A note from Wild Card host Rachel Martin: When you've watched Ronny Chieng's comedy, it becomes pretty clear he's a guy who takes none of his success for granted. He knows life could have turned out differently. What were the odds that a twenty-something Chinese Malaysian guy trying to launch a comedy career after law school in Australia would make it big in America? Whatever the odds were, Ronny Chieng beat them to become one of the biggest names in comedy.
He's been a regular correspondent on The Daily Show since 2015 and is now a rotating host. He absolutely crushes his role as Jimmy O. Yang's best friend in the Hulu show Interior Chinatown. And he's got his third Netflix comedy special out now called Ronny Chieng: Love to Hate It, which made me laugh so hard I started recommending it to anyone within earshot.
The comedy in his specials is rooted in personal experience and observation, but this one is especially so. From stories about the challenges and absurdity of IVF to his dad's death, he weaves in and out of these intimate places in the most hilarious way possible.
Throw in some razor-sharp observations about masculinity and YouTube in the Trump era, and boom! You got yourself an epic comedic journey well worth the ride.
This Wild Card interview has been edited for length and clarity. Host Rachel Martin asks guests randomly selected questions from a deck of cards. Tap play above to listen to the full podcast, or read an excerpt below.
Question 1: How do you consciously try to emulate your parents?
Ronny Chieng: I don't think anything is that impressive. [laughs]
That's how I mimic them because they're not easily impressed by much — but in a good way. So, I think in that way I try to see reality the way they see it, where they're like, "Oh yeah, this is not that big of a deal. This is not that big of an achievement." [laughs]
Rachel Martin: I think that would be helpful in your line of work, actually, because there is the risk that things spiral and all of a sudden, you think you're really awesome.
Chieng: Yeah, yeah. It keeps you working to pursue perfection, right? You never think you've achieved it, so it's good.
Martin: Did that ever cut the other way for you growing up? Like, if you did a thing and you wanted them to be proud of you and they were like, "Hmm?"
Chieng: I don't know. I don't think I was that impressive a kid. I didn't have that many great achievements anyway, so I don't feel like they wronged me by not being impressed. So, no, I don't. I was like, "Yeah." I was like, "You're right. It's not that impressive." [laughs]
Martin: And do you find that people in your line of work are constantly seeking that kind of affirmation? Do you find yourself falling into that trap?
Chieng: You know, my line of work being stand-up comedy — undoubtedly, we seek affirmation through a crowd response to our jokes, right?
We are looking for a good reaction to a joke, specifically laughter. So, in that way our integrity is compromised.
But we don't believe in our own marketing. Someone told me, "The best comics think that their material is bad." And there's something to that, I think. I don't know any great comic who's like, "Oh, my material is the best in the world," you know?
You're always looking at other comics and going, "Man, that guy's really funny. I need to write a better bit," you know? You never feel like you have the greatest joke in the world. You're always impressed by someone else's joke. That's how I feel, anyway.
Question 2: What was a disappointing experience that now feels like a blessing?
Chieng: I couldn't get a job coming out of law school. My grades were too bad, and I couldn't get hired. And everyone around me was getting jobs because I went to a very good law school, so everyone around me was these very hyper-competitive type-A people who were getting really good jobs at these big law firms. And I felt a little left out at the time.
But in hindsight, I'm like, "Oh man, I'm so glad I never got hired," because I think it would have been more difficult for me to quit a job and do comedy. As it was, I just — I didn't have anything to lose, so I could just do comedy. It wasn't like I had to pick between comedy and a corporate job. I was just not smart enough like my wife. I went to law school with my wife and she's like a genius. Her grades are amazing. She got all these job offers. But I couldn't get a single one.
Martin: So, were your parents disappointed that that didn't pan out for you?
Chieng: No, they weren't because I never told them.
Martin: What do you mean?
Chieng: I didn't tell them I was doing comedy. They thought I was studying for the bar exam, which I was in fairness. But at that time, I was just doing comedy. And by the time they found out, it was almost too late.
Martin: Wait, that's awesome. So you just led this separate life — assuming you were in a good enough place that when they found out, they weren't traumatized. You're like, "I'm a comedian — and I can pay my rent. So it's okay?"
Chieng: Yeah. They only found out honestly when I got hired on The Daily Show.
Martin: Wow. Did they know what The Daily Show was?
Chieng: No, they didn't know what it was, but after I told them I got hired, they googled it, they found out all about it, they were like, "Oh, you know, this is an important show, this is a very famous show," and I'm like, "Yeah, I know, I know."
They kind of trained me to be like, you know, it's just an opportunity. It doesn't mean you're good. [laughs] It just means you have a chance to do something cool, right? Like that's what it was, so that's what I took it for. And that's really what the strength of being on The Daily Show is. Like, more so than fame or whatever, it's like this opportunity to work with extremely talented people and really become better yourself. Because everyone at that show is so good at their jobs that you don't want to be the weakest link. And so you lift your game. So, that's why it's the best job in comedy. It makes you a better writer, performer, comedian, satirist, you know? That show is — it's like the Harvard Business School of comedy.
Question 3: How have your feelings about death changed over time?
Chieng: Oh, yeah. It's become more real. It used to be this kind of conceptual abstract, right? And then it's become very real the last couple of years, seeing it up close. It becoming more real was kind of frightening. I was studying Buddhism recently, and there was this very interesting concept that I'm going to butcher because I'm going to give you the Cliff Notes of it in, like, five seconds. But the idea was something like: we are a different person in every moment, anyway. Our thoughts are different. Our cellular makeup is different in every second, every moment. Meaning — we are different people in every second of every moment anyway. So, the concept of "me" doesn't really exist because I'm constantly changing anyway.
And so when I die, it doesn't matter because I never really existed. So that is kind of like the Buddhist answer — one of the Buddhist answers — to that.
Martin: I like that idea. Does that mean that when a person dies, you think that it's just another transition, or are they gone?
Chieng: I think that, unfortunately, as a person observing someone dying, that person is gone. I'm just talking about me, personally — for me to come to terms with my own mortality. That's how I view it anyway — that I never really existed. I'm different every moment, so if I go, that's just another change, right? Dealing with other people, that's tough. I think that requires a different concept.
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