Yang, and this is the Wired Autocomplete Interview. ["Wired"] Can't say I've Googled myself.

No, I've actually Googled myself many times. ["Wired"] All right, very excited about this.

How did Jimmy O.

Yang become famous?

People Google this?

Like, how did he became famous?

It's different for different people.

Usually when white people come up to me, they say, oh, Silicon Valley, Jin Yang, hilarious.

When Asian people come up to me, they know me from stand-up, they know me from Crazy Rich Asians.

A lot of immigrants come up to me, like Chinese immigrants, Japanese, they're like, your stand-up special got, you know, subtitled and translated in Chinese, and that's how I know you.

And a lot of times Chinese people, they call stand-up comedy talk shows.

They're like, we love your talk shows.

Oh, and a lot of girls, younger, older, come up to me because of Love Heart, this rom-com I did with Nina Dobrev on Netflix.

So, fame is in the eye of the beholder.

Was Jimmy O.

Yang in Patriot's Day?

Yes, that was actually one of my proudest projects to date, based on real-life movie about the Boston Marathon bombing, which was a very dark day in our country, and I got to play this character, Danny Mang, that kind of became the hero and saved the day.

He was a Chinese immigrant student, and he got carjacked and kidnapped by the Boston bombers, and he ran away, escaped, and was able to call the cops, remember his tag numbers, and that's how they found the two bombers that led to the shootout in Watertown and the capture of these bombers.

So, I get to kind of talk to and interview Danny every day at a great time in Boston, and I thought it was just such an important story, and it was the first drama I did, and Peter Borg was a great director, and it was good to kind of prove to myself that I could be a good dramatic actor, and it gave me a lot of confidence in that sense, but also, it was just such a great story to tell.

Jimmy O.

Yang dad joke.

Who Googles that?

Jimmy O.

Yang dad joke.

I do have a lot of jokes about my dad, and those have became some of the most popular jokes, and yeah, my dad is just naturally like a pretty funny, charismatic person, pretty easy to make fun of.

He started acting after I did, and that is true.

Now, he's a full-on SAG actor.

We just recently did a commercial together.

He loves it.

At times, I'm like, is this kind of seeping into my life a little too much?

Is he overstepping as a father?

But I love it.

I love it.

Jimmy O.

Yang?

Oh, I don't know.

I think that's a line maybe I said in my standup, or my character Jing Yang has said on Silicon Valley.

I'm not so sure how that became a top search, but that's a really interesting phrase because for every character I play on TV, on film, I try to have a mantra.

Right before every scene when I was that Jing Yang character, I would say I don't know in Chinese.

I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

Either he doesn't care to know, or he doesn't care about these people to know, or he truly is a bit lost.

So that was kind of like my mantra for the Jing Yang character is I don't know.

Thank you very much.

Does Jimmy O.

Yang sing in Love Heart?

Yes, I do.

That was actually my voice.

I impressed myself.

I didn't think I was that good of a singer, but it all came together pretty well.

We prerecorded the song in the studio.

This is the remix of the lyrics of Baby It's Cold Outside to a more appropriate lyrics, and it's me and Nina Dobrev doing a kind of duet.

Jimmy O.

Yang?

Economics.

Is it like searching Jimmy O.

Yang net worth?

Like I do that all the time.

My dad does that to me.

He'll be like, oh, your net worth went up.

I'm like, I wouldn't listen to any of these sites.

But Jimmy O.

Yang economics, I'm pretty sure it's because I was an econ major in college.

I went to school in UCC San Diego.

I went in as a mechanical engineering major, and I was too much of a slacker.

I never went to class.

I was smoking too much weed, and I was like, I'm never gonna graduate as a mechanical engineer.

So I picked the easiest major that would still appease my Asian parents, which was economics.

Jimmy O.

Yang, this is a long one, it seems.

Disappointing Asians.

That's not what it seems, okay?

I don't think I've disappointed any Asians.

I hope I made Asians out there proud, but this was the subtitle of my book, which is How to American, The Immigrant's Guide to Disappointing Your Parents.

I think there's a lot of jokes about me disappointing my parents, being a disappointing Asian to my parents.

I hope that's what it means.

I hope I'm not actually out there disappointing Asian people.

I started doing standup, and that's not a very Asian thing.

You know, that's not something that my parents consider as a real job.

They wanted me to be in finance, in, you know, be a lawyer, doctor, like real jobs to them.

So me being a standup, an actor, I disappointed them for many, many years.

But like I said in my book, to me, it was better to disappoint my parents for a couple years than to disappoint myself for the rest of my life.

So I had to take a risk, take a chance, and try something that I love.

Jimmy O.

Yang, jacket.

This became a thing, the kind of light blue jacket I wore on my second special, Guess How Much.

It was a really cool jacket, and a lot of people start Googling where I got it from.

I don't even know where I got it from.

It was a brand that my stylist at the time hooked me up with, and I think it was a Chinese brand that has since went out of business.

Of course, if there's enough demand, I think there's now a site that sells the Jimmy O.

Yang Guess How Much jacket, like a bootleg one.

Let's see.

When did Jimmy O.

Yang start comedy?

I started standup comedy when I was 21 years old, junior year of college.

This is when you could go into a comedy club.

Anybody usually under age of 21, you have to wait outside a comedy club, and then get in your set when it's your turn.

So it's been two years.

I've only been doing comedy for two years.

I'm 23 years old.

When did Jimmy O.

Yang start acting?

I started acting maybe a couple years after I started standup, probably like 15 years ago now.

Like, yeah.

There's a lot of things that are similar, you know?

The charisma on stage, the command of the stage.

I think that translates often time on camera.

Standup is a stage act, and it's a vocal act.

You wanna project, you wanna touch the audience in the balcony, right?

Whereas acting, oftentimes, especially TV film acting, it's very close on your face, and it's about what's going on inside.

It's a little more internal.

And one of the things I noticed for me and many standups, the hardest part to learn, and maybe in life, is to listen to your partner.

Because standup, it's all you.

You're one person by yourself.

Whereas acting, it's about the connection with you and your partner.

So I learned to be a better listener, which is probably good for my life in general.

Where was Jimmy O.

Yang's Guess How Much filmed?

My second comedy special called Guess How Much, it was filmed in Austin, Texas.

And it was actually a really interesting and fun thing because Austin is not as Asian as most of my crowds.

It leaned more white.

And the cool part was the jokes still hit, you know?

Like, my jokes weren't just for the Asian people.

So that felt good.

I knew if that was gonna work in Austin, it was gonna work for most people in America.

And of course, it ended up working not just in America, like around the world.

Like a lot of it got translated into Chinese and it's played in China and Hong Kong and Taiwan, like in a lot of places in Asia.

I got people telling me from China that's how they started learning English for my standup special.

So that felt pretty special to me.

I'm breaking lights over there.

Jimmy O.

Yang, I love you.

Is this just a fan like hoping they'll get to me and says, Jimmy O.

Yang, I love you.

That's very sweet.

I appreciate that.

But I think it's actually based on one of my jokes where I say, Asian, we don't really say I love you to our parents.

The joke goes that one time in college, I got high and I called my mom and I was like, mom, I just wanna tell you that I love you.

And then she started crying.

She was like, Jimmy, are you okay?

Do you have cancer?

Jimmy O.

Yang, improv.

I improvise a lot on Silicon Valley, on Space Force and a lot of comedy projects I do.

And even dramatic stuff, you know, we find rooms to improvise, which is fun.

And it's cool and it gets you into the character, into the story.

But also the improv is one of my favorite comedy clubs in LA and all over the world.

I try all my materials there before I take it on the road.

And big shout out to Rita at the improv who's been the booker there for a long, long time.

And she has made a lot of people stars and given them the opportunity.

Jimmy O.

Yang, Jing Yang.

That was the character I played on Silicon Valley for six seasons.

I started off as just a very tiny part, two lines in one episode.

And then it became two lines in three different episodes.

And by the second season, I became a series regular.

And there was a whole like villain arc with Jing Yang.

At first he started off as kind of just like a random person that lives in the incubator played by T.J.

Miller and his character, Ehrlich Bachman.

And then he starts standing up to Ehrlich and we had this very cool Lauren Hardy kind of comedy duel.

And it was a lot of improvisation, a lot of fun, a lot of great scenes that is still very fond in my memory.

Jimmy O.

Yang, Interior Chinatown.

That is the new show I'm gonna be on.

I feel like everything I've worked on, I've worked for in my career, it's all in this show.

It's really interesting.

It's kind of like Truman Show.

It's about a background actor played by me, Willis Wu.

He's stuck in a show that's similar to A Law and Order, but he doesn't know it.

He just doesn't know how to get out of his role in Chinatown.

And there's like a ceiling, there's a glass window.

He just can't get out of it.

At the same time, he's dealing with a lot of stuff with his family, his disappearance with his brother.

So he starts uncovering the mystery.

By doing so, he has to sneak in to the actual Law and Order show.

So episode by episode, he goes from a background actor to a guy having two lines to actually the tech guy, which is like my journey in my life too.

It's kind of like Law and Order meets Twilight Zone.

Was Jimmy O.

Yang in Crazy Rich Asians?

Yes, I was.

I played this character, Bernard Tai, the crazy kind of billionaire playboy, and I had so much fun, and we're still all best friends.

I actually just went out to dinner with Awkwafina and Ronnie, and we still have like a hundred people group chat on WhatsApp.

Jimmy O.

Yang, love languages.

My best love language is acts of service.

You know, I love cooking.

That's what my parents did for me, you know, and I love, you know, just doing things, fixing things.

And words of affirmation, I didn't think it was important to me, but I think it is, you know.

That's why I think I'm a standup.

You get the live audience reaction.

Every laughter is a word of affirmation for me, and sometimes if I don't do standup for a prolonged period of time, I don't get the immediate feedback, the accolades.

I start to wilt a little bit, and I think that's every artist, you know.

We want our work to be seen and to be loved, but at the same time, I'm also learning to be a little self-love, that you don't need the external validation.

You do a lot of these projects, these art projects for yourselves.

And if it's good enough for me, I had a great time.

That's the most meaningful part of it.

Jimmy O.

Yang, LinkedIn.

I don't think I have a LinkedIn account.

I never had like a real job.

My first high school job was, I worked at Big Five Sporting Goods, a discount sporting goods store.

I loved it.

I worked there for many summers.

I was a waiter for a Chinese restaurant.

I was a used car salesman.

I was once a strip club DJ.