Bowen Yang joined the staff of “Saturday Night Live” as a writer in 2018; but it only took one season before his prowess as a performer brought him in front of the camera. His sketch comedy work has earned him acclaim, plus three Emmy nominations. In 2022, he made his mark on the film world with roles in “Fire Island,” “The Lost City,” and “Bros.” He can next be seen in Larry Charles’ “F***ing Identical Twins” and Jon M. Chu’s film adaptation of the musical “Wicked.”
What experience made you realize you wanted to be an actor?
The 1998 Academy Awards, which was famously the year that “Titanic” was dominating the culture. That was the first time I was watching the Oscars in a way that I could engage with. Even the reels that pad out the ceremony, I was pretty mesmerized by those. I was like, “Oh, this is show biz.” That was my first sense of the possibilities of what this world could be. It was just like pure fantasy at that point, but that was the seed crystal.
How did you first get your SAG membership?
The 1998 Academy Awards, which was famously the year that “Titanic” was dominating the culture. That was the first time I was watching the Oscars in a way that I could engage with. Even the reels that pad out the ceremony, I was pretty mesmerized by those. I was like, “Oh, this is showbiz.” That was my first sense of the possibilities of what this world could be. It was just, like, pure fantasy at that point, but that was the seed crystal.
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Have you ever been surprised by how the “SNL” audience perceived one of your characters?
Oh, yeah, constantly. That is the beauty of working at “SNL”: You never really know how an idea is going to play until it’s in front of that audience on Saturday. The thing that I’ve appreciated about Lorne [Michaels] is that he’s stuck to his adage all these years that the audience is never wrong. You can never underestimate your audience.
I feel like a lot of performers know that to be true. I’m constantly surprised when an audience has perceived a character differently than I thought they would. And it goes both ways; sometimes I go into something thinking, Oh, I don’t know that this will be anything, but then the audience really responds to it. Other times, I am pretty secure in how the response will be, and then I get nothing. Either way is equally educational and equally gratifying—almost. I mean, you’d rather it go well; but sometimes you take your lump, then you roll with it.
Will Heath/NBC
Speaking of “SNL,” are there acting techniques you’ve picked up on the show that have helped you in your other work? Are there things you’ve had to unlearn?
I’ve had to unlearn almost everything about the way things work at “SNL,” just because the medium is so specific. It’s a sketch, and you’re not really worried about people’s motivations, or it’s not too helpful to drill down into a behavior. I really had to let go of that paradigm when I would dip into other projects where more was being demanded of me in that sense, where you had to really examine people.
In sketch comedy, you are playing to a situation, and in everything else, you’re playing toward a person in a specific stage in their lives. But what’s nice is that, coming back this season, I’ve been able to take any lessons I’ve learned in the past couple years of doing more meaty stuff, acting-wise, and bring those lessons back here to “SNL.”
Sometimes you can think of a character, even on “Weekend Update,” as someone who is in a very specific stage of their life. Maybe you can play it that way and ground it and not always go for the laugh; because without putting the effort into the laugh, the comedy comes a little bit more organically for the audience. It’s been really informative in both directions.
How to Become a Comedy Actor What advice would you give your younger self?
I would tell my younger self to get to the bottom of why I do this, because I feel like I was motivated for a long time by survival and making sure I was keeping my head above water. It’s only been a recent challenge for me to ask and answer for myself: What is your skill set? How do you want to expand that skill set? What is driving you as a performer or a writer or an actor? I think it’s important to identify this core reason for being, and then everything else just sort of gets informed by that.
What performance should every actor see and why?
I’m going to say Liz Taylor in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” That’s a role that you can watch and follow that is at once classic but also so contemporary, and you really can see the direction. You can see Mike Nichols really shaping this with her. You see it as this collaboration between two amazing people.
Which casting directors gave you your big break?
They were Seth White and Cody Beke, who were doing casting for “Broad City.” I had such a long string of auditions where I felt like I wasn’t making any progress, that I wasn’t understanding how to do it well. They were the first people to really give me an example of how those are supposed to go. I learned so much from them.
This story originally appeared in the May 4 issue of Backstage Magazine.