Why for Jimmy O. Yang Hong Kong feels like home, and comedy king’s rise from Uber driver
Actor and comedian Jimmy O. Yang on making it in Hollywood, his Hong Kong childhood and amazement at how fast his shows in the city sold out
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‘Telling my own truth’: How Jimmy O. Yang found success in comedy and in Hollywood
Back in 2014, between the first and second seasons of the HBO comedy series Silicon Valley in which he had a supporting role, Jimmy O. Yang spent his days moonlighting as an Uber driver.
The Hong Kong-born Hollywood hopeful used a pay cheque for his role in the series as Jian-Yang – he received the Screen Actors Guild minimum of US$900 a day – to buy a used Toyota Prius hybrid, which he would drive around Los Angeles to earn the money to pay his rent.
“You never know, especially as an actor, where your next pay cheque comes from,” he tells the Post. Only when he was promoted to a series regular did he finally feel he had the safety net he had long desired. “At least now all my rent will be paid for,” he recalls thinking.
At the same time, his stand-up comedy tours – clips from O. Yang’s Amazon Prime specials Good Deal (2020) and Guess How Much? (2023) have gone viral – catapulted O. Yang into the social media spotlight.