For Bowen Yang, joining SNL as a writer in 2018, and then becoming a castmember the following year, was the fulfillment of a prophesy: during his senior year of high school, Yang had been voted "Most Likely to be on SNL." Looking back now, though, he insists that the superlative was "totally incidental."
"It's like their way of calling me a hammy kid, basically, which I was," he says. "I never ever ever set my sights on SNL, but I was only the most enthusiastic fan. I would bring VHS tapes to school … and just, like, show people when there was a substitute teacher in class."
SNL wasn't the only show that left its mark on Yang; he initially studied chemistry and pre-med in college after becoming "obsessed" with Sandra Oh's character on Grey's Anatomy, Yang says. "And then, after graduating ... I was like, 'Wait, I made a mistake. I actually wanted to be someone who was on TV.'"
Yang says he never thought SNL would hire "an effeminate Asian man" for that show, but he was happy to be proven wrong. He's currently nominated for an Emmy for outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series for his performances on the show. Looking back now, he says being hired as a writer rather than a cast member initially helped pave the way for his on-screen success.
"My first season of writing on the show was probably so helpful in terms of understanding all of these non-verbal cues," he says. "Sit[ting] next to [SNL creator and executive producer] Lorne [Michaels] each week and hav[ing] him give notes on your sketch at dress rehearsal, you really develop this internal sense of, 'OK, I understand how the show works in this very underpinned way.'"
In addition to his work on SNL, Yang had a part in Wicked, and is co-host of the popular podcast Las Culturistas with his friend Matt Rogers. The two hosted a satirical awards show — the Las Culturistas Culture Awards — on Bravo/Peacock.
Interview highlights
On growing up as the child of Chinese immigrants, and being obsessed with pop culture
As a closeted Canadian kid who then moved to the States ... it was this big shock to move from French Canada — to move from Quebec — to Colorado, where I was speaking primarily French at school and Mandarin in the house, and suddenly I had to fast-track to English.
Pop culture was this expedited way for me to get on board with what people were talking about at school and what people were talking about at a birthday party or the shows that we would watch when we would have playdates or something like that. SNL was this crash course in pop culture for me every week. The thing that made me love culture was the way that it gets digested, which happens to be what SNL kind of is.
On his SNL auditions
I shudder to watch them now. ... They were making documentaries in the lead-up to the 50th anniversary and they played my auditions to me and filmed my reactions. … I had this visceral response to not wanting to watch that version of myself, like the person who, before he went down the chute of working at SNL, had no idea what the show was looking for. And I think I sort of have to re-evaluate that, because that person is special. He has something. He has gumption to just throw whatever at the wall and see what sticks. Whereas now I feel so much more prudent in my ideas.
On portraying JD Vance on SNL
This was about a year ago in August, right when the season was starting up. Lorne had reached out and sort of had his plan for how he wanted to cast the main players in the general election, and I was pretty resistant at first, and after a few more conversations, I think I dutifully acquiesced, and then I kind of went about it in the most child-of-immigrants way, where I hired a dialect coach, and I requested a screen test where I tried out different contact lenses, because I felt like so much of JD Vance's sort of visual eeriness was in his eyes. And I was like, "We have to get that down." And then we tried facial hair options. And I took it as a serious charge, which may or may not have been the right way to go about it, but it's been an interesting journey.
On creating the Las Culturistas podcast and awards with his friend Matt Rogers
We never thought that the podcast would get any listenership. This kind of summarizes the whole premise of the podcast. It's nothing mold breaking. It's two friends talking to each other. It was just an excuse for Matt and I to have a playdate every week, but we had done a lot of comedy together in the years leading up to it. …
The awards kind of budded out of this one summer, I think in 2021, when we didn't have a guest booked that week … and that was not a common thing at the time. And so we just kind of made a stream of consciousness list of nominees and categories for theoretical Las Culturistas culture awards. And this awards things from all over the tapestry of human experience, from theme park attractions, to breakfast foods, to scenes from '90s television, to clothing. It was just completely maximalist and global and overwhelming. It's meant to be nonsensical, almost, and it's meant sort of be atemporal, like "Song of the Summer" nominees are songs from four years ago. There are no rules. ...
Then one year in 2022, we threw an outdoor show and it was free. We were overwhelmed by the crowds. We had to turn people away. And so, then from that first year, we were like, "OK, so the goal is to get this televised so that everyone can opt into this."
On lying as a kid that he'd seen Wicked
Growing up it was this thing of like, well, if you didn't see Wicked then you have no business being a theater kid. When it came out, it was such a phenomenon. Around 2003, I was in high school and I remember going to the library, getting the original Broadway cast recording, and it was life-changing even [with] that entry point. And the thing that I would embellish, especially around late high school, I was just like, "Yeah, I saw like the national tour of it!" I never did, Terry. I think I just made up this lie. Because it felt like the right thing to say in order to justify this passion that I had for musical theater.
I saw it finally for the first time on the West End in London in 2022, I would say, or 2021. It was really crazy how I was like, wow, this is all culminating into this moment where I'm finally seeing the show that has still meant so much to me. And I knew it front to back. …
I don't want it to make it seem like I was, or still am like someone who doesn't tell the truth. It was just this thing that I felt the pressure to have some sort of social proof. … We were just not a theater-going family. We just didn't have that access. Like thank goodness for public libraries. I went to the library and I sought it out and I kept that CD in my Walkman for weeks. Like, I really ran the overdue charge on it!
On a piece of "cultural contraband" from his youth
The only thing that I ever had to hide was a hardcover copy of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, because it was my sister's book. And obviously she was allowed to like that, but it was cultural contraband for a teenage boy like me to have any interest in that. So I just remember loving reading those books and then hiding it under my bed ... as if it was pornography. And by the way, I mean, wow, pre-smartphone days! I was having a sexual awakening to classical art books and I highly recommend today's youth go about it the same way, because you were learning about art and you were figuring yourself out. And I don't think the kids have that anymore.
On his father's life in the region of China known as Inner Mongolia
My dad has all of these stories of him moving out of Inner Mongolia to the city to go to school, like he had $11 in his pocket at the train station, tried fish for the first time at 22, like, he was just eating potatoes and lamb for the first 22 years of his life. Like, he just had no concept of how the world was so expansive. Like, to him, his world was just however many miles within the radius of his town. ... It is this really overwhelming thing that I feel anytime I think about how charmed my own life is, I'm just like: none of this was for granted.
Ann Marie Baldonado and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Jay Vanasco adapted it for the web.
Copyright 2025 NPR
