He's a cool guest, and this is
the first time we're meeting, so friendship!
You know him from "Fresh Off the Boat,"
"The Interview," and most recently,
everyone's favorite show, "WandaVision."
Please welcome Randall Park. What's up?
- Hey. - How are you?
- I'm good. How are you doing? - Good.
I can't believe this is the first time we're meeting.
This seems so wrong.
- I know. I know.
- Wrong and right at the same time.
- Yeah, it's so weird,
but it's a pleasure to meet you.
- A pleasure to meet you, too.
So now that we're, like, new friends,
I feel like I'm allowed to ask some basic questions
that maybe I should know, but I'm still curious about.
Is that cool? - Okay. Okay.
- Okay. Like, Randall Park to me is
quite possibly the best name I've ever heard,
and so I'm assuming that this must be,
like, a stage name, like Randall Park.
- No. No. - No?
- Real name. Real name.
Birth name. Yes.
- Your parents knocked it out of the park.
- [laughs]
- Out of the park! Randall Park--oh, my God!
- Oh, that's good. That's good.
- Did you see that thought process happen?
I was like, "Wait, park, park, Randall Park."
- I did have a stage name once before.
- Oh, okay.
- Right out of college, I was in a band
and I went by the name Randruff.
Yeah. - Huh. Why Randruff?
- Because, you know, Randall. - Right.
- And then at the time, I had a--
I was dealing with,
like, a very severe case of dandruff,
so I just combined Randall and dandruff.
Yeah. - What a choice.
[both laugh]
I kind of love that.
Like, let me just embrace every part of me.
- We kept it very real. - I love that so much.
So people would literally go, "Randruff!
Oh my God, it's Randruff!" That's everything.
So, Randall, how has your quarantine been?
Are you happy?
Are you at home right now? What's been going on?
- I'm at home right now. I'm doing good.
I did have--
some crazy stuff happened to me a while back.
So back in October,
I was--it was just, you know,
I was just-- it's just a regular day
and I was about to go to bed,
and all of a sudden, I felt like I couldn't breathe.
- Oh. - And I was like, oh, no.
I think--I think this is COVID, you know,
because I was, like, fighting for more air and--
but also I couldn't stop moving.
Like, physically moving.
I was pacing around the house
and I just couldn't stop.
Every time I tried to sit down,
I'd have to get right back up.
And I called my doctor the next morning.
I was like, what is going on?
I was freaking out.
And the doctor was like, "It sounds like
a anxiety attack of some sort."
And I was like, "I don't get anxiety attacks."
I'm, like, the--you know,
I'm, like, the even-keeled, chill person.
- Yeah. - And--you know?
And she was like, "Well,
"has anything traumatic happened to you recently,
"or is there anything coming up
that's a source of anxiety?"
And I was like, "No."
I'm like, you know, I'm fine.
Aside from, like, the global pandemic.
- Aside from the--2020, yes.
- Political turmoil
and the end of civilization as we know it.
Aside from that, I'm just chilling.
I'm good, you know.
It basically kept going
for the next two and a half weeks.
So two and a half weeks into it, I hadn't slept.
I was delirious. I was at my wit's end.
I was calling every doctor I knew.
And, you know, when you're Asian,
you know doctors, you know,
so it's like, calling up everybody.
Of all people, my friend Ken Jeong, Dr. Ken,
he kind of guides me
to the right people and I started, you know,
getting on the right medication
to help me kind of, you know,
not have these attacks,
and working with specialists and figuring out,
you know, what exactly was going on,
and over the next, like, few months,
you know, I just made a lot of changes,
meditating, eating right,
getting off of social media.
I did all of these, like, huge changes
just for my mental health.
And, you know, they've been great for me.
- So you're feeling well now?
- Feeling much better, yeah.
- 2020, man. It doesn't stop.
Doesn't stop giving, the year, I tell you, you know?
I mean, it definitely sounds super scary.
I'm glad you're okay.
But I also love the fact that you said, like,
"I know a lot of doctors," because I always make jokes
of like, we all have that one doctor friend that we FaceTime,
we're just like, "All right, listen,
"can I drink and take Advil?
Let me call my doctor friend."
Like, you know, that one friend.
Oh, yeah. - Oh, yeah.
- Ken, thank you for your service. We see you.
We're shouting you out here
at "A Little Late with Lilly Singh."
Let me ask you this, Randall.
Now, you're talking about anxiety
and you're talking about the things you've done,
whether it's learning new tools or making changes in your life.
Do you feel that, growing up,
mental health was a conversation
that was comfortable for you and your family?
And I say this because I feel like
there's a lot of similarities
between the cultures we were probably raised in.
- Yeah, no, no. We didn't talk about it.
It makes sense now, looking back,
'cause, you know, parents come to this country
as immigrants, and they--
you know, they didn't know the language very well
when they got here, and they're trying to do
the same things that every parents are trying to do,
you know, keep the house afloat
and take care of the kids and work at their jobs,
and, you know, it's already stressful.
But to be immigrants
in that situation, I mean,
there's just so much anxiety in the house,
and that--but it was something that we never talked about.
It's definitely passed down,
as far as the way we respond to it,
you know, at least for me.
- Do you find now you are
learning the tools to talk about it
and you do feel more comfortable?
Because I felt in my adult life,
I finally reached a point where I was like, "No,
"I'm now giving myself permission
to fully learn how to do this."
- Yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure.
And, you know, while I was going through it,
my parents were very concerned.
We were talking about it, and, you know, it was
some of the first kind of real conversations
about anxiety that we had.
So--and in a lot of ways, it was a blessing in disguise.
- It's always nice to find
the silver linings of any situation.
The silver lining is, now there's dialogue.
You know, Randall, we just met,
but I feel like I can conclude something.
I feel like your energy is,
first of all, very humble.
That's become clear to me.
I feel like you have very good energy,
but I also feel like,
especially the industry we're in,
if we were, like, at a red carpet together,
there was a green room, I can imagine
that other celebrities attract to you.
Is that true? Be real with me.
Do celebrities like to-- - No.
- Come on! Do celebrities--
- No, that's not true at all.
- Get out of here.
They must admire your work so much.
- I mean, I don't know.
I don't get swarmed
when I'm at any celebrity--
- Randruff? Randruff. Are you being honest, Randruff?
- I don't even go to these celebrity events
that often, you know?
Like, it's just not my--
you know what, though, there was one time.
- Okay. Here we go. Here we go. Okay.
- This one time where I was very pleasantly surprised.
I was at a party.
It was after some awards show.
I was there with my wife, and, you know--
and again, I don't like parties.
If I had my choice,
I would have been at home.
But my wife loves these parties,
so we're like, okay, okay, we'll go,
but, you know, as soon as I get there,
I'm like, I think I want to leave.
And we're sitting in a-- you know,
just sitting on this little couch
in the corner and I'm looking out,
and I was like, "Oh my God, that's Drake.
Drake is at this party."
And he was kind of in, you know,
another corner with a big entourage.
And I was just, like,
flipping out 'cause I love Drake.
- Of course. - You know.
And I thought-- I was like, "Okay.
"That's cool. I saw Drake.
"Let's get out of here.
That was worth being at this party."
And my wife is like, "No, you gotta meet him."
And I was like, "No, no. I do not want to meet him."
She grabs my arm and beelines to Drake.
The whole time, I'm like, "Please don't. Don't do this."
She goes up to Drake,
she taps him on the shoulder, and Drake turns around
and he looks at my wife like, "Who are you?"
You know, and I'm like, "Oh, no, this is gonna be bad.
It's gonna be bad."
And my wife says,
"This is my husband, Randall.
He's such a huge fan of yours."
And then Drake looks over at me and he just lights up.
He lights up, and he was like,
"Oh, my gosh, I'm such a huge fan of yours."
And I was like, "What?
Are you serious?
Like, oh, that's--thank you.
Wow. I'm such a huge fan of yours."
And I remember him saying,
"This made my day,"
and I was like, "That's crazy."
- You made Drake's day? Whoo!
- Yeah, yeah. - Whoo!
- And meeting him made my, like, life,
so it was like, for him to say that was super cool.
And I was like, all right, okay.
No, this party--I'm glad we went to this party.
- Okay, wait. See, I knew it. I knew it, Randruff.
I knew it. I knew you were lying.
So, well, when you talked to Drake, though,
when he said, like, I'm such a big fan,
I love your--did you ask, like, hey,
like, what projects have you watched and enjoyed?
Did you get the deets? - No.
- 'Cause I would have been like, give me a list
alphabetically ordered.
- No, no, no, no.
No, because you don't do that.
I don't do that because what--
my thought is he'd say something like,
okay, I loved you in "Harold and Kumar."
And I'd be like, that's not--that's not me.
Okay, anyway--and then I would have been bummed out,
so I didn't go that far.
- Listen, all I know is that you made Drake's day.
Okay. Basically--
- I did. I did. - He's a fan.
Basically, "Toosie Slide" was for you.
He wrote that song for you. - Yes, that it was.
- Basically. - It was. It really was.
- Now, Randall, of course,
we have to talk about "WandaVision."
Literally everyone on my timeline
is talking about "WandaVision."
Even here on the set,
everyone's talking about "WandaVision."
- That's wild. Thank you. - Congratulations.
- Thank you. - Of course, you appeared
in the fourth episode of "WandaVision."
It was a surprise.
So I need to ask,
when you do surprises like this,
like, are you good at keeping secrets?
Will you-- did your family and friends
actually not know you were in "WandaVision?"
- Like, as far as, like, Marvel stuff?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- You know, I mean, some of my family,
they knew, but they didn't know, like,
the extent or they didn't know the details, you know.
I mean, thankfully, they don't really care, you know, so--
- Oh, they don't care about Marvel?
- They weren't--I mean,
they're happy that I'm working,
and they're happy that I'm involved in a Marvel project.
They know how huge that is,
but they're not--you know, they're not, like, superfans.
So they're not pestering me with questions,
which is a good thing.
But when I do get pestered with questions,
which has been happening a lot lately
'cause this show is so popular, I'm very good.
I'm very good at keeping the secrets
and not spoiling anything.
- You know what, I love that you so openly say
that your family's just-- they're just happy I have work.
They could care less about Marvel.
They don't really care.
Because I feel like
my parents would do the same thing.
I remember I told my parents once,
"Oh, I got a really big deal."
I think it was when I was writing my book.
"I got a really big deal," and I kid you not,
my mom's exact response--
I was, like, talking for ten-- exact response,
"Good job"
- [laughs] - And that was it.
So are your parents similar where they're just like--
- Totally. - Small, short, and sweet?
- No, they just want to know that we are okay
and that we have health insurance.
That's it. That's it.