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- Hollywood is being rebuilt by artists
not afraid to disrupt the status quo.
Telling fresh stories and bringing to life characters
who until now have been confined to the margins.
This is Emerging Hollywood.
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Today, we're meeting up with Alan Yang
the Emmy Award-winning co-creator and director
of Master of None and Forever.
Alan creates shows starring three-dimensional
characters from diverse backgrounds who reflect
the new state of entertainment.
Alan Yang, what's happening, my brother?
- What's up, man?
- You good? - I'm great.
- I feel like I've met you before, with Aziz--
- You know what happened with Aziz a long time ago
we met over at the Greenwich Hotel.
This was five years ago, man, it was a while ago.
- Yeah, clearly you didn't find me interesting enough.
(laughs)
- To put me on Master of None.
- You know, there's still time, we might do another season.
- True, true.
Now, you picked this bar because
you filmed here for a scene in Master of None, right?
- Yeah, it was a while ago, I thought it brought back
some good memories, it was a scene late in Season 2.
It was a scene with Aziz and Eric Wareheim
and as you can see here, these ceilings
are really low, and Eric is six foot seven.
So he had to fold himself in two
to sit where you are right now.
- That was tight.
(laughs)
What was it about comedy that drew you towards it?
Like was it a, I don't know, a defense mechanism
growing up, like what was it?
Yeah, you would think so but not so much, man.
You know, I felt like I got pretty lucky.
Growing up, I was one of the only Asian kids
in my school, but I managed to get by
and I wasn't really getting picked on.
So it was more like a way for me to bond with my friends
and we would just make jokes all the time.
We'd watch all these comedy shows
and it was just part of who I was.
- Did you always thought you was funny?
- I always thought I was kinda funny
and I never thought this was a job.
You know, where I grew up no one went into this business
my parents are immigrants, my dad's a doctor
my mom's a high school teacher, and this was not an option.
- Are they proud of you or were they disappointed
when you decided--
- Yeah, they're pretty proud now. (laughs)
- Okay
- But at the time it was, you know
I had to explain to them, I was a Biology major.
- Biology major at Harvard, right?
- I was a Biology major in college
and so that seems like you have a very bright future
and then you graduate and you tell your mom and dad
you wanna go write jokes or write scripts
in Hollywood and be broke.
- Well, how the hell did you end up in Hollywood?
How does a Biology major from Harvard
end up in Hollywood to begin with?
- Yeah, man, I mean, so when I got to school
I felt a little bit out of place.
A couple of things saved me, I started playing
in a punk rock band, and I started writing
for this comedy magazine called The Lampoon.
Getting on the staff of that magazine
you're thrown into this fire
and there's all these people there
they're funnier than you, and the only thing
I can liken it to is the first day in a writer's room.
- Yeah, I see.
So when you move out to L.A., you get in a writer's room
there's 20 people looking at you
some of them who may have run your favorite shows.
I remember working with Mike Scully
on Parks and Recreation, who ran The Simpsons
when I was a kid, so it's like, he's sitting next to you
he's pitching jokes.
- Lot of pressure?
- Yeah, are your jokes gonna beat his jokes?
So what that magazine helps you do
is become a little bit more comfortable
because in the beginning you should maybe
not speak up as much, you should learn how to be
a little funnier before you say stuff.
And then you starting learning, you get better
you get better, you get better, you get funnier.
You get funnier by hanging out with funny people.
- Yeah.
- So when I graduated, it sorta gave me
a little bit of confidence I needed to move out to L.A.
And just give it a shot, you know?
- Who was the first character that you saw
on TV or in film that you saw yourself in?
- Oh man. Probably Jerry Seinfeld. (laughs)
Because I was obsessed with comedy
I was 12 or 13 or whatever, but I bought
Jerry Seinfeld's book, Larry David the same thing
where it's like, these guys just have an interesting
view on the world.
- Yeah.
- And I think the expected answer is "Oh, I saw
an Asian character", but, look, there's a lot more to us
than what we look like, it's like what's your point of view
what shapes your sense of humor.
So that was really early on in the show
and I think later when we did Master of None
a lot of people were comparing it to other shows
or these Otura shows or films.
But what people don't talk about is we watched a lot
of Curb Your Enthusiasm, and some of the show
is funny because we were inspired by those guys.
We love Larry, we love Seinfeld, all those guys.
And that's kind of a secret thing written in the show
that people don't wanna talk about as much.
- You wrote for South Park too, right?
- I did, yeah, that was crazy.
- And Carson Daly's Late Night Show?
- That was my first child when I was 21, 22 here, yeah.
- And Parks and Rec?
- Yeah.
- So how diverse were the writing rooms then?
- That's a good question. So I will say for Parks and Rec
I think Mike Schur who was the boss of there
did a great job, he'd always wanted to be 50 percent women
because the show had a female lead, Amy Poehler.
And we were just starting back then
and I feel like South Park was writing stuff
for two or three people, so (laughs) I don't know
how much diversity there was, I was the diversity, probably
that year, but I think that was like, the pre-that age
we weren't even thinking about it,
and that's a real deficiency.
By the way, I think there's still writer's rooms out there
that are super homogenous, super homogenized
and it's just kind of a secret
you know, there's still rooms out there.
So what you're missing out on is these other perspectives.
Not that this happens that often but, let's say, an issue
about an Asian character or something like that comes up
and you're the only Asian person, where everyone
just looks at you like, alright
speak for all Asian people, right, is that okay?
- Yeah, yeah.
- It's tough, 'cos you don't, you don't speak for everybody
and you're just gonna do the best you can
that's unavoidable in some ways
but we should do the best we can to avoid it.
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