Comedian Ronny Chieng Didn't Tell His Parents He Got A 'Daily Show' Job
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This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. My guest is comic, actor, and political satirist Ronnie Chang. He became a correspondent for the satirical new show The Daily Show in 2015 after Trevor Noah asked him to audition. Now Chang is one of the rotating correspondents who anchor the show. He also co-stars in the new Hulu series Interior Chinatown. He had a memorable funny scene in Crazy Rich Asians as a wealthy investment banker in Singapore. Ronnie Chang has a new Netflix comedy special called Love to Hate It, which starts streaming tomorrow. He brings an international perspective to his comedy. He was born in Malaysia. where his grandparents emigrated from China. From age three to seven, he lived in Manchester, New Hampshire, where his parents attended college. Then the family returned to Malaysia, which is basically across the bridge from Singapore, so he spent a lot of time there. He attended college in Australia, where he got his B.A. in finance and his law degree, while also doing stand-up comedy. Let's start with a clip from his new comedy special.
This is from a section about how he and his wife aren't ready for children, but his wife had her eggs harvested for possible future use. He's imagining what his child, if he ever has one, might say to him.
Daddy, daddy, when I grow up, I want to be a stand-up comedian, just like you. I just feel the Chinese coming over.
Stand-up comedy, are you out of your mind? That's not even a real job. Like, what do you think is gonna happen? You're just gonna run around America and tell jokes to strangers who don't give a about your mental health? Even if you do somehow manage to overcome the odds and make it to even a semi-professional level as a stand-up comedian, do you think there's any chance in hell you'd be funnier than me?
Daddy's a borderline arena act in some markets. Have you seen my IMDB page? I'm in everything. I will crush your career. Oh, Gary. Your mother and I did spend a fortune to make an A-grade blastocyst for them to become a B-grade comedian. I will never watch anything you do. Go to law school! Oh!
It's what my father said to me.
Renu Cheng, welcome to Fresh Air. It's a pleasure to have you on the show.
Thank you. Thanks for having me on. And I'd like to note the contrast between the yelling of that clip and how calm the rest of the interview will be.
What else did your father say to you when you found out you wanted to be a comedian?
He said no white person will ever buy a ticket to go watch him.
Wow. Did you think that that might be true?
No, I didn't think that was true. But I didn't tell him I was going to go do it. I went to go do it. And then he found out after I've been doing stand-up comedy for about two years. And then he found out. And he was trying to... protect me you know he was he was worried he was worried about what was going to happen you know what my future was going to be and then later on he got behind it nevertheless nevertheless when you were on the daily show and you started on the daily show you didn't tell your mother no i didn't tell them i got hired on the show what were you afraid of It wasn't so much afraid. It was that I didn't want to brag about small achievements. I just wanted to do the work. I didn't want to tell them that I joined this institution, which, quite frankly, they didn't really know about anyway, and make it sound as though I made it, quote-unquote. You know what I mean? Well, you kind of had.
It's a big achievement. That's not a small achievement. Sure.
Sure, but I don't know. I think the work comes first, you know, getting the job is one thing, but then can you do the job? And so it honestly just came out of kind of humility of like, oh, yeah, I'm on The Daily Show, but doesn't mean I've done anything yet. So why tell them, you know, like my philosophy was like, like, just do the job and then maybe they'll hear good things about you.
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