TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guest is comic, actor and political satirist Ronny Chieng. He became a correspondent for the satirical news show "The Daily Show" in 2015 after Trevor Noah asked him to audition. Now Chieng is one of the rotating correspondents who anchor the show. He also co-stars in the new Hulu series "Interior Chinatown." He had a memorable, funny scene in "Crazy Rich Asians" as a wealthy investment banker in Singapore. Ronny Chieng has a new Netflix comedy special called "Love To Hate It," which starts streaming tomorrow.
He brings an international perspective to his comedy. He was born in Malaysia, where his grandparents emigrated from China. From age 3 to 7, he lived in Manchester, New Hampshire, where his parents attended college. Then, the family returned to Malaysia, which is basically across the bridge from Singapore, so he spent a lot of time there. He attended college in Australia, where he got his BA in finance and his law degree while also doing stand-up comedy. Let's start with a clip from his new comedy special. This is from a section about how he and his wife aren't ready for children, but his wife had her eggs harvested for possible future use. He's imagining what his child - if he ever has one - might say to him.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RONNY CHIENG: Daddy, Daddy, when I grow up, I want to be a stand-up comedian...
(LAUGHTER)
CHIENG: ...Just like you.
(LAUGHTER)
CHIENG: I just feel the Chinese coming on right now.
(LAUGHTER)
CHIENG: Stand-up comedy? Are you out of your mind?
(LAUGHTER)
CHIENG: That's not even a real job.
(LAUGHTER)
CHIENG: Like, what do you think is going to happen? You're just going to run around America and tell jokes to strangers who don't give a [expletive] about your mental health?
(LAUGHTER)
CHIENG: And even if you do somehow manage to overcome the odds and make it to even a semiprofessional level as a stand-up comedian, do you think there's any chance in hell you'd be funnier than me?
(APPLAUSE)
CHIENG: Daddy's a borderline arena act in some markets.
(LAUGHTER)
CHIENG: Have you seen my IMDb page? I'm in everything. I'll crush your career. Your mother and I here spent a fortune to make an A-grade blastocyst for them to become B-grade comedian.
(LAUGHTER)
CHIENG: I will never watch anything you do. Go to law school...
(APPLAUSE)
CHIENG: ...Is what my father said to me.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: Ronny Chieng, welcome to FRESH AIR. It's a pleasure to have you on the show.
CHIENG: Thank you. Thanks for having me on. And I'd like to note the contrast between the yelling of that clip and how calm the rest of the interview will be.
GROSS: What else did your father say to you when you found out you wanted to be a comedian?
CHIENG: He said, no white person will ever buy a ticket to go watch you.
GROSS: Wow. Did you think that that might be true?
CHIENG: No, I didn't think that was true. But I didn't tell him I was going to go do it. I went to go do it. And then he found out, like, after I was - I'd been doing stand-up comedy for about two years, and then he found out. And then, you know - and he was trying to protect me, you know? He was worried. He was worried about what was going to happen, you know, what my future was going to be. And then later on, he got behind it. He wasn't...
GROSS: Nevertheless, when you were on "The Daily Show" and you started on "The Daily Show," you didn't tell your mother.
CHIENG: No. I didn't tell them I got hired on the show.
GROSS: What were you afraid of?
CHIENG: No, it wasn't so much afraid. It was that I didn't want to brag about small achievements. I just wanted to do the work. I didn't want to tell them that I joined this institution which, quite frankly, they didn't really know about anyway and make it sound as though I "made it," quote-unquote. You know what I mean? So I...
GROSS: Well, you kind of had. That's a big achievement. That's not a small achievement.
CHIENG: Sure. But I don't know. I think the work comes first, you know? Getting the job is one thing, but then can you do the job? And so, honestly, it just came out of kind of humility, of, like, oh, yeah, I'm on "The Daily Show," but doesn't mean I've done anything yet. So why tell them? You know, like, my philosophy was, like, just do the job, and then maybe they'll hear good things about you. And then that will be the - you know what I mean? Like, I didn't need the flowers from them at that point.
GROSS: You deprived them of bragging rights.
CHIENG: Quite frankly, if you want to talk about bragging rights for them, once I started doing decent work and people started liking what I was doing, then they would go up to them and be like, hey. Your son is on "The Daily Show." So, you know - which I think is better than you coming out and trying to brag about something that, you know - at that point, I hadn't even been on screen yet. You know, I'm not sure how popular "The Daily Show" is in Singapore and Malaysia.
GROSS: Right.
CHIENG: So I'd rather just do the work, and then, you know, hopefully people like it.
GROSS: A line that really stands out to me in the bit that we just heard is, you know, why would you do that? Why would you become...
CHIENG: Yeah.
GROSS: ...A comic? Why would you make jokes to people who don't care about your mental health?
CHIENG: Yeah.
GROSS: Did your father say that, or did you just come up with that?
CHIENG: No, no. To be clear, that's a bit.
GROSS: OK.
CHIENG: My dad never...
GROSS: But why did that occur to you to write that - like, to people who don't care about your mental health? I thought that was very funny. I've never heard anybody put it that way.
CHIENG: So the premise of the bit is that, if I have a kid, what's going to happen, you know, if they want to do stand-up comedy? And I realize, like, I'm just like my parents. Like, even me, who has done stand-up comedy professionally - if my kid wanted to do it, I'd be like my dad, too. I'd be like, why are you doing this? This is crazy. Especially me knowing what's involved in stand-up comedy, all the more that I'm like, are you sure you want to do this?
And one of the things I know about comedy that is, I think, quite a difficult thing to overcome is overcoming people's apathy and their lack of concern for your mental health, which, by the way, is the reason - is part of the reason why I never told anyone I was doing comedy - not my friends or my parents or my family - because I wanted to test it in that environment. I wanted to test my comedy in an environment where nobody cared about you because I felt like if I could make these people who didn't care about me at all laugh, I could - maybe this could be a job for me.
GROSS: So, you grew up mostly in Malaysia, which is one bridge away from Singapore.
CHIENG: Yes.
GROSS: You compared it to me to how New York is to New Jersey...
CHIENG: Yes. Yeah.
GROSS: ...Or how Philadelphia is to New Jersey on the opposite side.
CHIENG: Sure. I'll let you guess which one's New York, which one's New Jersey in this analogy. But, yes, it's just a bridge across that is called the causeway. People cross the bridge from Johor Bahru, Malaysia, to Singapore every day. Every morning, people wake up in Malaysia, go to work in Singapore and come back, braving the traffic and the fumes and, you know, the immigration.
GROSS: So were you exposed to much stand-up in Malaysia or Singapore?
CHIENG: No, I was not. The stand-up I was exposed to was in New Hampshire when my parents would play "Seinfeld," the sitcom. And so you would see Seinfeld do stand-up in his interstitials, right? In between the narrative, he'd do stand-up. And I remember asking my mom, like, hey. And that was the first time I saw - I even knew that that could be an art form - just standing there and telling jokes with no other props. And, you know, it's just you and a microphone. And I told my mom, like, hey. I want to try that someday. And my mom was like, oh, OK, cool. And I was, like, 4 years old.
GROSS: You've said you were introduced to Jewish people from "Seinfeld"...
CHIENG: Yes (laughter).
GROSS: ...Like Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. So what did it make you think Jewish people were like?
CHIENG: To be honest, when we watched it - when we were watching in Malaysia and Singapore, we think that they're white people. At least for me, anyway, I didn't realize, like, they were, like, a special type of ethnicity. I thought they were just a type of white person. And so when you're watching it, you're - like, you get little samples of Jewishness in it, right? They would drop a Yiddish word. They'll have Hanukkah. They'll have little things here and there where you slowly start to be like, oh, these - I think they're different white American people (laughter).
And we didn't have any stereotypes, so I just thought they were New Yorkers. You know what I mean? I didn't think, like, oh, this is Jewish behavior, or, this is a Jewish joke. I just thought, oh, these are New Yorkers, that's how New Yorkers talk - until I came here. I realized, oh, it's its own thing (laughter).
GROSS: Your new comedy special was filmed in Honolulu.
CHIENG: Yes.
GROSS: Where Doogie...
CHIENG: Kamealoha.
GROSS: Yes, thank you.
CHIENG: Yeah.
GROSS: This is, like, a "Doogie Howser" adjacent series that...
CHIENG: Yes. It was a reboot, yeah.
GROSS: Yeah, reboot that you were in. And you're very popular there.
CHIENG: Well...
GROSS: Or so you say (laughter).
CHIENG: Oh, yeah, sure (laughter).
GROSS: And you say you have a lot of MAGA friends there.
CHIENG: Yes.
GROSS: And on "The Daily Show," you spent a lot of time...
CHIENG: Yes
GROSS: ...Satirizing Trump.
CHIENG: Yes.
GROSS: So how do you get around...
CHIENG: That's a great question.
GROSS: ...Arguing about politics with your MAGA friends?
CHIENG: That's a great question. I think, first of all, one, we might be in media silos. So the stuff I say on "The Daily Show" might not actually ever reach my MAGA friends because we're all so siloed in our media consumption. That's one. And then, two, I think that decent people have a sense of humor about things, you know? So I wouldn't take the comment section as reality in terms of what the reaction is to a clip in the comment section from MAGA people about a political clip. I don't necessarily think they would do - react that way in real life, face to face. And third of all, Hawaii is a very different vibe, you know? Like, Hawaii, people know how to get along for the most part.
I think in Hawaii, they know how to put community before themselves, which is very un-American, by the way, this idea that in Hawaii, you know, everyone's very generous. And you get more than you give in Hawaii if you come with the right energy. And so I like to think that in Hawaii, I always try to come with the right energy. I won't be so presumptuous to say that I always manage to nail it. But I think I come with the right energy, and I think the locals and the Hawaiians there respond to that. So, you know, they can be, you know, hardcore MAGA people but, you know, they're totally cool with me, as far as I know.
GROSS: You say you love America. This is the country that puts showbiz above everything. And you get...
CHIENG: Oh, you're really just quoting my special here. Yeah.
GROSS: Yeah, yeah - and that you get paid for saying, F the president.
CHIENG: Yeah (laughter).
GROSS: And then money comes in. And you say if you did this in Malaysia - jail.
CHIENG: Yeah.
GROSS: But now Trump has an enemies list. He's threatening retribution.
CHIENG: Yes.
GROSS: And he's trying to revoke TV network broadcast licenses.
CHIENG: Yes.
GROSS: So how do you feel about insulting Trump now?
CHIENG: (Laughter) Those are all very concerning, don't get me wrong. I think if he does any of that, it is upsetting and subverts the legal process in many ways, in some ways more blatant than others. My answer to that is we had four years of him, and "The Daily Show" was making fun of him every day during those four years. And essentially nothing happened (laughter). So just going off of history and past evidence, which is all I kind of have to go by right now, is that kind of - you know, for me, that's kind of a sign of how it's going to be, you know, his bluster versus his actual actions. I reserve the right to change my opinion (laughter) if we all end up in jail.
GROSS: If you're in jail (laughter).
CHIENG: If we all end up in jail, then I'll probably be wrong. And maybe I'm just - this is just wishful thinking on my part. But, yeah, he said a lot concerning things about the law. But I think ultimately, I believe in American institutions. I believe in checks and balances, you know? I believe that the entire founding of America was geared around having a weak federal executive who is unable to kind of use the government to go after citizens individually. I think that's the whole premise of America. And so because of that, I'm a bit more hopeful.
GROSS: Well, I hope you're right...
CHIENG: Yeah. I hope I'm right, too.
GROSS: And you stay out of jail (laughter).
CHIENG: By the way, what do I know? I'm just a comic just, you know, just making dick jokes.
GROSS: (Laughter).
CHIENG: But that's why I hope, and that's why I believe. And that's why I'm still here.
GROSS: My guest is comic and actor Ronny Chieng. His new comedy special, "Love To Hate It," starts streaming on Netflix tomorrow. We'll be back after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF CYRUS CHESTNUT'S "IT'S NOW OR NEVER")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Ronny Chieng. He's a field correspondent and one of the rotating anchors on "The Daily Show." He costars in the New Hulu series "Interior Chinatown," and he has a new comedy special called "Love To Hate It." It starts streaming on Netflix tomorrow, December 17.
Let's hear a clip from "The Daily Show." And this is from the day after Kamala Harris conceded, so it's two days after Election Day. And you say Trump's promised a peaceful transfer of power. And then you say, let's hear it for the bare minimum of democracy. And here's the rest of the clip.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE DAILY SHOW")
CHIENG: So I guess American democracy still works as long as the guy who likes overthrowing the government wins the election because then he won't overthrow the government.
(LAUGHTER)
CHIENG: So with the transfer happening, we're going to be talking about Trump again every day for another four years, I guess.
(BOOING)
CHIENG: And I, for one, did not think that when I came out of the jungles of Malaysia to do comedy that...
(LAUGHTER)
CHIENG: I would be making jokes about Donald Trump every day for 13 years straight.
(LAUGHTER)
CHIENG: Thirteen years. I don't talk about anybody as much as - I don't talk about my mom as much as I talk about this guy.
(LAUGHTER)
CHIENG: I don't talk about my wife as much as I talk about this guy. You know, my wife thinks I'm having an emotional affair with him.
(LAUGHTER)
CHIENG: Like, I'm going to be talking about this guy on my [expletive] death bed - OK? - which...
(LAUGHTER)
CHIENG: ...I assume will be in three years when he somehow brings back the Bubonic plague.
(LAUGHTER)
CHIENG: And you might be sitting at home saying, well, Ronny, why don't you just shut the [expletive] up about Trump?
(LAUGHTER)
CHIENG: Well, for the same reason CNN doesn't shut the [expletive] up about him - money, lots and lots of money.
(LAUGHTER)
CHIENG: So let's get these dollars right now and get back to Donald Trump.
(Laughter).
GROSS: OK, that's not really true about the money, I'm sure.
CHIENG: (Laughter).
GROSS: Partially, partially.
CHIENG: There's some truth to that.
GROSS: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: OK. So you got on "The Daily Show" after Trevor Noah became the anchor, and you knew him from performing at the same comedy festival in Melbourne, Australia, where - which is where you went to college. How surprised were you to get the call?
CHIENG: Extremely surprised because we weren't necessarily friends. He was obviously, you know, much more successful than me in the festival circuit. So we rarely crossed paths. And I ended up performing with him for the first time in Canada Just For Laughs in Montreal. And that's when he was very friendly to me at the show. He was very complimentary. He said, it's great. You know, what you're doing is great. And I said, oh, thanks so much. I didn't think too much about it, right? And then, maybe two years later, I get this email to audition for "The Daily Show," and I was, like, it was, like, a dream come true. I couldn't believe it. You know, and so I still remember doing the audition in my apartment in Melbourne and sending it in and then getting the call back to come to New York City and audition for "The Daily Show" in New York City, which was obviously, you know, a huge deal, if you're coming from Australia.
And so I - no, I did not expect to get it at all. It was very much him who put the spotlight on me. As in "The Daily Show" would never have found me if not for Trevor insisting that I get on. And again, I'm not his closest friend, you know? I don't even think I'm his funniest friend. He just really was adamant that he wanted an Asian person on the show because he felt that Asian people are, like, half of the world's population, but there's no presence in - on "The Daily Show." And he - I guess at that time, he was thinking of a more international show - right? - so he wanted someone who could talk to these issues. So I'm just lucky that I was the recipient of his search. You know, it could have been anybody.
GROSS: How familiar were you with the show?
CHIENG: Very familiar. I've been following U.S. politics since "The West Wing" came out, was watching it religiously, and then started, you know, always reading about U.S. presidential history. I'm a U.S. president nerd. And "The Daily Show," we were watching it as soon as we were able to illegally download it in Australia. We would torrent, like, "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" and watch it. So I - huge fan. I was watching all the time.
GROSS: What I read about when Trevor Noah resigned is that you had just done a bit and then without you knowing that Trevor...
CHIENG: Yes.
GROSS: ...Noah was resigning...
CHIENG: Yes.
GROSS: ...He resigns on the air right after you're on.
CHIENG: Yeah.
GROSS: Were you on camera?
CHIENG: Yes.
GROSS: You were on camera?
CHIENG: Yes, there's a photo of me standing there, not knowing what to do. I was in the studio right next to him, but obviously off his camera. But there was a camera on me 'cause I was doing a segment with him, as you said. And then, we finished the segment. And then usually he says, OK, everybody, Ronny Chieng, everybody. And then everyone applauds and I leave the studio. But he didn't do that this time (laughter). He - yeah, he just - he explained why he was leaving the show on air. And no sign of it. There was no sign. I didn't know he was doing that.
GROSS: Why did he do it that way?
CHIENG: I don't know. He's a very smart guy, and I trust his judgment on everything. And I'm sure he had his reasons. You know, and I can't speak to them, but I'm sure he had his reasons to do it 'cause it seems like a pretty extreme thing to do.
GROSS: Maybe he didn't want anybody to leak it.
CHIENG: Maybe he didn't want anyone to talk him out of it. I don't know. I don't know, you know?
GROSS: Ah, that's a possibility, too.
CHIENG: Yeah. But - oh, yeah, maybe he don't want anyone to leak it. That's also a possibility, you know?
GROSS: What was the expression on your face like (laughter) as you heard him resigning?
CHIENG: I was like, is this a bit? And then, in my head, I was also like, well, we're not live, you know what I mean? Like, he could say that, and then we could just edit it if he changes his mind. So I was like, this sounds serious. I don't know what's going on. I'm a person who I think I'm - I do a decent job at minding my own business. So I wasn't like, whoa, what's going on? I wasn't trying to, like, insert myself into this situation. You know what I mean? I was like, oh, man, what's going on? You know, it sounds like he is going through some stuff, and so I hope he's OK, you know? That was my primary thought.
GROSS: You might have also been thinking, uh-oh, what happens to "The Daily Show"? What happens to my job?
CHIENG: You know, honestly, I wasn't thinking that because I was here because of Trevor. If I lose the job because of Trevor, I was OK with that, you know what I mean? I wasn't supposed to have this job anyway (laughter), so I've always adopted this very nihilistic view of the job and doing it. Not nihilistic - like, I care about the job a lot. I love - it's the best job in comedy. But I adopted this very, like, live in the present, I guess, Buddhist, you know, don't worry about the future kind of mentality with the job.
And the second thing is also I believe that America will always have a daily satirical news show. You know? I think of all the countries in the world. If America can't do a daily satirical news show, like, which country can? We have the most freedom of speech. We have the most resources for show business. We have infrastructure for comedic talent where people can write and get better as performers and writers and can aspire to be hired on shows like this. And we have the craziest political news. Like, if all those factors combine, if America cannot have a daily new satirical show, no one can.
GROSS: My guest is Ronny Chieng, a field correspondent on "The Daily Show" and one of the anchors. He co-stars in the new Hulu series "Interior Chinatown." His new comedy special, "Love To Hate It" starts streaming on Netflix tomorrow, December 17. We'll be back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF LOS STRAITJACKETS' "SLEIGH RIDE")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with comic and actor Ronny Chieng. He has a new Netflix comedy special called "Love To Hate It" that starts streaming tomorrow, December 17. He costars in the new Hulu series "Interior Chinatown." He played an investment banker in "Crazy Rich Asians" and was in "Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings," which was the first Marvel film with an Asian star. When we left off, we were talking about "The Daily Show." In 2015, the year Trevor Noah became the anchor, he brought on Chieng as a field correspondent. Now Chieng is also one of the rotating anchors.
After Trevor Noah left, there was a roster of celebrity comics...
CHIENG: Yes.
GROSS: ...Who anchored the show. And then there was a hiatus, I guess, over the summer.
CHIENG: Which we have all the time, by the way. So that's not...
GROSS: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
CHIENG: Yeah, yeah.
GROSS: No, exactly. And then the correspondents started rotating...
CHIENG: Yeah.
GROSS: ...Who anchored the show. And I wasn't sure, like, is this a temporary thing?
CHIENG: Right.
GROSS: Have they decided against having one host or...
CHIENG: Yeah.
GROSS: ...One celebrity comic hosting? And it's turned out, so far, to be the real thing with the correspondents hosting, you know, anchoring. Are you at liberty to say why the decision was made to have alternating correspondents anchor as opposed to one person or one famous comic?
CHIENG: I can talk about it, yeah. But to be honest, I don't know the reasoning (laughter). Maybe it's just hard to find someone to do it. It's a tough job. I mean, I guess what I can say is I think the way it is right now, it makes sense, because Jon wants to be on...
GROSS: Jon Stewart, who's back on the show once a week.
CHIENG: Yes, the legendary Jon Stewart is on once a week. And the way he described it was we as a satirical news organization, we should be trying to cover the climate instead of just chasing the weather, right? That's how we get an elevated show, is if we can describe the climate, the political climate of America, versus just chasing these individual news stories. And so what the current arrangement does is that it allows Jon Stewart to come in and talk about the climate once a week and give us the big ideas in America.
And it allows the rest of us correspondents to do a bit more weather chasing, which as much as we're trying to avoid that, unfortunately it's necessary, weather chasing, sometimes because ultimately our job is to make fun of the news, and the news happens every single day. Not that we have to avoid discussing the climate, but we can also - it frees us up to kind of chase the weather a bit, and nobody gets burnt out. So as long as the quality doesn't drop, I mean, you know, this might be the way to do it.
GROSS: You've been in films. You're now the costar of the series "Interior Chinatown." And it's a cliche that the Asian guy is the best friend.
CHIENG: Yes.
GROSS: But in a film where the main character is Asian (laughter)...
CHIENG: Yes, yes.
GROSS: And much of the story is set in Chinatown.
CHIENG: Yes, yes.
GROSS: You're the best friend of the other Asian guy (laughter).
CHIENG: Yes, yes. But that's the beauty of the show is that we're actually making fun of these stereotypes...
GROSS: Yeah. Yeah.
CHIENG: ...Or these tropes.
GROSS: It's kind of a theme of the series that, you know, the main character feels just kind of invisible.
CHIENG: Yes.
GROSS: And he wants to...
CHIENG: Yes.
GROSS: He wants to be the star of his own life. So I want to play a clip from "Interior Chinatown." And you and Jimmy O. Yang, the main character in the series...
CHIENG: Yeah.
GROSS: ...You're both working at a restaurant in Chinatown and don't really like the job. You're just doing it.
CHIENG: Maybe I should set up also that we are working in a restaurant in Chinatown, but we are also characters in a TV show who don't realize that we're in a TV show. So we are, on the surface, working at this restaurant. But we are working at a restaurant in the context of being on a "Law And Order"-type show. So that's the meta aspect of it.
GROSS: It's very meta (laughter).
CHIENG: Yes. Yes.
GROSS: So in this scene from the first episode, you're both in the alleyway where the dumpster is.
CHIENG: Yeah (laughter).
GROSS: And you're both talking. And the Jimmy O. Yang character is talking about how he's like a minor character in his own life and invisible in the world. And he wants to be the main character. He wants to be the star of something. He wants to be - he wants to solve a murder mystery like they do on TV. So this is the conversation between you and Jimmy O. Yang. He speaks first.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "INTERIOR CHINATOWN")
JIMMY O YANG: (As Willis Wu) I'm not saying I want someone to die.
CHIENG: (As Fatty Choi) So what are you saying?
YANG: (As Willis Wu) Well, I'm saying if someone's already dead, I would like to be the person who finds the body.
CHIENG: (As Fatty Choi) That's weird, man.
YANG: (As Willis Wu) OK, you know how in cop shows there's usually a cold open?
CHIENG: (As Fatty Choi) Cold open?
YANG: (As Willis Wu) The first scene before the main title.
CHIENG: (As Fatty Choi) Right.
YANG: (As Willis Wu) OK, so for a couple of minutes, you follow this random character who you've never met, who is not one of leads. And part of you is thinking, why am I even watching this guy?
CHIENG: (As Fatty Choi) Why are you watching this guy?
YANG: (As Willis Wu) You're watching because either he's about to get killed or...
CHIENG: (As Fatty Choi) Or?
YANG: (As Willis Wu) You've seriously never seen a cop show? How is that even possible?
CHIENG: (As Fatty Choi) Video games and weed.
YANG: (As Willis Wu) OK. What was I saying?
CHIENG: (As Fatty Choi) Somebody's about to find a dead body?
YANG: (As Willis Wu) Yes. That's the rule. The person in the first scene of a procedural is either a victim or a witness.
CHIENG: (As Fatty Choi) Holy [expletive].
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
CHIENG: (As Fatty Choi) Somebody threw away an entire Peking duck with the sauce and everything.
YANG: (As Willis Wu) You're a [expletive], man.
CHIENG: (As Fatty Choi) I'm the [expletive]? You're the one who was hoping it was a dead person.
GROSS: (Laughter) OK. That was my guest, Ronny Chieng, with Jimmy O. Yang in a scene from "Interior Chinatown." In the film "Crazy Rich Asians," you have a real standout scene. You're kind of a minor character in it...
CHIENG: That's very complimentary of you, yeah.
GROSS: ...But it's a great scene. Does it feel qualitatively different to be in a film with an Asian-themed story and largely Asian cast?
CHIENG: Yeah, that's a good question. "Crazy Rich Asians" was my first movie, so I had nothing to compare it with. But I will say, on set, you could feel this really cool camaraderie and chemistry. We all had this shorthand. We were all Asian actors in our 30s. And we were all in this movie for the first time, this underdog movie, which when we were making, there was no indication it would have been as successful as it was. I think that's fair to say, as in it was still yet to be seen, was not a sure thing. Lots of risks were taken by the directors and producers, which we're all eternally grateful for, that it paid off.
But we were all in this thing in Malaysia (laughter) and Singapore. And so we were just hanging out, you know? We would go for karaoke. We would go for Korean barbecue. We didn't need to explain why we were going for Korean barbecue. It wasn't ethnic eating. It was just food. And then when we get to Korean barbecue, we don't have to explain what was being served. We all got it. So stuff like that, you know? There was, like, a shorthand and camaraderie, which exists still today.
GROSS: So correct me if I'm wrong...
CHIENG: Yeah.
GROSS: You're third generation Malaysian?
CHIENG: Yeah, Chinese Malaysian.
GROSS: Chinese Malaysian.
CHIENG: Yes, yeah.
GROSS: Yeah. So what I read is that...
CHIENG: Yeah
GROSS: Your parents moved to the U.S. when you were 3. You stayed with family in Malaysia or Singapore, and then you moved a year later when you were 4.
CHIENG: So they came when I was 1.
GROSS: Oh, OK.
CHIENG: So then, I only came here when I was 3. And then I left when I was 7, yeah. So basically, they came to America, and they left me in Malaysia for like a year and a half or something. And then when I was around 3 years old, then they brought me over. So they were with my sister without me. So they were probably here for, like, two years, I guess.
GROSS: Did you recognize your parents?
CHIENG: You know, I think - they tell me that when I saw them at the airport, I walked away because I was so pissed. But I don't remember being - you know, holding it against them.
GROSS: Right.
CHIENG: First of all, they were putting themselves through college. So, you know, imagine having to support two kids and themselves and college. So they were working and going to college at the same time. And then second of all, it was like, yeah, I was too young, you know? I was, like, a baby.
GROSS: Yeah.
CHIENG: Like, that's before the internet. Who knows what's happening in Manchester, New Hampshire? They just didn't want to risk it.
GROSS: Right.
CHIENG: So it was easier to just take my sister.
GROSS: So what was it like when they decided to move back to Malaysia?
CHIENG: Oh, great question. So when they moved back, they didn't tell me we were moving back. They said we were just going for a vacation. So I was like, oh, OK. So we'll go and see Malaysia and we'll come back. And then we went back to Malaysia, and we never went back to America. And I was like, what happened? Like, why did you guys lie to me? And so I had a chip on my shoulder for, like, years of being in Singapore and Malaysia.
And you know what? Maybe they changed - no. I was going to give them the benefit of the doubt. I was going to say maybe they went there and changed their mind. But I'm pretty sure they went there knowing they weren't going to go back. But, no, in hindsight, I think they made the right decision for them, because when they went back to Malaysia, they had more social capital because they had U.S. education. And they were culturally more suited to Malaysia and Singapore. So when they went back, I think they made the right choice for them, you know?
GROSS: What did they end up doing?
CHIENG: Oh, they became, like, corporate executives. My mom became, like, a financial controller. My dad became, like, a general manager of factories in China. And then, you know, he would commute between China and Singapore and Malaysia. But my point is that I don't know if they would have been happy in America, because in America, we were - I was very happy. But I was, like, a 4-year-old kid, and they were working at a gas station. So I don't begrudge them at all.
I wish they had told the truth, that we were moving back for good. But I think they made the right choice ultimately, so yeah. And I was lucky. I got to - I appreciate being from Malaysia and seeing Singapore and seeing Australia, and then coming to America and having a bit more perspective on things, you know? I truly think it feels like a superpower sometimes.
GROSS: My guest is comic and actor Ronny Chieng. His new comedy special, "Love To Hate It," starts streaming on Netflix tomorrow. We'll be back after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE HORNHEADS' "ZEETIN Z'BO")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Ronny Chieng. He's a field correspondent and one of the rotating anchors on "The Daily Show." He costars in the new Hulu series "Interior Chinatown." And he has a new comedy special called "Love To Hate It," which starts streaming on Netflix tomorrow, December 17.
What was it like for you getting started in comedy in the U.S. being an immigrant and being of Chinese Malaysian descent?
CHIENG: I mean, I didn't start comedy here. I started doing stand-up comedy in Australia. So when I came here, I was already six years into comedy. If you're asking me what it's like to start again in America, it was like a dream, because I always wanted to do comedy in New York City. It's the best city in the world to do comedy. You can do five, six, eight shows a night here. The best comics are here, so you're competing against them. So if you have to follow them, you have to be good.
But, I mean, I've told this story many times, but one of the best advice I got was from Mr. John Oliver, who when I first joined "The Daily Show," I met up with him because "The Daily Show" has a very strong alumni, truly the Harvard Business School of comedy. And I asked him for advice on how to be a correspondent in America, being a non-American correspondent on "The Daily Show," which is something that he's uniquely placed to give me advice on. And he told me that it took him two years to relearn how to do comedy in America. And he was spot on. He was spot on.
And, you know, he was saying, like, well - I mean, this is my interpretation of what he was saying, is that when you come to America as a foreign headliner comic, you can do comedy for five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. You can kill for - you could maybe even kill for 30 minutes, but you're always doing comedy as, like, the outsider. You know, meaning, like, you're coming in, you're making fun of America on a very surface level. And that works for about nine months. But after nine months or, like, 11 months, I think the audience and you yourself subconsciously can feel the inauthenticity of that in the sense of, like, you've been here long enough. You should know that this isn't that weird.
Why are you still making fun of five flavors of Coca-Cola, you know? Like, you should know better now. You've been here long enough. And so the point was that it took two years to really kind of get a little bit more understanding of America where you could joke about it in a way that, one, Americans haven't heard before, and two, in a way that they agree with you in the authenticity.
GROSS: So earlier, you said that you didn't tell your parents when you were on "The Daily Show." And they didn't know what "The Daily Show" was because they'd never seen it. It's not big in Malaysia. Did they start watching it after you felt like you were doing a decent job and they could watch it?
CHIENG: Yes. Like, literally the day after I spoke to him and I told him I was on "The Daily Show," you know, he googled everything about it. And he was like, hey, you know, Jon Stewart is a big deal in America.
GROSS: (Laughter).
CHIENG: I'm like yeah, Dad, I know. That's what I was trying to tell you. And he was like, yeah, he makes a lot of money, man. This guy has multimillion-dollar contracts. I'm like yeah, yeah, comedy is a big business in America. Yeah, then he started following it more. But they've always been into American politics, you know, from afar.
GROSS: Apparently your father was very funny and prided himself on that.
CHIENG: Yes.
GROSS: What kind of sense of humor did he have? Did he tell jokes or stories?
CHIENG: Yeah, he would - only in hindsight. Now, you know, he passed away in 2018, and I talk about this in the special. It's actually the last story I tell in the special. And only in hindsight do I realize, like, oh, yeah, he was - he would hold court at family gatherings, and he would joke about politics. And he would, like, roast the - you know, the decisions by leaders or people around him, family members. He would make fun of family members.
So it was a very - I would say a very modern style of comedy that he was doing. But obviously, he didn't know he was doing comedy. He was just being the life of the party. And he was, you know, usually the most educated guy in the room, usually, you know, so he would be making fun of current affairs, current events, people, family members. He would - you know, he'd just roast them. Yeah. That's how he would do it.
GROSS: You seem to have such an interesting perspective on the world and on comedy, 'cause you've lived and grown up in so many different countries...
CHIENG: Sure.
GROSS: ...And traveled the world doing comedy, too. How helpful is that to you as a person and as a comic?
CHIENG: I can't deny that having perspective helps a little bit 'cause I have something to compare America to. So I know what's an extreme idea or what's not, you know, compared to other countries. I also know what America does better than other countries. So I guess that lets me talk about it a little bit more in depth. I don't know. I think a lot of what I learned about comedy - I'm very lucky that I moved to New York City when I was 30 years old nine years ago because I think being here in this environment made me a better comic. I don't think comedy is the greatest art form on the planet and whatever, but I think it's a good art form. And one of the good things about it is that we talk to live human beings every day. So you get a sense of where the cultural zeitgeist is, I think, a lot better than anyone else, you know?
So not just being able to live in different countries. I went to law school. You know, I have a degree in finance as well. So I think I've gotten to see a lot of different worlds. I've seen the corporate world. I've seen the crazy comedian live performing world. I've seen the left-wing world. You know, in Singapore, I see the conservative world, the Chinese world and Australian. So I've seen enough different kinds of subcultures to, I guess, be able to compare stuff.
GROSS: Ronny Chieng, thank you so much...
CHIENG: Thank you.
GROSS: ...For coming on our show. It's been a pleasure.
CHIENG: Thank you so much for having me. This is a real honor to be on the show and to speak to you. Thank you so much.
GROSS: Ronny Chieng's new Netflix comedy special, "Love To Hate It, starts streaming tomorrow, December 17. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF OSCAR PETERSON'S "O CHRISTMAS TREE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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