Hi, I’m Jimmy O. Yang, and this is my last meal. Every person has exactly two things in common. We all gotta eat, and we’re all gonna die. You might recognize today’s guest from roles in Silicon Valley, Space Force, and Crazy Rich Asians. He’s starring in a brand new show out on Hulu called Interior Chinatown right now, and he’s a founding member of the Beverly Hills based rap group, Syndicate. Jimmy O. Yang, welcome to the show! What? How did you find that out? Now, Jimmy, when you rap the line, Don’t hate the player, cause the player don’t play. No. No. What? Did we go to high school together? But the bullet stays. Oh, d-d-dude, what is. Is there a hater in mind? Or is that to the collective haterdom? Josh, did we go to high school together? We did not. You did go to high school with one of the people that is cooking your meal. Not with them, but you both went to BH. And I follow the Beverly Hills High School rap scene very closely, Jimmy. This is crazy and incredibly embarrassing for me. Wow! Uh, we need to find the inside mole and uh, take him out. Yeah. He’s my new hater now. That adds up. Uh, your music career though went on to blossom. You founded the Yellow Panthers. Yes. Uh, yeah. That was also in high school. Um, you know, so don’t take offense. Uh, but then you had the, uh, longtime collaborator, Leron James of fudgestick. com. Now, I haven’t had a chance to visit fudgestick. com. Uh huh. It was a local candy salesman? Yes, you can try visiting fudgestick. com. Uh, it’s a local ice cream truck, uh, that you can, No, no, no. It’s a pornography site that no longer exists anymore, thank God. Uh, but yeah, he liked one of the beats that I made and he used it, like, he called me. He was like, hey, uh, I hope you’re not a religious man. I’m like, what? He was like, my name’s Le’Ron James. I’m like, LeBron James? like No, Le’Ron James. And I run a dope website called FudgeStick. com and I just really like your music and I would like to use it for one of my trailers. So, one of my proudest moments, probably the peak of my music career. Have you thought about your last meal before? You know, that’s like a party question that people ask. But for me, it’s hard to pick one thing. That’s why it’s very nice to have picked multiple things and have you guys course it out. Yeah, yeah. Are you one of those people that generally thinks about death? Are you one of those people that likes to avoid thinking about death? Is it always at the forefront of your mind? I think the more avoidant I am of thinking about it, the more I end up thinking about it. Yeah, a hundred percent. There are certain nights, you know, you go to sleep alone, and then I’m just like, Wow, I’m just not gonna exist at some point. You know, it seems very sad and like sometimes it jolts me awake. I’m not particularly like a religious man, but I would like to thank, well of course cause I, my song was on FudgeStick.com. Yeah if you are a religious man, I think you might be going, depending on how good the website was. That’s true, that’s true, but I’m a, I’m a spiritual guy, and uh, I don’t know, who knows, who knows what happens, uh, uh, when we die, but it is something I do ponder, uh, ever since a very young age, so, that’s why I have a lot of stuffed animals in my bed to keep me company. I was gonna ask what gives you comfort in those moments, but you just reach over and you just start spooning, which animal is your favorite. Yeah, just grab a plushie and forget about life for a while. Jimmy, you ready to eat your last meal? I’m very ready. I’m ready to stop talking about my music career and eat my last meal. No more music questions, I promise. Jimmy, for the first course of your final meal, we have the Otoro sushi here. We got this from Sushi Enya, a little bit of shiso leaf, the wasabi, ginger, soy, and then we have, to me, maybe the crowning achievement of all California cuisine, the Cali burrito. This is carne asada, cheese, pico de gallo, sour cream. right in the giant 12 inch tortilla. We got the guac on the side, some salsa roja, salsa verde, and a Diet Coke. I never had sushi and a burrito at the same time, let alone a Toro, which is on the higher side of the price range, and then a California burrito, which I survived eating, you know, in college, because that’s all I can afford. I mean, for 6, you get like, 2,000 calories in a California burrito. That’s just a good math equation. That’s a good deal. This is like a, this is $60 right here. I hope you see this as like a snapshot of your life, like a life well lived as you go into the grave. Yeah. I still, like, I guess I’m too cheap to do this. I still want to just have a meal of Otoro sashimi. You know, that might cost thousands of dollars, but, uh, I’m so glad you didn’t ask for that on this because we’re getting to the end of the year, budget’s running tight, but we could have done that. We would have done it for you. But you know how people are rich and they’ve made it, like Tom Hanks and Gordon Ramsay when they ask for an In N Out burger, you know what I mean? Yeah, uh, please dig in, man. When’s the first time you had Otoro? I was like 27, 28 when I first got on Silicon Valley. I’m like, okay, now. Now, financially, at least, I’m not worried about rent. This was your I made it moment. It was like, Hometown Buffet and the Otoro. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I still go to Hometown Buffet. So do I. Mm, oh my god. What a treat. It’s like the wagyu of tuna. It really is. Tell me about the California burrito because I think a lot of people don’t know about this. This is a very regionally specific cuisine. It’s a very San Diego thing. So you put french fries in with meat and you do not do rice and beans, okay? This is your carb, it’s the french fries. It’s the perfect college student, surfer, stoner snack. Yeah. Even though San Diego is only a two hour drive from L.A, they don’t have really good ones in L.A. Hmm. That’s why I asked your guy, like, where do you, where do you get it from? And he said he made it. In L. A. there are so many, like, regional communities from Mexico that came to L.A., and they kept a lot of that regionality. Whereas you go to, like, San Diego and they sort of developed their own unique food culture. Ahhhh. Like the California burrito. You’re getting those, the gringo California burritos. Yeah. And the surfers. This is a fusion. Yeah. This is Mexican fusion. Alright, let’s dig in. Oh my god. There’s nothing like it. Mmm. Great job, whoever made this. Oh, I love you guys. A gringo brought it. A gringo made this. 100%. You can taste the white from their hands. Yeah. This is the ultimate San Diego stoner food. You were the ultimate San Diego stoner in college. You said in your book, How to American, that you tried to smoke so much weed that you transcended being Asian. How did that work out for you? Also, do you regret writing that book? Yeah, I do now. It was because my college in UCSD, it was very, uh, big Asian population. Like most kids are Asian. So I was just another Asian kid. So for me to stand out, I grow out my hair. And I smoked a lot of weed. So I thought, okay, at least somebody will call me, like, maybe the stoner Asian kid that will at least be a little more specific. And so much of your new show, Interior Chinatown, is about that kind of invisibility, specifically that, you know, Asian immigrants feel, uh, specifically in entertainment. Your character, Willis Wu, is a background actor that’s sort of stuck in a police procedural, and sort of graduates level by level to finally becoming that main character. Did you immediately read that script and go like, Oh that mimics a lot of things about my life? Yeah, I read the script and I read the book in one sitting, usually not the fastest reader But I was like this is insane because it’s almost based on my life, you know? Yeah. You know, he was generic Asian man. Like I was describing, right? And trying to get out of, um, his kind of stuck on neutral life and then he becomes a, a tech guy. That’s how he got into the industry, which is what I did. So it’s almost like he, he was put in a box with society and then he put himself in another box. Uh, that’s a little different. And then he finally blossoms and become like a full human being, which I guess at the end of the day is not just, uh, you know, an Asian American journey, although the book is a lot about that, uh, and the show is, but it’s just, it’s just an underdog story of someone finding themselves. Yeah. And it seems like you have to like titrate up, right? Like you said, he sort of graduates to being the tech guy and then he becomes the detective. Do you think that’s sort of just, things taking time in society? Like you’ve said that you want the, say a Chinese accent to be considered like as sexy as like an Italian or French accent. Cause why not? Cause why not? Yeah. It’s just an accent. Yeah. Like, do you think that just takes time to sort of flip that? The more you get movies like Crazy Rich Asians with you know, incredibly hot people in it, like that’s just going to eventually titrate up like that. Yeah. I think, uh, Crazy Rich Asians, Interior Chinatown, when the whole cast is Asian, but when you get more and more representation, there’s not like, uh, uh, a magnifying glass on this one person, and there’s not the pressure of this, uh, person representing the entire culture, right? So it’s kind of nice, like, in Crazy Rich, I could just be the crazy billionaire guy. No, I wasn’t just the Asian guy in Crazy Rich Asians. You literally eliminate one of those adjectives, right? Yeah, everyone had their own thing that they can do, and same thing with Interior Chinatown. You can’t just be like, Oh, who’d you play in interior Chinatown? You play the Asian guy? No, no, no. You gotta describe, okay, Willis Wu is someone that’s trying to get out of the SRO and like, you know, be somebody and then Ronnie Chang’s character is something else. So that, that’s pretty good to be kind of like finally seen for your abilities and, you know, uh, uh, and, and people talk about the storylines and, and the skills instead of, you know, just you being the Asian person. You know what I want to do? What’s that? Don’t do it. Wait. No, do do it. I think I know what you’re going to do. Yes, sir. This is something I would never do at a restaurant. Right? Because there’s, like, I would get kicked out by the sushi chef. But I want to do it so bad. Do you know there is a current restaurant in LA where you can get both of these things in the same place? Where? Really good quality. Northridge. It’s called King’s Burgers Got Sushi. Shout out. It was incredible. Okay, that was um, it was okay. Yeah. Did you think it was going to be the best thing you’ve ever tasted? Maybe. I thought you were going to tuck that in the burrito. Or, what if, what if. Also, very dangerous to have wasabi next to the guacamole. It could easily be confused. What if I do this sushi style? Put a little bit of that, you know? Did you put the otoro on the burrito? Cause that’s already where I’m going. Let’s do it, let’s do it. Well, this is the otoro California burrito. Never been eaten before. I’m like James McAvoy in Split right now. They’re just going back and forth. Mmm. This is good. I would say it overshadows the tuna a little bit. 100%. But since I’m not paying for the tuna, it doesn’t matter. There’s a reason, like, why in the Edo period in Japan they used seasoned rice instead of a California burrito for the fish. Mmm. I get it. But the soy sauce on the burrito, that is a move. That place. That, that I like, you know. That’s called that Roy Choi move, man. Yeah, I. How did you realize the dream of American freedom at the El Pollo Loco Salsa Bar? Man, you did do your research. Thanks, man. When I first came to America from Hong Kong, when I was 13, my grandpa, who’s already been living here, he was like, let’s come walk with me and I’ll take you to one of my favorite American restaurants. And we walked 45 minutes down La Cienega, which is a street in LA that’s like, five lanes wide with cars. You don’t walk. Okay. No. We walked so far. Then we got to this place outside of a strip mall called El Pollo Loco. And apparently that was my grandpa’s favorite American restaurant, which is Mexican fast food. But the greatest thing about that experience was there’s so much freedom of choice. It was just so American. Yeah. First they let you choose, Do you want white meat or dark meat? I didn’t know I had a choice, you know I didn’t know like differences and then they let you choose, Do you want corn tortilla or flour tortilla? I didn’t know. Did you know what a tortilla was at that point? No, I had no idea just some kind of bread I guess and then I remember the salsa bar, like this is even, like, you can just order one piece of chicken. Or not order anything. Just walk in to the, to the salsa bar. And it’s just open. It’s an open air watering hole. Yeah. There’s free, free salsa, free chopped, pre chopped onions, fresh pre chopped cilantro. Sometimes if I go to El Pollo Loco, I don’t want the cilantro and onion, but I really bag them up so I can cook with it myself later. I don’t have to chop an onion. It’s good to know that you, you, you’re still humble enough to admit that you can steal, you know, free cilantro. I love stealing free food. I mean, come on, I’m gonna take all of this home. You faced a couple new acting challenges on Interior Chinatown. I know you were a big fan of Stephen Chow movies growing up. What was it like to do kung fu on camera for the first time? Well, first of all, Siyuan Chao, uh, you guys know him from like Kung Fu Hustle, Shaolin Soccer, but I was growing up watching his movies in Hong Kong, the Cantonese movies, like, uh, from Beijing with Love, like a spoof on 007. And a lot of it, his American crossover ones, had the Kung Fu, but it’s done a comedic way, but the Kung Fu is still like, actually so good, right? Like baseline, just great. So for me, like I’ve never done martial arts before. So I trained for like three, four months in Wing Chun out of wooden dummy and everything. What saved me was that, um, in the script, Willis is supposed to have trained Kung Fu all his life, but he’s not that good. Yeah. So I’m like, oh, okay. At least I don’t have to be a master. You ready to go to round number two? Yeah, let’s do it. Jimmy for course number two, we got the pan fried noodles with chicken. We got the wonton soup. with shrimp and then of course we have the pork xiaolongbao sitting in the steamer basket. Oh, come on. This is me, man. This is my last meal and it’s my everyday meal. I’m very impressed that you guys made this. We have a lot of really talented cooks man. Um, I mean, I watched Lily clarify this broth herself over a long ass time. Wow. Shout out to Lily. I mean, this is, I’m very impressed. I thought you guys were just gonna go grab it in like Chinatown or something. No way, man. This is your last meal. We want it to be nice and proper. And then we’ll see. Oh, the xiaolongbao, wow. I want to try that. Cause this is really hard to make. This is not just something you just go on YouTube and make. You know what I mean? Like this is years of experimenting. Let’s get some ginger. And let’s get some, uh, dark vinegar. Which one’s vinegar? Here’s the vinegar. Okay. We got the soy here. You know, some people say, what, three parts vinegar, one part soy. I think vinegar is the OG way to do it. I don’t even use soy on my dumplings. So, oh, these are kind of like flat. But let’s see, let’s see. Should’ve still held that. There we go. Soups. I got that nice little sag. A little ginger. And I bite a hole in the side first. You go to the side, not the nipple. Suck the soup out. Yeah, yeah. Pull up, pull up. Mmm. That’s very good. That’s good stuff, man. I’m sorry, as a, as a Shanghainese person. My parents are Shanghainese. That’s not a xiaolongbao, but it’s an incredibly good dumpling. Wait, did you miss the soup? There’s not much soup in that. I think the soup may have just deflated out. That’s okay. You need a lifetime of experience to do this. And this is not to talk trash on you. The fact that, I got a super hot one. Uh oh. See, that’s why you gotta get the hole in the side, man. Nice. I love that. I would say these wonton looks incredibly correct and delicious. Thank you, man. I like the wide noodles. This is all food that you would have like grown up eating in Hong Kong. Yeah. So wonton noodle soup, wonton mean it’s like the most prevalent Hong Kong, you know, breakfast, lunch. Um, but it’s also very specific taste. So let me try this. Let me judge this real quick. Great broth. Uh, this is like a broth that my parents would make. You know, just let the wontons and the things shine. Shanghainese wontons are a little different. This has like shrimps in it. So, um, it’s more like a Hong Kong wonton. And I actually brought a little surprise for you. Please, I saw the bag sitting there. I didn’t want to call too much attention to it. Get the hell out of here. Chili oil. Chili oil. So this is XO sauce. This is very Hong Kong. It’s dry scallop XO sauce. Everybody in Hong Kong knows it, you know. It’s invented at a hotel in Hong Kong. Mm. And they, yeah, they use it. It’s shredded ham and dried scallops. Oh, God bless you, sir. This is just flavor. You can do, you know, XO sauce, fried rice and everything, right? Dude. And then I got this. This, um, my, my dad, uh, brought it back from, I don’t know, China, Hong Kong, something. And it is incredibly spicy. It’s a kueh ling, like chili oil. This is serious business. So, so here, here, here, put a wonton on a spoon and I’ll give you some right here. I can handle my shit, I need you to know that. No, this is not, this is not like Hot Ones level crazy, I don’t think. It’s just, uh, it’s very nice flavor. Only true smokers and new smokers cough. It’s very, oh my god. It’s so good, but it still gets you. It’s really good, dude. It is really good and it does get you. That flavor is awesome. Okay, speaking of feeling like you’re gonna die, tell me about the existential terror of messing up the rice for your Dad’s homecooked dinners. My dad, he’ll work all day and then he’ll come home and make like a four or five course meal, which is in a way pretty common in, in Asian culture. And then usually the kids are in charge of making the rice, but there’s a real art in that. Uh, you, you don’t want to put too much water in. You only put too little water, then the rice will be kind of raw and kind of unedible. So it’s a perfect level, and if the rice is wrong, the entire meal kind of goes out the window. And then my dad would just get so angry because he’s, he just worked eight hours all day, came home, made a three hour meal, and then his son is going to mess up the rice. So there’s a lot of pressure riding on the rice, you know? Yeah. What happened to your pet chicken, Gary? Oh, hahah. Very sad story. We grew up See, they’re trying to play music in the kitchen right now, but it’s still hooked up. Oh, Lily’s. Lily! Shout out to Lily! Hey, it’s delicious. You have nothing to apologize for. Play the Wicked soundtrack somewhere else, huh? It’s all good. Shaolongbao is a little flat, but we love it. Ha ha ha ha. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I only said that because you tried to play music. Yeah, my pet chicken Gary. So we lived on like the 23rd floor in Hong Kong in high rise. You can’t, not a lot of people have dogs and stuff like that. There’s not a lot of green grass you can walk them around. So I always have odd pets growing up from this alleyway pet store, right? This dude, just whatever he caught that day he’ll sell it to you. There’s tadpoles that you can grow into frogs. There’s a squirrel I’m sure he just trapped somewhere, you know, and then one week he had like little chicks, like little baby chickens and they’re really cute, right? And my dad bought it for me. It was awesome. We each named one, you know, my brother had one I had one is like about four chicks and they grew they grew they’re like really really cute, but you can’t really like walk it, you know just kind of in a cage on a balcony having a good time. And then one day I came home from school and the chickens were missing and I was like, what happened? Oh my God, the cage is open. Did it just like jump off the balcony? Like maybe it didn’t know it can’t fly, right? And then I walked into the kitchen and my dad was frying chicken. Like, literally balcony to table chicken. And, I, I didn’t know that. I think my dad knew it was just gonna grow into a meal. Uh, for me it was my pet, you know. Uh, but, you know, I ate it that night. Um, it was very delicious, I gotta say. Did you, did you mourn for Gary in that moment? Did you learn anything about life and death? from Gary the Chicken and his delicious end. I think that was such a traumatizing experience, uh, that I just went numb after that. Yeah. You know, I was like, you know what? Death doesn’t matter, nothing matters. Everything’s gonna get cooked and eaten at some point. That’s kind of beautiful. May we get cooked and eaten one day too. I know! Jump into the pan fried noodles here. I’m just gonna use, uh, I’m gonna, dude, I’m getting in on the chili a little bit. Yeah, this is, very faux pas what you just did. I’m so sorry. I’ll leave. Very, very faux pas. I know. I thought about that. The end of the chopstick you ate with, into this chili oil. Well, I don’t think that, You can turn it around. I thought about that. I thought about that. But then, I’m gonna get the chili on my hands and then I’m gonna go pee later. And then that’s gonna be a problem. Noodle’s great, Lily. Noodle’s really good. Great flavor. She’s gonna start communicating by playing songs that have answers on it. Mmm. I want to talk about your dad for a sec, because he sort of embodies like this mythological trickster god, where his entire end goal is not saying that he’s proud of you, in a way, you know? That’s hilarious. I never thought about it that way. Right? Like, reading your book, listening to your stand up, he’s just, it’s like he’s a leprechaun that’s one step ahead of you at all times. Yeah, yeah. Like, you kill a set at the MGM, your comic buddy goes, hey, isn’t Jimmy funny? He goes, no, Jimmy’s not funny. You finally book a role as a series regular to act, and your dad just goes, That’s so easy, I bet I can do it too. And then he does. He does. Now like looking back being a little bit older a little bit wiser. Do you see that as just being like a lack of love or or love taking a different form? Well that question asked after the chicken story. Yeah, it does seem like abuse. No, I think he, he is a really funny guy. He, he’s always holding court, like, he’s the loud one at the dinner table and things like that. And I think I observed a lot of that. So, but I do think at a dinner table, he’s funnier than all of us, right? And he’s, he has a great bravado to him, you know? Um, so I wasn’t surprised that he will be successful. Uh, and I do think he is happy for me. He, he, he’s proud to some degree. But he is very much about his own success as well, you know, he wants to make it as an actor when Interior Chinatown came out. He, he auditioned to be my father. Yeah, only to be beaten out by the legendary Tzi Ma and he’s like, okay, anybody’s gonna beat me, Tzi Ma the guy, you know? I’m sure. Game recognizes game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but he keep asking me, he was like, Am I gonna get a role on this? Are you gonna you’re gonna make a call for me and what’s going on? I’m like, you know, what? Your nepo daddy streak ends here. This is my show now. Nice. But I did write him into Space Force, and we recently, we did a Toyota commercial together, and it was a great experience, you know, I think it’s, it’s not so much about who’s doing better in the tit for tat, is he proud of me? I know deep down he is proud of me. That’s just not something we say on the surface, like, me and my parents, we barely say I love you to each other. Now that I get to work with him, whether on Space Force, and getting to shoot that commercial, it’s some great father and son bonding time that I think otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten. So, it’s a blessing, I think. Yeah. You talk about always being between both worlds of like, American freedom and individualism, and then Chinese, like, family collectivism and obedience. And there was a turning point in your life where your dad got you an internship at Smith Barney. Yes. And then you left that to pursue your comedy career. Do you think that was you, like, ultimately making that decision? Of like, I’m choosing American freedom, the El Pollo Loco Salsa Bar lives, baby. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or is it more nuanced than that? Mmm, I don’t think at that time, I was like, I’m choosing America. I think at that time I was choosing myself. Because I have been Americanized, I have learned to choose myself. And do something that will make me happy. Uh, instead of doing something that is a good, you know, safe career that will make my family happy. You know in my book I said, uh, it’s better to disappoint your parents for a few years than to disappoint yourself for the rest of your life, right? Cuz we only YOLO. That’s a very American thing like literally, you know working at Smith Barney is not YOLO, you know, like going to try different things, especially when you’re young when I was 22 I was, I just tried everything, you know And stand up was the thing that kind of stuck and spoke to me and I was pretty good at from the get, so from then, you know, it became acting and everything else. Yeah, yeah. You ready to go to course number three? Yeah, I’m ready to go right in. Take a shower, too. Dude, same. Jimmy, for course number three, we’re moving to the sea, my guy. We have the seafood gombo right here. This is that dark toasted roux, the Cajun trinity, and then the blue crab claws, some lump crab meat and shrimp. And then over here, I mean, this is the buffet special. This is the crab legs on the half shell drawn butter. And then we got the big ass mason jar of Arnold Palmer over here. Love it. That is the fancy drink. I love it. This is that golf course life, you know? And I mean this, you know, you can’t even get this at like the fanciest buffet in Vegas. Like they give you the thinner legs. This is legit. Alaskan snow crab legs, you know what I mean? That I usually would be too cheap to order. Yeah, this is, this is only saved for the final meal, strictly for budgetary reasons. The key to the buffet crab legs is you just got to be willing to sit there for six hours, stockpile the crab, you know what I mean? Yeah, when the, when the crabs come out, like, you know, the, the Chinese ladies at the buffet, they just go for it, you know? I’m swim moving over, I’m like Khalil Mack pass rushing. You’re more like Max Crosby, but yeah, I’ll give it to you. Yeah, and a couple more neck tattoos. Oh my god. Oh man. Oh! This is like, the most meaty, most crab. And it’s warm. It’s warm and steaming. Mm hmm. Oh my goodness, I’m gonna get some more lemon. I’m a huge, like, crab butter fan. Especially, like, Singaporean chili crab. Like, where it’s just covered. Yo, this is legit. This is, this gumbo is great. It has that kind of rue, that kind of umami in there. I’m gonna pour some on the crab leg right now. You’re a, you’re a sort of constant tinkerer with food, huh? I love it. I love that. I think cooking and eating is a creative process. I don’t follow recipes. I freestyle everything. And during the pandemic, I started my own little evening cooking show called Jimmy’s Kitchen. I just love it. It felt like, because I couldn’t do stand up, right, during the pandemic. It just felt like stand up. If your food wasn’t good today, make it better tomorrow. It’s a very live process, just like a joke, right? And then you get to test it and try it right in front of the audience, whether it’s yourself or other people eating your food. I want to ask about the time when you started out in comedy. Why was one of the happiest times in your life with a dude named Guam living in your closet paying an EBT? I love Guam, he’s still one of my buddies, and um, so I used to live in a one bedroom apartment in Little Armenia, uh, in L.A. Um, our rent was $1,100. And it was me, Terrell, uh, my other comedian friend, and Guam. And me and Guam had the living room, so we split our 500 rent. And then Terrell had the bedroom. He paid like the other 500. So the living room was like open concept, not your fancy open concept. It’s just this big. So it’s open. There’s no walls. And Guam’s a pretty big guy. Right? So he was like, no, no, Jimmy, it’s okay. Like I would just go sleep in the closet. There’s like a little closet in there. But then what I didn’t know was he’s a massive snorer. So like I couldn’t sleep for like months, but to answer your question, why that was the best time of my life? Because I had nothing to lose. I was just having a great time. I was growing as a comedian. I felt like I finally found my creed of friends and something that I really loved to do. Although I was making no money. We’ll be on Hollywood Boulevard, like passing out tickets, free tickets to bark and for people to come to the shows. But it was just a great experience, great camaraderie and everything was growth. You know, if I get ten audience today instead of five, if I do seven minutes of stand up instead of three minutes, everything was a win and it was a rapid growth, and I just felt like, although, you know, I wasn’t rich or anything. My life was going the right direction for the first time. Yeah. I think so much of what we shoot for in success, at least in modern American consumerist culture is like isolation, right? You get your own house, you get your car. So you no longer have to take public transport. You can get a home gym. You can get a pool in your house. You’d never have to see anybody, but we know that that makes you more depressed. It’s this weird little paradox. That is so true, man. Like the more money you have, the more isolated you become. And that. Seems to be the luxury that they’re selling. Yeah, you know you get private jet or whatever, yeah, it’s a very isolating culture and especially living in LA. I feel like you wake up, you get in your car by yourself, drive an hour yourself, go to work in a cubicle, whatever, by yourself. And even if you walk down the street, there’s like nobody. There’s no, like, there’s a word in Cantonese called yonhae. There’s no, like, the chi of the people as you’re walking down the street. And that was one of the biggest culture shocks when I came here. I was like, wow, it feels dead. I think if you’re somebody that can go out and make your own community, you know, I’m I’m one of those guys I love going to the gym and so I can go there and, I can tell. Hey, you know, I was fishing for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The sodium just really makes ya pop. Yeah, it looks sick. Um, but you played a character named Dun Meng on Patriots Day, super dramatic role and he was the one that he basically thwarted the Boston Bombers by making a daring escape and calling the cops, uh, but in an interview, he said that the Boston Bombers asked, Would anyone care about you? And he said, No, no one cares about me here. Why did that hit you so hard when he said that? That was a great movie to be a part of. And Dun Meng, he’s a real life guy that lives in Boston. And I get to talk to him. Yeah. You know, every day we hung out. Um, and, he’s just such a genuine guy. Like he doesn’t think he’s a hero. He just thinks it happened and he was able to help. Great, you know, but he’s true. He’s a true immigrant American hero that I get to portray in this movie. And I was asking him these questions like without digging too, too deep, right. To, to give him PTSD, but he was very ready to talk to me about it. And one of the things I remember he said was what the two terrorist brothers asked him. And, and does anybody care about you here? And I think there’s two folds to this question. He said no, because he doesn’t want them to think that people will come after him, you know, and then, and find him and then, you know, he’ll get hurt because of that. But then he also genuinely felt like, no, there’s no, nobody, I’m an immigrant here and all my family’s back home. And that was a feeling that I often felt, myself, when I came here. Um, good thing, you know, my family was here. He, he was just coming to college here by himself. My family was the only thing I could rely on, like my nuclear family. Yeah, I mean, speaking of having your family here as an anchor, your mom made the decision to leave California and go back to Shanghai, I believe, when you were a kid. How much did that sort of hit you at that young formative age? It sucked. It was like, it’s almost like your parents getting a divorce, but then your mom’s moving like three continents over. Yeah. But I think that’s something, it’s something hard for me to talk about, but at the same time, I want to talk about it because it’s like, maybe the darker side of certain immigrate, a lot of immigration stories that people don’t talk about. Yeah Like you can come here and pretend you’re happy and live the American dream or whatever but sometimes, whether it’s the dad, the mom, or the kid, they don’t feel like they fit in and they have a hard time, you know, and that breaks up the family unit. My mother, she was a very successful person, managing a couple of very high end clothing stores in Hong Kong. She had a community, she had friends, but then when she came here, her English wasn’t that good, so she only was able to work as a teller at like a Chinese bank. She did telemarketing and like very just trivial jobs, and she was just unfulfilled, you know, so. She ended up taking a job offer in Shanghai, uh, to do something that she’s very good at, designing clothes, jewelry and things like that. And she did great for herself, but I was 15 year old, uh, years old at the time. So it was maybe at the time it was anger, resentment, whatever, but it definitely felt like the safety net that the only safety net I had was like, pulled out from under me. But I think looking back, if it wasn’t for that, that really toughened me up. Right. And makes me. It almost created a void that I wanted to fill either creatively or with new friends I make or new careers. So I think that really informed how I grew up in college and past college. Of, okay, I don’t want that safe, guaranteed job. I want to do something else that has more meaning to fill this void. You know? Now she’s actually back. And like, her and my dad are together in the house. They have a really cute pug together. And, and the family’s all back together. Yeah, I think, I think that experience, uh, made me take some chances in my life I actually had that something really similar where I realized that, Oh safety and happiness are often not correlated, especially for me. Hmm. I had my I watched my dad pass away when I was 19 I was at his funeral and it was some dude that was like hired to talk about him that didn’t know about him, I don’t really know how funerals go or where this guy came from, but he kind of like couldn’t name any hobbies or passions that my dad had and then I started thinking about it and I was like, He didn’t have like a thing. He sort of died without like a thing. And I’ll be damned if I die without that thing. And so, uh, yeah man, we’re just all out here trying to have that thing. No, that’s good. You gotta love it, whether it’s Doc West or the Yellow Panthers. Yes. Ready to go to course number four? I don’t know, I want to keep eating this! Keep eating! Jimmy, for the final course of your final meal, a light dessert of prime rib. We did this with an homage to the Stinking Rose. I know you were a fan of that, that’s why we got the guy. How’d you know that? Jimmy, I have been following you for the last 30 years. You’ve actually died, and you’re in a snow globe right now. When it came, it reminded me of Stinking Rose, which is one of my favorite restaurants. Everything is garlic infused. And they shut down the one in L.A., so I haven’t had it in so long, and I’m so excited about this. Like, I’m like, literally like in prayer hands over here. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm! You guys killed this. This is so good. Is it as good as the American Club in Hong Kong? Mmm! I had a great piece of porterhouse here. You’ve talked about the fact that you don’t really choose to represent Asian people. You sort of just woke up and you were Asian and then you continued being Asian. You couldn’t really choose to represent Nigerian people if you wanted to. Right. I just wanted, unless like the, the racial fantasy draft came back and you were chosen, we all know how that goes. Shout out to shabasha. But how do you sort of treat those roles responsibly? Like Jin Yang in Silicon Valley? It easily could have been one of those roles where Jian Yang was the butt of the joke, but instead, Jin Yang sort of makes everybody else the butt of his joke. Mm-hmm . How do you treat those roles responsibly? I think in the beginning. You know, I was just trying to survive, pain, you know, any role, whatever, right? But whether it’s now or early on, each role I approach, you know, you got to approach it like in a very human way, you know, Jian Yang, even though he started with two lines, there’s a whole backstory. Where did he come from? How does he feel about these people? Right? And to me, even if my uncles or my cousins that had Chinese accents like Jian Yang, I still have an accent myself, uh, to some degree. It’s never a weakness of character. Yeah. It’s, it’s actually very strong. I know a lot of people that have accidents, so they pretend they don’t know a lot of things, but then they, they, they really, they’re really talking shit about you. Yeah. You know, and they just don’t care to acknowledge you. Right? So to me, it could be actually a very strong thing. And then as the character grew, I think the writers got to know me, like Mike Judge, Alec Berg. Um, uh, I’m not a meek character by any means, you know. Uh, uh, and, and me and TJ, we developed a great chemistry. And that role became much more three dimensional. He, he, he, you know, maybe have started off as just a foreign guy. Um, but then he became kind of like an arch villain, you know. Yeah, he sure did. Yeah, and now, you know, I have, you know, more of the luxury of choice of what role I want to take on, what roles I don’t. And, I never shy away from a role that has an accent. Like, Dun Meng, he’s an American hero. I’m not going to play him because he has an accent. Of course, not. Like, he’s awesome. That was one of the proudest roles. Uh, but then, it’s just about the stories now, you know? Like, Interior Chinatown wasn’t based on anyone. But, the material was just so interesting and groundbreaking. It’s it’s yeah, it’s a great Asian cast, but it’s also the first time a show is within the show that’s breaking the fourth wall and the story goes kind of bonkers. It’s a little bit truman show It’s a little twilight zone, but he lives in the background of a police procedural. Yeah that stuff I mean that’s just exciting asian or not and I think the whole representation angle. Um, It’s a group effort, right? Like, it’s great. Did you just flex your chest right now? Like, what was that? Did you guys see that? I think it’s literally the sodium. Yo, that was crazy. Dude! What is that, man? It wasn’t even intentional. I think I just, like, What kind of show is this, dude? What? Man. As I was saying something very important, Josh, before you distracted me with your pec muscles. Why are you looking? I don’t know. It was just right there. I think representation is a group effort. Like, you don’t want to be the only person that has that weight on your shoulders to represent. That’s why it’s great to have a show with so many great actors. And I try to actually get lunch every Wednesday. I try to tell myself I do a creative lunch. And a lot of times it’s people I haven’t met, people I look up to, people in the community. Like I had lunch with Steve Yeun, I had lunch with, uh, Simu not to long ago, with Nigel, uh, Ung, with Asuko. And it’s great to kind of see what their perspective is. Some people have been in the industry much longer than I, right? Um, and I think representation is also just doing your job well. Yeah. Right? There’s other, there’s a lot of conversation. The journalists talk about what’s good, what’s bad, representation, whatever. My job as an actor or as a comedian is if I put out a good special that makes you laugh, that’s good representation. Cause I just happen to be Asian, you know, but you know, my job is to be funny and, and if I, I, I do an acting gig, I do the best of my ability of, I write something, I write something on my heart, you know, to the best of my ability. And if the work is good. That creates good representation. Like nothing drives me crazy, crazier than, you know, like I’m say rooting for somebody, you know, whether it’s in the community or a friend of mine and they just, you can tell they just like mailed it in and I’m like, no man, you’re doing this. We got to do this for each other. You know, like if Crazy Rich Asians cracked open the door, now everything we go in there. We can’t guarantee everything’s hits, but we gotta, like, make sure we put our best effort into everything so more doors could be open. Yeah, yeah. And as you hurtle towards the end of your life, as we all know, Uh, what to you makes a life well lived, and how has that changed over time? I feel like I’ve had this from a young age where I never cared about you know, like the Mike Tyson interview with the little girl about legacy. Like when she was like, legacy, wait, wait, wait, we have to turn the dust. And that girl’s like, wow, I’ve never heard that before. Yeah, because she’s 12. But I never kind of cared about that. I’ve always lived in the moment. When I was a kid, I was just like, as long as I’m happy in the moment, it’s good. Um, and now it’s, yeah, I still live by that. You know, uh, I try to have fun with everything I do. But I think now as I grow older, there’s also. Whether it’s a sense of responsibility or, you know, I don’t know. Maybe it’s just a massless triangle. I, I, I don’t think any act is truly altruistic, you know, even if I do charity work. Fully agree with that. Yeah. I’m doing it to make myself feel better. A hundred percent. You know, so I don’t, I really, uh, so, but I, I’m trying to do right by people, you know, uh, and also just. Building community of good friends and family, you know, I’m in the commissioner of my fantasy football league and that little bit of 12 people community I am so proud of that and and sometimes you rent out an entire Western town to do a live draft. Yeah, I know I did! Providing fun for people. I would like to think that’s my legacy being the commissioner of my fantasy football league as long as I have fun then good work will come. And then if people get something out of that, younger generations will be like, Oh, if Jimmy did it and he’s, you know, an immigrant Chinese American, then maybe I could do it. So that, that’s great. But that’s all in a way out of my control. The only thing I could control is just have fun with it and do the best work that I could and win my fantasy football league. Commissioner winning is a little shady, I’m just saying. There’s nothing going on. You can’t trade, everyone’s gonna veto that. I’m just trying to not be last place this year, it’s pretty rough. Why does the infinite vastness of the ocean scare you? Infinity just really scares me. Vastness scares me. Because that’s death. Yeah, it is. If you could say you die for a trillion billion years and then you get to come back for like a day, I wouldn’t be that scared, right? It’s not infinity. Infinity is a number that I can’t grasp. I don’t think people could grasp, you know? And I think when I look out to the ocean, or if I look up in the sky, there’s a sense of infinity and it’s very scary to me. And I think it ties into what you said earlier of there’s no such thing as pure altruism. I believe the same thing. You can never dissociate from the self, right? Yeah. Even if you were to push somebody out of the way of a moving bus, it’s only because you couldn’t have lived with the guilt of not having done that. That too. It’s the same reason I think why we can’t really fathom death because all we think about is the self. Yeah. And death is the absence of the self. So we’re in this. Stupid little paradox that just influences us to, I don’t know, eat prime rib and talk to somebody about family trauma that you met an hour ago in front of cameras. Yeah. Infinity and then some. That is very scary, but maybe also peaceful. I like to look at it through a peaceful lens. It’s hard to do that because then I still get the panic attacks at night sometimes, you know? Does everyone get those panic attacks? Does everyone, uh, who gets, Everyone get those night terrors panic attacks? That makes me feel better about myself. What do you think happens when you die? If you was a betting man, you take all that fantasy football money, you put it on a wager against death. What happens? There’s an afterlife or just? I think for years, I thought it was just, just nothingness. But I don’t know. I think that’s the only thing that’s keeping it exciting. I don’t know. Nobody knows how we got here. Uh, nobody’s going to fully know for sure, you know, um, how, how are we going to end up? Uh, something that my close personal friend, Tom Hanks, said. We were on the PJ the other day. It’s private jet. Uh, no, he actually, he said something here. That was, uh, the smartest people in the history of the world have thought about what happens after you die for an eternity and not one of them has gotten goddamn close. So I’m not going to waste a minute of my life thinking about that and I thought that was pretty rad. Wow. Ya boy Hank. You ready to get in the lightning round? Yeah, sure. Who’s the one person dead or alive you’d want to share your actual last meal with? I don’t know, like one of my parents probably. You’re just gonna choose one, let the other one hang. Instead of them, you choose Too Short. Yeah, I guess. Who chose Too Short? No, I’m saying, you could choose Too Short. I could choose my friend Too Short, yeah. Or Tom Hanks, you know. But that seems a little selfish. But I think you would like to have your last meal with your family. If Mike Judge wrote a spin off of Silicon Valley starring Jin Yang, who would you want to co star with you? Oh, I mean, T.J Miller. I mean, that was such a fun, uh, relationship, and he’s just such a good improviser. Um, but at the same time, you know, since then, I’ve worked with so many great people, like Steve Carell was incredibly awesome on Space Force. Um, bring back the whole cast of Crazy Rich Asians, too. Hell yeah. That was a great experience. What song do you want to be played at your funeral? Yellow Panthers. No, I don’t know. No, no, no. Three songs. Uh, Girls, Girls, Girls by Motley Crue. The Strip Club Anthem. Was your dad more disappointed watching you do stand up for the first time or watching you lose 21-3 in straight sets during a regional table tennis match when you were 10? Mmm. 21 3. I think he was pretty disappointed. Um, I was more disappointed actually, uh, because I thought I was really good and then I got crushed 21 to three, right? Which is like terrible. Um, but I think my dad actually in hindsight wasn’t that disappointed. He probably thought I wasn’t that good anyways, so he knew. He, he went in with proper expectations. It’s kind of beautiful in a really way. Who is your dream eulogize at your funeral? Dave Chappelle. Who’s the better punt returner, Dante Hall or Devin Hester? This one’s for me and nobody else. I love this. Uh, I think Devin Hester’s the GOAT. But, uh, Dante Hall is actually one of my favorite players, uh, growing up. Because he was, he was also very small. You know, I always wanted to play football. I’m 5’5 and a half, and Dante Hall’s like 5’6. And he’ll juke everyone out of the shoes, score like two punt return touchdowns. Made me believe I could play football. So, I would say Dante Hall is absolutely the GOAT. One of my favorite players with the X. What’s your biggest fear? Embarrassment, I think. Like, I try to do a lot of things, but I try to do it to the best of my ability so I’m not embarrassed. Yeah. I think that’s my driving motivation. So like fear of shame that keeps you. Yes. I think everyone should have more of that. Agreed, man. America should have more shame. There’s no shame left. Put that on a t shirt, man. What’s the hardest goodbye you’ve ever had to say? Recently, uh, my ex and I, we, we, we broke up. But we had a puppy together. And that dog, like, didn’t make it very far. Shoot. So, that was tough. Yeah, man. Yeah. Uh, finally, Jimmy, are you happy? Uh, not anymore after you asked me that last question. Yeah. Jesus [bleep] Christ, man. I was pretty [bleep] happy. Too short, you know? Yeah. Don’t mess up. Can someone play Big Pimpin or something? Let’s get the mood up in here. No, I am generally very happy. I think my baseline, I’ve been blessed, whatever. It’s my brain chemistry or whatever. I’m generally a pretty happy, positive, happy person. Go Lucky person, and I think that’s my job, is to share the joy with the people, whether it’s in stand up or, you know, things that I do. I am very glad that you’ve shared this joy with me today, and shared all of this wonderful food, Jimmy. You are incredible. This is awesome. If you want to deliver your last words to that camera right there. Last words would be, this is, uh, um, I’m going to say it, and then you tell me if you know where it’s from. Great. I wish you had more time. Do other people know where this is from? Anybody? It’s Denzel Washington in Man on Fire. Great revenge film, right? And he, he, he, he like duct taped this guy onto a car and he shoved two grenades up his [bleep]. Yeah, something. And then he asked the guy any last words, any last words. And the guy’s like, no, no, please say no. Can I have a wish? Like, what’s your last wish? He’s like, and then Denzel’s like, I wish you had more time. And then he walks away, and the car blows up from his butt. Jimmy, you’re incredible. Everyone, make sure you check out Interior Chinatown out on Hulu. It is a super freakin fun show. Jimmy, where else can people find you? Uh, they can see my new tour coming, um, called Big and Tall. And, uh, you can find all the tickets on my website, jimmycomedy. com. Very surprised nobody has taken that site. There’s been so many Jimmys. Take that, Jimmy Carr. Yeah, yeah, take that Jimmy Carr. Take that, uh, Jimmy Neutron. You know. It’s jimmycomedy. com. New tours, new tickets. And of course Interior Chinatown. Thank you very much. Is that guy you hit with the Corolla opening for you? No. Was that, was that, did that really happen? He texted me after I went on Kimmel. No shit, well yeah, because you put it on Kimmel? Yeah, and then I was like, uh. Is he good at comedy? Did you, did you like, check it out? No. We all gotta eat and we’re all gonna die. But in the meantime, you can wear our Last Meals hoodie, available now at mythical. com.