"Bowen Yang"
The Smartless podcast hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett interview comedian and former SNL cast member Bowen Yang. They discuss his multicultural upbringing across Australia, Canada, and Colorado, his path to SNL, his experience with conversion therapy at 17, and his life post-SNL.
Summary
The episode opens with casual banter between the three Smartless hosts about moving apartments, Sean's walking boot, and Will's new New York setup before introducing their guest, Bowen Yang. Born in Brisbane, Australia to a Chinese father who earned his doctorate in mining explosives, Bowen moved to Montreal at age three, then to Colorado at age nine — arriving right around the time of Columbine and the JonBenét Ramsey case. He credits Montreal's Just for Laughs festival and early exposure to street performance comedy as formative influences on his sense of humor.
Bowen attended NYU, initially as a pre-med chemistry major — a path he took largely as cover while his real goal was proximity to comedy scenes. He reveals the Sandra Oh connection: he became obsessed with her character Christina Yang on Grey's Anatomy, which inspired both his interest in medicine and his admiration for her as a performer. He later lip-synced her monologues online. Remarkably, Oh ended up hosting SNL the same week Bowen made his on-camera debut playing Kim Jong-un, which he describes as the most surreal week of his life.
A significant portion of the conversation focuses on Bowen being outed at 17 when his parents discovered a chat window on the family computer. His parents, both scientists from China, sent him to eight weeks of conversion therapy in Colorado Springs as a condition for allowing him to attend NYU (where his sister already went). He describes the therapy as ineffective and almost comedic — culminating in the therapist accidentally slipping into first person while recounting a story about a former patient hooking up with a waiter, effectively outing himself. Bowen speaks without bitterness about his parents, framing their reaction as cultural rather than religious and noting they have since apologized.
Bowen describes how his SNL audition tape was made with a sense of indifference — he didn't think they'd ever hire 'an effeminate Asian guy' — which paradoxically freed him to perform authentically. He worked as a writer first before transitioning to on-camera performer. His farewell sketch featured Cher and Ariana Grande in a Delta lounge allegory about departures and eggnog that got cut. Post-SNL, he co-hosts the podcast Las Culturistas (now 10 years old) and has a role in the upcoming Cat in the Hat film with Bill Hader. He reflects on the difficulty of dating during SNL, the challenge of self-motivation without a structured schedule, and broader concerns about where comedy lives in the current cultural moment.
Key Insights
- Bowen Yang argues that his SNL audition succeeded precisely because he approached it with indifference — believing they'd never hire 'an effeminate Asian guy,' he had nothing to lose and performed authentically rather than tightly.
- Yang claims his parents' decision to send him to conversion therapy was culturally rather than religiously motivated — his scientist father from Inner Mongolia simply had no framework for homosexuality and feared his son would have a harder life.
- Yang describes his conversion therapist accidentally slipping into first person while recounting a story about a patient having sex with a waiter, effectively self-outing and undermining the entire eight weeks of therapy in one session.
- Yang argues that comedy right now carries an extra burden that drama does not: it must present something optimistic about the world, which he finds increasingly difficult given the current cultural climate.
- Yang claims the pipeline from Just for Laughs comedy festival to SNL was the traditional route, but he never made it there — his entry came instead through a low-stakes audition tape his manager suggested.
- Yang says that during his seven years at SNL, dating was essentially impossible because the show consumed him so completely that he would go on a couple of dates and then 'vanish,' a pattern he takes full responsibility for.
- Yang observes that NYU has become the dominant pedigree feeder school for SNL in recent years, replacing the Harvard Lampoon pipeline that dominated roughly a decade ago.
- Yang reflects that post-SNL his nervous system is still resetting — he still wakes at 6am and feels exhausted by day's end, and acknowledges his self-motivation is 'not yet' where it needs to be without the show's external structure.
Topics
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