00:01Hollywood is being rebuilt by artists not afraid to disrupt the status quo.
00:07Telling fresh stories and bringing to life characters who until now have been confined to the margins.
00:13This is Emerging Hollywood.
00:20Today we're meeting up with Alan Yang, the Emmy award-winning co-creator and director of Master of None and
00:25Forever.
00:26Alan creates shows starring three-dimensional characters from diverse backgrounds who reflect a new state of entertainment.
00:32Alan Yang, what's happening to my brother?
00:33What's up, man? You good? I'm great.
00:35I feel like I met you before with Aziz.
00:37You know what happened with Aziz a long time ago? We met over at the Greenwich Hotel.
00:41This was five years ago, man. It was a while ago.
00:43Yeah, clearly you didn't find me interested enough to put me on Master of None.
00:46You know, there's still time. We might do another season.
00:49True, true. Now, you picked this bar because you filmed here for a scene of Master of None, right?
00:54Yeah, it was a while ago. I thought it brought back some good memories.
00:56It was a scene late in season two. It was a scene with Aziz and Eric Wareheim.
01:00And as you can see here, the ceilings are really low and Eric is six foot seven.
01:04So he had to fold himself in two to sit where you are right now.
01:07That was tight. What was it about comedy that drew you towards it?
01:10Like, was it a, I don't know, a defense mechanism growing up? Like, what was it?
01:13Yeah, you would think so, but not so much, man.
01:15You know, I felt like I got pretty lucky. You know, growing up, I was one of the only Asian
01:19kids in my school.
01:20But I managed to get by and I wasn't really getting picked on.
01:23So it was more like a way for me to bomb my friends.
01:25And we would just make jokes all the time. We'd watch all these comedy shows.
01:28And it was just part of who I was.
01:30So they always thought you was funny?
01:31I always thought I was kind of funny and I never thought this was a job.
01:35You know, like where I grew up, no one went into this business.
01:38Like, my parents are immigrants. You know, my dad's a doctor. My mom's a high school teacher.
01:43And this was not an option.
01:44Are they proud of you or were they disappointed when you decided?
01:47Yeah, they're pretty proud now.
01:48Okay, okay.
01:49But, you know, at the time it was, you know, I had to explain to them.
01:53I was a biology major.
01:54A biology major at Harvard, right?
01:55Yeah, I was a biology major in college.
01:57And so that seems like you have a very bright future.
01:59And then you graduate and you tell your mom and dad you want to go write jokes or write scripts
02:05in Hollywood and be broke.
02:07Well, how the hell did you end up in Hollywood?
02:09How does a biology major from Harvard end up in Hollywood to begin with?
02:13Yeah, man. I mean, like, so when I got to school, I felt a little bit out of place.
02:17A couple things saved me.
02:19I started playing in a punk rock band and I started writing for this comedy magazine called The Lampoon.
02:24Getting on the staff of that magazine, you're thrown into this fire.
02:27And there's all these people there and they're funnier than you.
02:29And the only thing I can liken it to is the first day in a writer's room.
02:32So when you move out to L.A., you get into a writer's room, there's 20 people looking at you.
02:36Some of them who may have run your favorite shows.
02:39I remember working with Mike Scully in Parks and Recreation who ran The Simpsons when I was a kid.
02:44So it's like he's sitting next to you. He's pitching jokes.
02:46A lot of pressure?
02:47Yeah, your jokes are going to beat his jokes.
02:49You know, so what that magazine helps you do is become a little bit more comfortable because in the beginning
02:53you should maybe not speak up as much.
02:55You should learn how to be a little funnier before you say stuff.
02:58And then you start learning, you get better, you get better, you get better, you get funnier, you get funnier
03:01by hanging out with funny people.
03:03And so when I graduated, it sort of gave me a little bit of confidence I needed to move out
03:08to L.A. and just give it a shot.
03:09Who was the first character that you saw on TV or in film that you saw yourself in?
03:15Oh, man, probably Jerry Seinfeld.
03:18You know, it's like because I was obsessed with comedy.
03:21I was 12 or 13 or whatever.
03:23But, you know, I bought Jerry Seinfeld's book, Larry David, the same thing where it's like these guys just have
03:27an interesting view on the world.
03:29And, you know, I think the expected answer is like, oh, I saw like an Asian character.
03:32But look, there's a lot more to us than what we look like.
03:36You know, it's like, what's your point of view? What shapes your sense of humor?
03:38And so that was really early on in the show.
03:40And I think later when we did Master of None, a lot of people were comparing it to other shows
03:44or these auteurist shows or films.
03:46But what people don't talk about is like we watched a lot of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
03:49And that's like some of the show is funny because we're inspired by those guys.
03:53You know, we love Larry. We love, you know, Seinfeld, all those guys.
03:56And that's kind of a secret thing that in the show, like people don't really talk about as much.
03:59You wrote for South Park too, right?
04:00I did. Yeah, I was crazy.
04:01And Carson Daly's late night show.
04:03That was my first job when I was 21, 22 here, yeah.
04:06In Parks and Rec.
04:06Yeah.
04:07So how diverse were the writing rooms then?
04:10It's a good question.
04:11So I will say for Parks and Rec, I think Mike Schur, who is the boss over there, did a
04:15great job.
04:15He always wanted to be 50% women because the show had a female lead, Amy Poehler.
04:21And, you know, we were just starting back then, you know?
04:23And I feel like South Park was the writing staff of like two or three people.
04:25So it was like, you know, I don't know how much diversity there was.
04:27I was diversity probably that year.
04:29But, you know, I think that was like the pre that age.
04:32It was like we weren't even thinking about it.
04:34And that's a real deficiency.
04:34I mean, I think there's, by the way, there's still writer's rooms out there that are super
04:39homogenous, super homogenized.
04:41And it's just kind of a secret, you know?
04:44It's like there's still rooms out there.
04:46So what you're missing out on is these other perspectives.
04:49Not that this happens that often, but let's say an issue about an Asian character or something like that comes
04:54up,
04:55and you're the only Asian person who everyone just looks at you like,
04:57all right, speak for all Asian people, right?
04:59Is that okay?
05:00Yeah, yeah.
05:00It's tough, because you don't.
05:02You know, you don't speak for everybody, and you're just going to do the best you can with it.
05:04Yeah, that's unavoidable in some ways, but, you know, we should do the best we can to avoid it.
05:10We should do the best you can take.
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