-Our first guest tonight is
a talented actor and comedian. You know him from
his work on "Community" and films such as "The Hangover"
and "Crazy Rich Asians." You can see him on the hit
series "The Masked Singer," which airs
Wednesday nights on Fox. Please welcome back
to the show Ken Jeong. How are you, Ken?
-Fine. How are you doing? Thank you for having me,
brother. Appreciate it. -It's always a delight
to see you. And I do want to talk
about your show, which is always joyous
and a show that I think a lot of people watch together,
watch with their families. But I also want to give you
a moment to address what a difficult time
this has been, not just for all of us but hyper specifically,
the Asian-American community. -Yes. Thank you so much, Seth. And, yeah, just with regard
to the situation in Atlanta and the shootings in Atlanta, my heart, thoughts, and prayers
go out to all affected. And a special shout-out
to Karen Chi, your writer, who really had
a very, very eloquent piece on the day that it happened.
It was very moving. And it is just a sign
that, you know, with the Asian-American
community, enough is enough. We're just fed up.
And the study that Karen cited on your show a few days ago,
anti-Asian-American crime has risen almost 150%
in the last year. And in that same study,
overall hate crime went down 7%. And this is precisely due to
weaponizing terms like "China virus"
and "kung flu" and -- and also the fact that even in
this particular crime, there is debate whether this
crime was racially motivated. Asian-American women
are two times as likely to be assaulted in America. This was clearly, clearly
racially motivated. This was clearly a hate crime. And it -- You know, as a guy
who used to be a doctor and whose wife is still
practicing medicine, I have an idea of
how to solve COVID. It's mask, vaccination,
common sense, don't be an ass[bleep]. You know, but I think that --
I don't -- as a human, I don't know
how to solve racism. You know?
It's so -- It -- It takes listening, learning,
loving, being tolerant. But you know --
But it really starts off, in just our particular case
as Asian-Americans, this kung flu [bleep]
has to stop. And we really
need to express that loudly. And we are.
And thank you, man. I thank you for letting me --
letting me express that. -Of course. Thank you for sharing
those thoughts. You know, one thing which is
often spoken about in the entertainment industry
especially, is how important
representation is and how, you know,
that can bridge the gap insofar as you have people
who are racist who maybe never see different
races in positive lights. -Right.
-And you must appreciate -- last time you were here was season one of
"The Masked Singer." This was a show that you --
I believe, if my memory serves, your mother was a fan of
the Korean version of the show. -Yeah.
I mean, it really is -- and this is not --
this is less a plug for my show than it is --
it is nice to be on a show where you can, you know --
and we're one of several -- that you can just kind of
take a break and be silly for a second,
you know, and just escape the realities of it.
And in this day and age, I mean, I think that's what
entertainment has evolved to. Because, you know, there is --
there is value in what you're doing right now,
especially you. You know, like merging,
you know, political thought and comedy and entertainment. And myself, I'm merging
just kind of, you know, my essence as a former physician
and as an overactor, I guess. I guess my overacting
is somehow -- You know what? We're just sick of people
who do it well. -Right.
-Who act. And you know,
it's just good to have -- -It's a thriving time
for overactors. -Yes, it's a thriving time
for overactored, fractured, non-talents such as myself.
-[ Laughs ] -It's just nice to have a --
have a say in the verse of song that is --
-Now, you actually -- So, you went --
And, again, congratulations. You're in season five
of this show. It's a runaway hit.
But you went back and you did -- you appeared on --
this is the original "Masked Singer" in Korea
that you were the -- you sang as the Golden Pig.
-Yes. 2019 was the Year of the Pig. And they asked me --
a shout-out to Craig Plestis, who is the showrunner of
American "Masked Singer." He said, "We'd love for you
to go to Korea to promote it." And I went to Korea in, yeah,
around 2019 to just -- like, under secrecy.
No one knew. I was in my hotel room,
just like in the American "Masked Singer"
here, where you have to be
in a hotel room and really just be completely
offline and off the grid. So I was there in Korea for
three days in my hotel room. Like, under a mask,
went straight to the studio, performed,
really got an idea of what the contestants
on the show do. And it's like they stuck me
in a small -- it reminded me of my
college dorm room at Duke. It was just, like,
a little twin bed. And it was just me.
And just -- I'm rehearsing Radiohead's "Creep" ad nauseam. And it's something
I would just do all the time, like doing karaoke.
It's like my go-to 'oke song. And I just went out there
completely nervous, and it was -- Yeah,
it was really surreal. I got a deep appreciation of what the contestants
on the show do. It's a shout-out to all the
contestants who do it. It's incredibly hard. It's a lot easier,
again, to overact and to be stupid
and, you know, to be -- It's so much more difficult
than my lane. -First of all, I like that
like everyone who went to Duke, you've managed
to subtly drop it in. And I just want you to know
how much I appreciate that. -What?
Just because I graduated like 1990 with a
bachelor of science in zoology and it came very organically
off the tip of my tongue, and it's from there I got into
UNC med school and then had a career in,
like, internal medicine for seven years at an HMO
here in Southern California and then jetéed over
to "Knocked Up," directed by Judd Apatow,
my first role, and then had my own eponymous
show called "Dr. Ken," and somehow you think
I shoehorned it? -Going a little long?
-Who are you talking -- [ Laughter ]
What are you doing? You're telling people
to cut me off just because I got dewed on you,
dawg. How dare you.
-Thank you for that. 'Cause I think Wikipedia is down
across the nation. So that's really helpful.
[ Laughter ] Hey, but here's my --
I have a serious question. How -- Ken,
I apologize if I'm -- So, obviously,
on "The Masked Singer," when you did
the South Korean version, how famous are you there?
Were people very excited when they saw you?
-[ Laughs ] You know, it was kind of --
I think I'm kinda sorta. You know, I think I'm
kinda sorta famous there. They were -- Because when -- And
I knew that, going in. So I think there's
a level of familiarity, but not intense fame.
And so when I did sing, and then you hear what
the judges are saying, they're saying,
"This is Jack Black. This is like someone amazing
like Jack Black." When I revealed myself, it was
not like "Who is this guy? Oh, we kinda sorta know
it's Ken." But it's like "Oh,
it's not Jack Black." [ Laughter ] It was a little bit of
like, "No, you're good. We know who you are.
And credit to you. Good job. Good on you. But we kinda wanted Jack Black." -Did you tell them that
Jack Black didn't go to Duke? -I did.
And I explained why. And they cut everything.
And I said, "How dare you? Jack Black never went to Duke, never had a bachelor of science
in zoology, never went to the University --"
and so on and so on. -I think we're all
familiar with it now. -I think we're all familiar
with the story. -Hey, first of all,
it is very -- I think it's very exciting
that there is a "Kensday" in our week right now.
-[ Laughs ] -I want to congratulate you
on that. -I really -- this interview
doesn't happen if you're not contractually
obligated to say "Kensday," so I appreciate that.
-Made it. -It's part of my rider.
It's also part of my "Room Raiders"
deep-dive background there. So, yeah, it's very important
that you bring it up. -Ken, congrats on the show. It's always a pleasure
to see you. Thanks so much for being here
and helping provide context in these trying times.
And next time, I look forward to
doing in it person. -Absolutely. Thank you, brother.
Thank you so much.
