Latest news with #InteriorChinatown
South China Morning Post
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Why Jimmy O. Yang ‘feels like Blackpink', and his rise from Uber driver to king of comedy
Back in 2014, between the first and second seasons of the HBO comedy series Silicon Valley in which he had a supporting role, Jimmy O. Yang spent his days moonlighting as an Uber driver. Advertisement The Hong Kong-born Hollywood hopeful used a pay cheque for his role in the series as Jian-Yang – he received the Screen Actors Guild minimum of US$900 a day – to buy a used Toyota Prius hybrid, which he would drive around Los Angeles to earn the money to pay his rent. 'You never know, especially as an actor, where your next pay cheque comes from,' he tells the Post. Only when he was promoted to a series regular did he finally feel he had the safety net he had long desired. 'At least now all my rent will be paid for,' he recalls thinking. Fast forward a decade and O. Yang has achieved the rarefied success that eludes many Asian actors in Hollywood . It was a long time coming. Jimmy O. Yang as Jian-Yang in Silicon Valley. Photo: HBO Towards the end of Silicon Valley's run, he appeared as the scene-stealing Bernard Tai in Crazy Rich Asians (2018). Three years later, he starred as the main love interest in Love Hard, and finally became number one on the call sheet for the action comedy series Interior Chinatown, which premiered last year on Hulu and Disney+ to rave reviews. Advertisement At the same time, his stand-up comedy tours – clips from O. Yang's Amazon Prime specials Good Deal (2020) and Guess How Much? (2023) have gone viral – catapulted O. Yang into the social media spotlight.
Axios
29-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
New play tackles MSG, coming of age through anime and '90s pop
A new play at San Francisco Playhouse challenges long-held stereotypes about Asian food, belonging and misinformation with a production inspired by anime and '90s pop culture. Driving the news: "Exotic Deadly: Or the MSG Play" follows Japanese American high schooler Ami as she struggles to fit in with her peers in 1999. When she discovers that her family helped create MSG — the chemical basis for umami, often stigmatized in the U.S. — she's devastated. Yes, but: A mysterious new girl at school soon compels her to find the truth. Driving the news: Lauded as " frenetic and fantastical" by BroadwayWorld, it will run from Thursday through March 8 at the San Francisco Playhouse. State of play: Keiko Green, whose screen credits include Hulu's "Interior Chinatown," began writing the play during the pandemic. Her grandfather was a food scientist who worked for Ajinomoto, the Japanese company that created MSG in the early 1900s. Her mother would only mention his job as a professor during Green's childhood in Georgia, however, and it soon became clear she was ashamed of their family's association with MSG, Green said. "I grew up in a super, super white area with very few other Asian kids," Green said. "Looking back ... those things feel so connected, my own shame and internal racism and my mom's shame." It wasn't until her 20s that Green learned the truth about MSG and how studies have debunked baseless narratives about the additive making food unhealthy. What she's saying: "What's interesting about the play is it's so fun, it's silly, it's pop culture, it's all of those things," Green told Axios. "But it really is tackling just that feeling of being invisible [and] misunderstood ... and I think it's so related to our food." "It's a really relatable coming-of-age story, where people will see themselves," Green said. "I hope people laugh so much that their stomachs hurt and ... I hope a lot of people learn something new." Go deeper: New campaign aims to address racist stereotypes around MSG
