Ali Wong
There's a scene in 'Singin' in the Rain' where this guy dances with a giant doll while singing 'Make 'Em Laugh.' I remember loving the pure physicality of it.
If you want me to perform in Silver Lake - where it looks like 'Vice' magazine threw up everywhere, where all the men are wearing V-necks to their belly buttons, salmon pants, and carrying a screenplay - I'll do it, because they might appreciate a Banksy joke I can't do anywhere else.
It's very rare that stand-up comics have kids, because once they do, they stop doing stand-up.
I want to be like a Wendy Murdoch or a Georgina Chapman.
A lot of comics will say that the thing about specials now is that they're not special anymore because there are so many of them, and they come and go, and they're not really talked about. They just kind of come and go.
Some people do specials, like, when they've only been doing comedy for three years or something. Which is fine! But I'm kind of old fashioned, and I knew that I didn't want to do one too early.
I think I went through puberty really late in life or something. I always looked like a little, sad Thai boy up until I was 26.
I was so boisterous in high-school, I don't think a lot of boys liked me that much 'cause they were like, 'Oh, she's so loud and so crazy.' But then this thing happens in your late twenties, and guys begin to take note of women's personalities more or something.
I constantly peed in my pants up until the 8th grade and wore an extra-large sailor uniform from kindergarten to 8th grade because my mom was scared I'd grow out of it. So I learned to make fun of myself at school and summer camp.
The biggest downside of L.A. is the traffic and parking tickets. They turn me into Michael Douglas in 'Falling Down.'
Stand-up will always be my favorite and the most important thing that I do. I view everything else as free money.
I liked that improv and sketch comedy were collaborative, but you really depended on other people and a stage to perform. With stand-up comedy, I liked that you had no one else to blame and depend on.
A lot of women do stand-up as a gateway into acting, but I love stand-up, and to be a good stand-up, you have to go on the road a lot. It means going to places in America where they've never seen a Vietnamese person in their life.
I think that's one of the reasons women don't tell people when they've had a miscarriage - they think it's their fault.
Aside from Joan Rivers and Roseanne, it's hard for me to think of any female comedian who's had kids and has a serious level of fame - like, the level where your mother has heard of them.
You become like a vampire when you're pregnant: your senses are so sensitive, and your emotions are so heightened - that helps with performance because you really feel things.
Mothering is just so different now from the way it was before. Especially with my mom. She was like the anti-helicopter mom. She was like an inflatable-tube, blow-up-flamingo-in-the-pool mom. Her philosophy was, the situation will declare itself.
There are certainly other female comics who are moms, but I don't know any who are actively touring with their kids. But there are more and more becoming moms, and it's awesome. I feel we're in a super sisterhood.
Every male comedian of note who is over the age of 45 has a kid, and they talk about it and don't get grouped as 'dad comics.'
That's the difference between a great comic and a bad comic - one has great instincts and has a lot of compassion and can feel what's right and what's wrong.
People obsess about casting and representation, but really, all the real work is behind the camera. Casting an Asian American into a bad role where they're shoehorned into these stereotypes is worse than not having cast them at all.
I think Asian men are beautiful.
I have this fantasy of relaxing and doing nothing. But I'm obviously very passionate about stand-up comedy. I mean, I keep doing it. So I must be really into it.
I want to write my daughter something about how much I love her and what I would want to say to her before I die.
When you have a child, you think about your own mortality.
I really loved being pregnant, especially because people treat you so nice.
When you're pregnant, you're all gassy, and you're hungry, but then you're nauseous.
Stand-up comedy is something that you have to strive to do, multiple times a night, every night, to be good.
I think most feminists are very smart.
For the first year I lived in New York, I never ate out. I literally just ate lentils and brown rice at home. Sometimes I'd treat myself to this half chicken from Chinatown that cost $3.50.
In order to be the best comic, you have to perform in a wide diversity of rooms.
I've seen many female comics that a lot of people haven't heard of who are so funny, and I saw them come up, and they were working so hard, and then all of a sudden they had a baby, and they just got tied up in motherhood, and eventually, they kind of just stopped doing stand-up, and I thought it was such a shame.
In giving birth, I knew that I would have to take a break after I had a baby; I just didn't know that it would be, like, six weeks long. Taking a six-week break was a very big deal for me. I have never taken that long of a break from stand-up other than my honeymoon, which was 14 days long.
My husband and I went to Japan for our honeymoon, and you look at, like, the presentation of the food, and it's ridiculous. It looks like a Mondrian painting or something. Everything looks like a bunch of little Hello Kitty erasers when you eat a little bento box in Japan. It's so precise and beautiful and processed and neat.
In Hue, Vietnam, we had savory rice pancakes with crumbled shrimp and pork rinds. I've still never had a version as good.
My dad was a very unconventional Asian American man. He was very much not quiet, not shy, not passive. If he had to fart, he'd do it in the library. He did not care. He was like, 'I don't know these people. I'm uncomfortable, and I need to let it go.'
I don't want to be that famous.
Every comic is taught that you're supposed to have a great seven-minute set and then get a sitcom. And I don't want to get the sitcom.
A lot of people get into stand-up as a back door into acting or something. But I really like writing jokes and telling jokes.
My dad grew up with straight-up no running water. He slept in a twin bed with his two sisters and his mom, like 'Charlie And The Chocolate Factory' style: like, feet at the head, feet at the head alternating. And then I think his dad slept on, like, a bed of newspapers on a floor in their apartment.
My goal is really to just make people laugh with integrity, like, with something that I still find funny.
At the end of the day, I'm not really trying to make a statement with any of my standup.
It's really strange being in, like, Addison,Texas, and having people come up to me at a Nordstrom's or a gas station. It's really, really surreal.
I always really loved comedy. It's the only thing I was ever good at.