Jimmy O. Yang on His Dad Acting in Space Force, Dating a Kimmel & Writing for Harlem Globetrotters

you know our next guest from crazy rich asians in silicon valley now he is a space scientist in season two of space force it's on netflix now please welcome jimmy o yang [Applause] oh such it's always a pleasure to welcome a fellow jimmy to the show jimmy's are always the greatest you know my girlfriend's last name is kimmel no way so if somehow we get married and i take her last name it's a lot of ifs jimmy i will be jimmy kimmel jimmy o'kimmel would be nice yeah is that right your girlfriend's last name's campbell yeah there aren't a lot of us no in fact some say there are too many but there aren't a lot of us it it could be related to it i'm gonna have to uh i will i'll go through the whole thing with you once we hit the commercial but i do want to well first of all i i love the show silicon valley and you were so funny on that thank you thank you and i would imagine that most people know you're from the movies and from television shows but you started uh doing stand-up comedy and still do stand up absolutely still my first love and and one of my top loves were you a kid when you started doing it uh no i might have looked like a kid i was uh how old were you 21 like because that's a kid yeah if you start before 21 they make you wait outside and then when you said come because it's it they sort of outgoing comedy clubs right in the old days they didn't and in fact not only would they let you in and let you go on stage uh some of the older comedians would give you cocaine and ruin your life yes i wish that happened that's why that's what used to happen so you started in with san diego and then uh la and both it was between junior and uh senior year high school during the summer and i started my first couple of open mics was at the haha comedy club in north hollywood and i had to pay five dollars for five minutes of open mic to perform in front of like five other apathetic comics uh so it was very humble beginnings basically you rented a microphone for five minutes is really what happened because l.a is so competitive i couldn't even find a free open mic i had to pay for an open a paid open mic what a great business that is isn't it so do you you didn't make any money at the beginning right not at all what would you do did you have a regular job i did everything possible i uh um i dj'd i sold used cars and then when later when uber came around like this is the best job for comedians i drove uber you did yeah yeah wow how long did you do that a few months can you tell if people tipped at the end when i first started there's no tipping that wasn't even all right right yeah yeah they'd have to hand you the tip in cash right i wish nobody did which nobody did nobody which i still always do because i want them to know it came from me i don't want it to be a surprise at the end of the evening oh see i do the reverse i'm like ah sorry i don't have any cash on me but i'll hit you up on the app though and i never do so oh so i just thought that's bad uber karma yeah was that the weirdest job you had um oh i have a lot of odd jobs uh briefly at dj's and the strip club uh and then i also i briefly wrote for the harlem globetrotters what yeah but briefly i meant like literally a day like two hours what would you write for them so so the globetrotters they do have a script believe it or not and they were taking that script and the whole show to china so i think they just googled chinese american comedian or something and i was probably the only one that showed up that would accept the job and i did it they met me at like a hilton hotel by lax all of them no no no just the uh the white guys okay you know the whole guy met me at the hilton out there and and they wanted me they want to ask me questions to see if the script would translate you know in china to see if it's offensive any part of it the only note i gave them was that in the script uh hello kitty was in it and then i was like well don't put hello kitty in the chinese because that's japanese i don't know if you knew that right yeah hello kitty's not chinese that's the only advice i gave them how did they work hello kitty into the basketball script i have no idea but they pay me 200 bucks and i think uh 200 well spent 200 just to check it out they didn't ask you to write them like any kind of bits or anything uh no no i don't i don't think so so they relied on a comedian where you could have steered them by the way in a terrible direction if you yeah i could have told him hello kitty was korean that would have cost the whole international that could have caused quite a problem you could have brought the whole harlem globetrotter empire down in one little prank i know i know so now you are you've taken those writing skills you honed with the globetrotters and you're not only one of the stars of space force you are writing uh on the show as well yeah you wrote one episode you write every week how does it work so it was a writer's room was 24 weeks and it was just such a blessing because of the pandemic i couldn't go out and shoot movies and stuff right so we're on zoom every day with steve carell with greg daniels norb hiscock one of our show runners and writing every day like learning from the legends so that was really cool you guys just sit there and you just hash it all out on zoom yeah then you have to get up and you have to pitch your idea for an episode to everyone in the group yeah yeah and they give you suggestions and you say do you get to decide whether they stay in or they they stay or they go i don't get to decide anything yeah you don't get to decide anything the producers get to decide but i was lucky enough they let me write an episode uh which was about the chinese delegation coming to america uh to space force i see of course only i could write yes because you are so rooted in the culture you're gonna have that that's why i pitched that episode so other people can't write it it has to be me you're no dummy that's for sure and your dad is on the show yes he is that's the episode your dad is on has your dad been is he your dad an actor he started acting after i did because he he saw me doing pretty well in silicon valley and this and that he was like oh it's so easy you can do it i can do it it's no problem and so he started going to auditions and he started crushing and did you suggest him for the role on the show no no so season one i i it was before i even wrote this episode season one uh there was an episode where uh john malkovich's character talks to a chinese counterpart chinese scientist and inadvertently you know just talking to john i was like hey you know my dad's an actor it's a funny story you know just like how i told you and then after the table regret daniel saw a show runner i was like i don't know there's just not that many older asian guys out there it's always the same couple of guys and then i wasn't going to say nothing but john malkovich was like have you thought about jimmy's dad and i was like john i didn't tell you if he was a good actor or a bad actor he just an actor so i got so nervous but then i was like good i think he can do it if i just train him you know and i went home and i cut together sizzle reel for my dad like all the commercials he's done chinese shows he's done wow and then i sent it to greg daniels and they said yes unbelievable and now you brought that's not the only video you made because you made a video of your dad at work oh um tell us basically what we're gonna see here before we see it so we understand i i was so nervous for my dad his scenes were with john malkovich two-time oscar nominations one of the greats john malkovich and random old chinese guy it's not like that you gotta know your lines man i mean come on i was tr i was like a tiger parent i was like a tiger's son training him and then he was like no no i'm prepared i got this and he showed up on set and me and john malkovich just like honing our lines even john a veteran actor you know steve is in the corner like working as long as i'm working and then the camera pans over and my dad just asleep on the cast here you got a whole notebook we're very professional uh-huh uh-huh and slowly pan over there's your dad's well you know it's that kind of casual approach yeah perhaps that launched his career i think so he has no fear everyone else would be so nervous he just went in and crushed it and then we wrote him in more in uh season two unbelievable the whole family's involved it's great to have you here the show is space force season two is on netflix now jimmy o yang everybody we'll be back with avril lavigne hi i'm jimmy kimmel click below to subscribe to our youtube channel or if you want to be that way about it don't

Channel: Jimmy Kimmel Live

Views: 1,799,978

Keywords: jimmy, jimmy kimmel, jimmy kimmel live, late night, talk show, funny, comedic, comedy, clip, comedian, mean tweets, Live Audience, Hollywood, interview, Actor, Asian American, Crazy Rich Asians, Silicon Valley, Space Force, Netflix, Stand-up Comedy, Comic, Odd Jobs, Harlem Globetrotters, Writer, Credits, Father, Chinese, Dad on Set, John Malkovich, Canada, Uber, Hello Kitty, Zoom, Writers room

Id: U4r3MPqKTTk

Length: 8min 56sec (536 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 01 2022