(upbeat soul music)
- [Charlamagne] 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.
Let's talk about what's next for you.
You got a show coming on Apple called Little America.
- Yeah.
- What inspired that?
- Well, it basically came about because
Lee Eisenberg, who is one of the creators of the show,
called me a couple years ago.
And he said, "I had this idea.
It's an anthology series, and every episode
is a different immigrant story.
And they'll be funny, they'll be heartwarming,
they'll be sad, they'll be all these different tones."
And I said, "It's crazy that you're pitching me that idea,
because we just did an episode on season two of
Master of None, which had not yet come out,
called New York, I Love You, which was essentially
three stories intertwined throughout New York.
- Wow.
- And it was essentially a pilot for this show
that I didn't even know existed, right?
So, I was like, he's like,
"Well, I can't wait to see it."
So I sent it to him. He's like,
"This is perfect tonally. This is exactly what
this show should feel like." And so with that
kind of as a calling card, we kind of proceeded
and he got Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon onboard.
So they all helped write the pilot.
Again, this is a kind of... an underdog show.
This show's not going be star--
Kumail's not even in the show.
It's a show about real people.
All the episodes are researched by Epic Magazine.
They're all based on real people, real stories,
and it's not going to be stars.
Like, you know, it's not going to be
massive amounts of stars. And to get to be
on the same stage with Spielberg and Oprah
and J.J. Abrams is really crazy,
is really, like, you know, that they believe in us
and they're going to give a platform for this
really, really special show.
- Dope. You did a interview with THR a few years ago
and you said you wrote a pilot about you and your dad.
- Yeah.
- [Charlamagne] But you made the characters white.
Now you're directing your first movie
called Tigertails and it follows a family
from 1950s Taiwan to modern day New York.
Why did you feel comfortable telling
your family's story now?
- Number one, I'm just more equipped to tell it.
- Okay.
- I just feel like I have the tools.
This was the time. I'm in such a different place
than where I was in my 20s
in terms of writing, in terms of directing,
in terms of my personal life.
We shot half the movie in Taiwan,
and it's on 16mm. It takes place in the 70s.
It's gorgeous, and it's just so much broader and larger
a story than it would have been in my 20s
when I changed it to white characters.
I mean, it's a totally different story in the first place.
A lot of the movie's in Mandarin and Taiwanese.
A lot of the movie's in the 70s in Taiwan
and the Bronx, and it's just totally different
from anything I've ever worked on.
And I'm so excited for people to see it
because it's just so different.
- That's interesting what you said, cause
I'm sitting here trying to figure out
what the turning point in your career,
where you felt like you could write the stories
and characters you wanted to tell,
regardless of opportunity.
- Yeah, it's... part of it is confidence, as I said.
It's really, like, becoming comfortable with
your craft and the tools that you have, right?
Cause, you know, coming out of school, like,
some people mature faster than others.
For me, I was like, "Okay, I'm ready
to write jokes. Let's do it."
And I didn't know anything about story.
I didn't know anything about character.
I didn't know anything about writing a script.
You know what? I was like, I wrote for a magazine.
I wrote jokes. And then as you get older,
your references change. Your inspirations change.
And what your goals are change.
And so this is a reflection of where I am right now
and the stuff I'm interested in,
the stuff that inspires me,
and that's different from who I was ten years ago.
- You're doing all these different things.
But we cannot forget about what got you here:
Master of None. Is there going to be a season three?
- Uh, it's possible. That's possible, yeah.
You know, Aziz is a good friend of mine
and we talk all the time, so, you know,
we really... the bar for us is,
is there something we're so excited about?
A story we're so excited about telling that
we just have to do it.
We don't want to make a season just for
the sake of making a season and just to make money
or anything like that.
It's like, to us, season two felt like a leap beyond
season one. We want to do something that's totally
different if we're ever going to do another season.
So we'll see. It's such a fun experience, and
it's a bunch of my friends working on it, and
working with us to make that show,
so, you know, I'll never rule it out.
- Alan, good building with you, man.
- Yeah, man.
- Appreciate you. Thank you for coming.
- Yeah, man, thanks for talking to me.
- And continued success.
(upbeat soul music)