every week, SNL served as my pop culture crash course. My love for culture stemmed from the way it is assimilated, which is also what SNL is in a way.
Regarding his SNLauditions
Watching them now makes me shiver. In the run-up to the 50th anniversary, they were filming documentaries, and they showed me my auditions and recorded my responses. I had an instinctive reaction to not wanting to watch that version of myself, such as the person who had no idea what SNL was looking for when he started working there. And since that individual is unique, I believe I ought to reconsider that. He’s got something. He has the audacity to toss anything at the wall and see what sticks. However, I feel like my thoughts are much more sensible now.
Regarding playing JD Vance on SNL
This occurred in August of last year, just as the season was getting underway. I was initially quite opposed to Lorne’s plan to cast the major players in the general election, but after a few more talks, I believe I dutifully agreed. After that, I approached it in the most immigrant-child-like manner possible, hiring a dialect coach and asking for a screen test where I tried on various contact lenses because I thought his eyes had a lot of JD Vance’s visual eeriness. “We have to get that down,” I said. After that, we experimented with facial hair alternatives. Although it may or may not have been the best course of action, I handled it as a serious charge, and it has been an intriguing ride.
On working with his friend Matt Rogers to create the Las Culturistas podcast and awards
We had no idea that anyone would listen to the podcast. This essentially sums up the podcast’s entire idea. Nothing is breaking mold. It’s a conversation between two pals. Matt and I had performed a lot of comedy together in the years before, but it was only a pretext for our weekly playdate.
We didn’t have a visitor scheduled for that week, which was uncommon at the time, and the awards sort of grew out of that one summer, I believe in 2021. We therefore created a list of nominees and categories for the fictional Las Culturistas Culture awards in a sort of impromptu fashion. This honors items from the entire human experience, including amusement park attractions, breakfast delicacies, television sequences from the 1990s, and apparel. It was simply enormous, worldwide, and maximalist. It’s supposed to be practically atemporal and illogical; for example, the songs nominated for “Song of the Summer” are from four years ago. There aren’t any regulations.
Then, in 2022, we hosted a free outdoor performance. There were too many people for us. People had to be turned away. We thought, “Okay, so the goal is to get this televised so that everyone can opt into this,” after that first year.
On lying as a child, he had witnessedThe Wicked
It was like, “Well, you have no business being a theater kid if you didn’t see Wicked,” when I was growing up. It was a phenomenon when it was released. Even [with] that entry point, it changed my life. I was in high school around 2003 when I went to the library and got the original Broadway cast recording. “Yeah, I saw like the national tour of it!” was how I would describe the embellishment, particularly in late high school. Terry, I never did. I believe this lie is a fabrication. For the simple reason that it seemed appropriate to express my enthusiasm for musical theater.
I saw it finally for the first time on the West End in London in 2022, I would say, or 2021. It was very incredible how I thought, “Wow, this is all coming together to finally see the show that has meant so much to me.” And I was very aware of it.
I don’t want to give the impression that I was or currently am a dishonest person. I was under pressure to have some kind of social proof because of this. Simply put, our family didn’t enjoy coming to the theater. We simply lacked that access. For example, I am grateful for public libraries. I went to the library and I sought it out and I kept that CD in my Walkman for weeks. I actually charged it for the past due amount!
On a fragment of his childhood “cultural contraband”
The only thing that I ever had to hide was a hardcover copy ofThe 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. So I just remember loving reading those books and then hiding it under my bed …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 go about it the same way, because you were learning about art and you were figuring yourself out. And I don’t think the kids have that anymore.
On his father’s life in the region of China known as Inner Mongolia
My dad has all of these stories of 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 22, like, he was just eating potatoes and lamb for the first 22 years of his life. Like, he just had no concept of how the world was so expansive. Like, to him, his world was just however many miles within the radius of his town. … 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.
Ann Marie Baldonado and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Jay Vanasco adapted it for the web.
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