Ronny Chieng Is 'Asian-Mom Famous'
You know Ronny Chieng. He's the guy who waltzes in with an ego the size of Texas—even though he's from Malaysia—cracking wise in a way that makes your jaw drop before the joke sinks in, then you laugh. The 37-year-old is famous for his hilarious (yet absolutely scathing) political commentaries as a correspondent on The Daily Show, his brilliant Netflix comedy specials, and his scene-stealing tuns in blockbusters like Crazy Rich Asians and M3GAN.
There aren't many places Chieng won't go with his comedy. But in his acting career, the man is just beginning to show off his chops. In Mulligan, a new Netflix animated sitcom Chieng pops in as Johnny Zhao, a scheming billionaire who drags a suitcase of money around a post-apocalyptic world. He's joined by a cast of comedy legends like Dana Carvey, Tina Fey, and Sam Richardson. If seeing Chieng in animated form isn't enough for you, he appears in the much-anticipated Disney+ series, American Born Chinese, and he's now filming Hulu's adaptation of Charles Yu's surrealistic novel, Interior Chinatown. But if you need a dose of Chieng's tongue-in-cheek humor, you can always catch him on The Daily Show, where he's been dutifully skewering American absurdities for eight years.
In between all of Chieng's comedic duties, we managed to catch him on a Zoom call to muse about his penchant for playing immoral characters, his future as an action star, and if just maybe, fortune willing, he could be the next permanent host of The Daily Show.
ESQUIRE: Happy AAPI Heritage Month, Ronny. How has your month been so far?
Ronny Chieng: It's been great. Thank you for asking. I'm actually in Los Angeles right now filming Interior Chinatown with Jimmy O. Yang. That's been a cool way to spend AAPI Month. Charles Yu wrote the book Interior Chinatown, and he's probably the smartest writer in Hollywood right now. And we had Taika [Waititi] directing it, so it's a lot of fun. I got to go to Gold House Gala and they had this really nice moment where they got all the Joy Luck Club actresses on stage. Almost all of them were there. That was a very nice moment.
When I told my mom that I was going to interview you, she was like, I know him. Didn't he interview people in Chinatown? That's a big deal, because she doesn't watch much TV. On The Daily Show, you offered an embodied perspective on issues that affect the AAPI community, but you've jokingly said that whenever there's an Asian American issue, they toss it to you. How do you balance that duality?
Asian-mom famous is the ultimate compliment. Thank you. It's an interesting question, because you want these stories to be told and you don't think anyone else is doing them. We need to talk about these issues, because if I don't talk about it, no one else is going to talk about it, or no one's going to care in the way that I care about it. They're not going to understand enough to care. So you want to talk about it, but you also don't want to be limited creatively. That's the constant duality that you have to deal with, and it's an art form, so there is no right answer. You'll feel when something's kind of "token-y" or Asian just for sake of being Asian, and it's not really interesting otherwise. I'm lucky at The Daily Show. They support me in all respects. Even when I don't want to talk about something, they get it. So they'll pitch Asian stories, and then I'll tell them, "This is pretty cool." Or I'll say, "Send me stuff that's just interesting, funny stories—that have nothing to do with being Asian." And they'll pitch those as well.
You've been on The Daily Show for eight years now. Do you have any say in who gets to be the permanent host?
It's not a democracy over there, no. I don't think so.
How did you get involved with Mulligan?
I was very lucky that Tina Fey, Sam Means and Robert Carlock asked me to be a voice on it. I didn't even need to see the script. As soon as I saw the people involved, I was like, This is going to be great. So I said yes. When I read the scripts, I was like, this is super fun. I'm so very lucky to be a part of this. These guys are comedy legends.
Your character, Johnny Zhao, is kind of like the story's villain. You also recently played a villain in M3GAN. Are you enjoying playing the bad guy?
I would say that the villain in M3GAN is M3GAN. Or society is the villain in M3GAN. I have fun playing the villain. It comes very natural to me. It helps that I'm naturally quite an evil person and I can relate to people being evil and amoral, unethical, selfish. It's just right up my alley. When you're the villain no one can really criticize what you're doing, because you're the villain. Like, what do you expect? The ethical standards are a lot lower for villains. So you can get away with a lot.
Careful what you say. You're going to be getting a lot of scripts after this comes out to play the villain.
One can only hope.
The world in Mulligan is post-apocalyptic and miserable, but also fun, because there's no rules anymore. What role would you have in that kind of society?
I went to law school and I do stand-up comedy. So in a post-apocalyptic world, I'd be completely useless. I would probably try to run an open mic, because I think in a post-apocalyptic world, there's still someone who wants to play guitar, right? It would be the last remaining open mic on Earth. In all seriousness, during the pandemic, everything we turned to was art, you know? That was a clear case for art and culture—like respecting artists and supporting artists. Literally, when the world ended, we all just turned to art.
In Mulligan, I always looked forward to your appearances on screen, because I was like, He's going to say something really funny now. For a long time, when you saw an Asian character in a comedy series, he had some accent, or he was the delivery guy. That's historically been the role of Asian characters in comedy.
You're giving me too much credit. With TV shows, you're kind of at the mercy of what you get cast in. So a lot of people got cast in bad roles and it wasn't their fault. I'm sure it wasn't what they wanted. It's nice to have people who want to include talented Asian people in the storytelling. I'm lucky that people want me to be in their projects, so I get to mess around in a lot of different genres. I've been pretty lucky that people want me involved in their cool things. Please keep it coming.
Is there a difference between how you approach actor Ronny Chieng and comedian Ronny Chieng?
Yes. Stand-up comedy is a very direct form of self-expression. It's very me-focused. I know what to say and how to say it, because it's coming from me. I'm a little bit more fearless with it, because it's a live medium. The nature of live mediums is that you say something in the moment in the room, everyone gets it, and you move on. It's not recorded and played out of context forever and ever. You know what I mean? When you're acting, you're doing someone else's project. It's much more of a team sport. So I defer more to the creators and the directors. And also, I'm very much out of my comfort zone. I'm not a trained actor, so there's fear with it in terms of like, Am I holding my own with these other trained actors? When you're doing a scene with someone else, you have to do it with them. You can't just talk at them. You have to listen to them. You have to care about them. All things that you don't have to do in stand-up comedy. You literally don't have to listen to anyone or care about anything when you're doing stand-up.
Let's talk more about M3GAN, because we're all huge M3GAN fans at Esquire. What was it like for you interacting with M3GAN?
We were in New Zealand—so it was a lot less scary interacting with M3GAN when you're in this beautiful gated community of New Zealand. The actress, Amie Donald, who physically embodied her, is a movement prodigy. And she always had a smile on her face. Not in a creepy way. She always was super positive, such a joy to be around. Obviously in the moment, you're staying in character, running from this doll, but when the cameras cut, it wasn't that creepy. There was a talented team of puppeteers who did it, and a lot of CGI as well. We definitely didn't see what was on screen when we were doing it, so that made it a lot less creepy as well.
I also loved your Ronny Chieng Takes Chinatown special. That came out last year during a difficult time for the AAPI community. People were scared of going to Chinatown. I was so glad to see comedians there, making people laugh. Since you've lived in so many different countries, what's your favorite Chinatown?
Thank you. I actually really love that project. It was like something a little different to what people expected—in terms of when Asian people are typically given screen time to talk about some real issue, we have to talk about our food. I always hated that. The idea that people only listen to us if we talk about our food. I was trying to subvert that and make it where bad people do the right things for the wrong reasons. That was my guiding principle for that whole special. Bad people, us comedians, doing the right thing, saving Chinatown, but for totally the wrong reasons—which is trying to get clout. But as for my favorite Chinatown, I'd have to go with the country of Malaysia. It's probably my favorite Chinatown. I feel the most at home there. The food is the best there. My family is there.
That was such a cop-out answer.
Oh, you mean you want American Chinatown? I'll have to go with—sorry, everybody—but New York City Chinatown. Come at me, guys. NYC Chinatown. The best Chinatown.
I wrote a list rounding up all of the AAPI movies that I thought people should watch this month. Any films I should add?
I love, obviously, Joy Luck Club. If you want something off the beaten path, The Paper Tigers is really good. It's an indie action movie. I thought that was really good. I made a short film, A Father's Son, playing Detective Jack Yu, and it's set in New York City's Chinatown. I actually really like this one by Alice Wu called Saving Face. Made in Manhattan was directed by Wayne Wang. Is that an AAPI movie? And Justin Lin's Fast and Furious.
When are you going to be in the Fast and Furious movies? I want to see Ronny Chieng, action star.
Please put me in, coach. I'm ready. I got the running skills. You can see my reel. And in M3GAN, I can run really fast.
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