Ali Wong’s heart is on the road.
It’s the morning after the opening night of her 44-date stand-up tour that will take her across the United States and Canada, and the star producer of “Beef” is heading to Atlanta. Dressed in a black sweatshirt, she apologizes for not having had the chance to wash her hair before our Zoom conversation; instead, she got a little “elliptical” before leaving. “It’s nice to be back on the road, doing stand-up again,” says Wong, who previously starred in “Always Be My Maybe.” “I had taken a big break while filming ‘Beef’. I think it was the longest break I’ve ever taken,” she says. Netflix’s 10-part series follows strangers Danny Cho (Steven Yeun) as a failing entrepreneur, and Amy Lau (Wong), a successful entrepreneur.A road rage incident caused by Amy turns their lives and relationships upside down.
It’s been over a decade since Wong landed on Variety’s list of 10 comedians to watch. Since then, she’s had Netflix specials, penning ABC’s “Fresh off the Boat” and co-writing “Always Be My Maybe” in addition to starring in the romantic comedy, but the hugely successful “Beef — the show has amassed over 186 million hours watched since its debut in April — shone the spotlight on Wong in a way it had never before. She is still adjusting.
Our interview comes two days after the show’s cast and creators responded to a resurfaced 2014 clip of “Beef” star David Choe joking about being sexually assaulted by a massage therapist. In the statement, the band called their video “undeniably hurtful and extremely disturbing” while stating that they “in no way condone this story.” He concluded: ‘We know David has apologized in the past for making up this horrible story, and we’ve seen him work to get the mental health support he needed over the past decade to recover. improve and learn from mistakes.
Here, Wong talks about how “Beef” changed his life, refocusing on stand-up and finding peace with his newfound fame.
Let’s talk about David Choe. The team released a joint statement about him, which reads, “We’ve seen him get to work.” What did that mean?
The behavior I just described is truly upsetting. We released this statement and for now I just feel like it’s time for me to listen and not rush to say more on the subject.
ALL RIGHT. Since you’re on the road – in a car – and “Beef” kicks off with the road rage incident, what kind of driver are you?
I’m cautious, even more so now after the show because I fictionally lived through this whole experience and where things might go. No need to push for whoever had the right of way. I don’t want to end up having an affair with a stranger’s brother and then being in a shootout and crashing my car!
Dan Doperalski for Variety
How did you prepare for this and live so long with the character of Amy?
The writing by [showrunner Lee Sung Jin] was so powerful, and I connected to him. I didn’t have to do as much work. I don’t know what it is, but it’s still difficult for me to identify myself as an actress and even to say: “I am an actor or an actress”. I identify myself primarily as a stand-up.
I don’t have too much formal training, and in terms of preparation, the thing that worried me the most was memorizing all those lines. Sometimes I had to memorize 10 pages of dialogue in a day, and that part was the scariest for me. Steven would memorize these things quickly, and I would have to start a week in advance, preparing. Also, not doing a stand-up was huge. It’s such a form of expression for me. Just taking it off made me feel trapped. I didn’t have time to journal. I have this very specific thing that I usually do where I do pages every morning. Do you journal?
I did it. I would do it online and I would just vomit.
And it was to purge?
It was therapeutic, but I stopped because I didn’t have time.
That’s a lot of self-care stuff to keep you sane. I didn’t have time to keep a journal while I was on the show. I write three pages in the morning and tear them up because it’s to vomit. It’s not up to someone to find out and find out what I was thinking in 2020 going through the pandemic. It wasn’t on purpose, it was simply because of the weather, but I took so many of my usual tools of release and self-expression that it also led to me feeling repressed and trapped.
[With] the show, we were in such a time crunch, we had to do so many things, and I think that [was] it feels good to have your back to the wall like that. In the end, even if it was hard, I didn’t have time to think about it too much. I am not a method actor. I like to show up and be present with my stage partners and say the words.
So it must have been daunting to do that compared to your stand-up.
Last night I wore my forest green Pangaia tracksuit. My hair and makeup routine is five minutes max — I put on eyeliner, go over my ensemble, and that’s just me. I wrote all these words, I decide how I am
am going to do my inflections, and it’s not captured on camera. It’s so fleeting. Cinema is the opposite. You collaborate with a million people, and the most important thing is trust. So when Sunny and Steven approached me, I said yes, because I always wanted to work with them and because I trust them.
Ali Wong has formed a special bond with his co-star Steven Yeun.
Andrew Cooper/Netflix
How did you take time to take care of yourself during production?
I had a giant yellow yoga mat that was a swag of “Big Mouth” in my trailer, and whenever I had 15 minutes to spare, I tried to do a stretching session. Every weekend I spent with my friends. I have a group of friends from UCLA, it’s seven girls, eight of us in total, and they’re graphic designers, doctors, public advocates, pharmacists, nonprofit event planners and they really aren’t in the business. We would go to each other’s house and have a barbecue. I’m probably the third funniest in the bunch, and this group of women is very close to my sanity.
I mostly tried to sleep when I could. For most of “Beef” I didn’t sleep. When I watch this show, I just see a really unhealthy woman when I see myself. Even though we shot in Los Angeles, it was difficult because I couldn’t see my children as much as I would have liked. I think that really helped me relate to Amy because I’m always busy working.
The success of this show changed your career. Now, when searching Google, your privacy is exposed. How did that happen ?
He is so weird. I can’t even explain it. I have never, ever been busted by paparazzi until this year. I was talking to someone recently and he said, “I think it’s so alarming when it happens because you feel like you’ve been taken when in reality you’re not doing anything wrong. .” He was someone who gave me, looking back, advice on his former relationship with a famous person. They had spent so much energy hiding, and that defined the whole relationship. It stays with me, and it’s quite an adjustment.
The other thing is that my mom reads People magazine; she’s been a subscriber for a long time, and she does the crossword. I haven’t even discussed it with her, but it must be so surreal to her. I try to get used to it.
Are you starting to get more calls and seeing offers coming in?
I am. I decided a while ago that it was time for me to come back to stand-up. It was the longest break I’ve ever taken, and the worry is that muscle atrophies – you can lose it if you don’t do reps.
like weightlifting. Playing is wonderful, but it takes a lot of time. It’s time for me to be with my kids and do stand-up for now. Although I appreciate receiving calls and offers. It’s so wonderful and something I never imagined would happen. I’m just excited to do this in my sweats.
What’s it like to be in front of an audience again and be true to who you want to be?
It feels good. It’s good because a lot has happened personally over the past year. I’m not single now, but I was long after my divorce. It was so moving to talk about my life as a single woman. During practice, I used to talk as if I was still single. What’s strange is now [my romantic life] is public information. For me, stand-up is still an abstraction from the truth — it’s not the whole self. Out of respect for my relationship, I have to practice putting them in the past tense.
Dress: Iris Van Herpen; Earrings: Lele Sadoughi; Shoes: Stuart Weitzman;