WORDS BY JORDAN ROBLEDO
Bowen Yang has opened up about his decision to leave Saturday Night Live.
Last month, the Fire Island star shocked fans when he announced that the 20 December episode of the long-running live sketch comedy series would be his last.
“I loved working at SNL, and most of all, I loved the people. I was there at a time when many things in the world started to seem futile, but working at 30 Rock taught me the value of showing up anyway when people make it worthwhile,” he wrote in a heartfelt post on Instagram at the time.
“I’m grateful for every minute of my time there. I learned about myself (bad with wigs). I learned about others (generous, vulnerable, hot). I learned that human error can be nothing but correct. I learned that comedy is mostly logistics and that it will usually fail until it doesn’t, which is the best.
“Thank you to Lorne for the job. For the standard. And for bringing everyone at work together. They all care deeply about people in the room, any room, enjoying themselves. I can’t believe I was ever included in that.”
Since leaving SNL, Yang has refrained from disclosing the reason for his departure, leading to online speculation among fans.
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However, in the latest episode of his podcast Las Culturistas, The Wedding Banquet star broke his silence about the decision in a heartfelt chat with co-host and friend Matt Rogers.
“The current entertainment ecosystem is so turbulent that people have completely valid reasons for staying longer, or in a lot of cases don’t have the privilege of staying on as long as they would like to,” he explained.
“I have this very beautiful thing where I get to say that I stayed on exactly as long as I wanted to. I was maybe unsure about going back in the summer, and I’m so glad I did.”
Yang went on to address the online criticisms he received while on the show, citing comments that said he had “no range.”
“I feel like I was really bogged down the entire time I was there about the idea that there was no range in anything I did,” he continued.
“I knew I was never gonna play the dad. I was never gonna play the generic thing in sketches. It’s a sketch show; each thing is, like, four minutes long. It is short and collapsed by necessity, so therefore it plays on archetypes.
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“These archetypes are also in a relationship with generic things, and there is a genericism in whiteness and in being a canvas to build upon. I came in pre-stretched, pre-dyed. People had their over-determinations on what I was, which was: ‘Oh, that’s just the gay Asian guy on SNL.”
Yang explained that anytime he would work outside of those assumptions, it would either get “completely ignored or it still got collapsed to ‘Oh he’s being gay and Asian as always.'”
After Rogers praised the Fantasmas star for his work on SNL, the latter said “range” was a myth, adding, “It’s all about palatability, whether you’re getting taxed on it or you are subsidised.”
While his time with SNL has come to a close, Yang’s new era is looking bright.
This year, he’ll be promoting the animated reboot of The Cat in the Hat, in which he stars.
Last month, Deadline announced that he and Rogers will be co-writing and co-starring in an untitled comedy inspired by the Search Engine podcast episode, ‘Why didn’t Chris and Dan get into Berghain?’
He’s also set to return as the co-host of the Las Culturistas Awards later this year, which will air on Bravo and stream on Peacock.
Check out his full “exit interview” on the Las Culturistas podcast below.
The post ‘I stayed on exactly as long as I wanted to’: Bowen Yang breaks silence on SNL exit appeared first on GAY TIMES.
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