Ken Jeong on Why ‘The Hangover’ Is His ‘Most Primal Performance” and How ‘Comedy Was My Golf’ as a Doctor
Ken Jeong has always been a scene-stealer — even as a chorus member with no lines in a Duke University production of “Kiss Me Kate” when he was 18. “I still have the review in my office; it says, ‘Did I mention Ken Jeong, a puckish performer in the chorus who best watch his back if he keeps stealing scenes from the principals?’” recalls the actor. “So, I think it’s always been in my DNA.”
Jeong has never lost that playful quality as he moved from an actual doctor to stand-up comedian to film and TV doctor (“Knocked Up” and “Dr. Ken”) and into several of the most popular movies of the last 20 years (“The Hangover” trilogy, “Crazy Rich Asians”). In addition, he’s managed to maintain a reputation as one of the most lovable and adored personalities on TV thanks to appearing as himself in hits like “The Masked Singer” and hosting “I Can See Your Voice.” And now the eternal scene-stealer will take the spotlight on Oct. 23, when he receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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It’s an occasion his frequent collaborator Joel McHale has dubbed “Ken Jeong Day.” The two, who first met on the set of “Community” in 2009, have gone on to pair up on several projects, including their quarantine-era podcast “The Darkest Timeline.” McHale says he never could have predicted such a fruitful partnership from that first day they met. “I had no idea,” he admits. “He could have been a monster, but he wasn’t.”
The tall, wry McHale plays off the ball of energy that is Jeong perfectly; asked what the secret is to their chemistry, McHale grudgingly says, “Don’t tell him this, but he’s one of the funniest people on the planet, and he makes me look good because he’s so funny. He’s also smarter than me, which makes me look smart. We just like each other a lot, to the point where we might have something to tell our wives.”
Jeong says the full impact of the Walk of Fame honor hasn’t completely sunk in, but he is excited about what it means for his community. It’s why he requested his star be placed near fellow actors of Asian descent, Lucy Liu and Anna May Wong. “I hope that any Asian-American interested in going into the arts and thinks it’s not viable will see these generations of Asian-American actors and know anything is possible,” he notes. “I’m living proof of it.”
The son of Korean immigrants in North Carolina, Jeong didn’t see many performers who looked like him. He had always loved performing and was studying theater at Duke, but he ultimately had to have “a come-to-Jesus-moment with myself” when his pre-med grades began to slip. Still, he never completely lost the acting bug — he won a comedy competition during his medical residency in New Orleans. When he moved to Woodland Hills, a suburb of Los Angeles, to start working at Kaiser Permanente as a doctor of internal medicine, he began performing at local comedy clubs.
Jeong stresses that he was never the “wacky, funny” doctor. “I was actually very serious and intense,” he reveals. “So when I started popping up in comedy bits, people weren’t so much shocked as relieved. They would say, ‘I’m so happy you have an outlet!’ They were actually worried about me.”
And Jeong was happy being the doctor who also did comedy, thinking it mainly as a hobby of sorts. “I didn’t golf, so comedy was my golf,” he jokes. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t take his opportunities seriously. When he was auditioning for roles like his film debut in Judd Apatow’s 2007 comedy “Knocked Up,” he began working with acting coach Natalia Lazarus. He eventually found himself so busy with his “hobby” that he had to leave medicine behind.
Jeong was soon making meals even with limited screen time. His character Mr. Chow from “The Hangover” films was so enjoyable he was brought back for both sequels. Asked what was behind certain choices like the unexpected scream Chow gives when Ed Helms’ character throws over a bag of money, Jeong admits there was no master plan. In fact, he almost didn’t do the blockbuster because his wife, Tran Ho, had just been diagnosed with breast cancer (she is currently 15 years cancer-free.)
“Honestly, making that film was a fever dream of sorts,” he says. “I was going through a lot in my personal life and I just threw the playbook out the window. In many ways, it’s my most primal performance.” In an effort to make his wife laugh, he reveals he peppered Chow’s dialogue with a lot of Vietnamese phrases that made it to the final cut. For example, instead of commanding his heavies to release a hostage, he blurted out a phrase that just means “Chicken die!” He laughs, “I don’t know that it was a choice, I was just having fun. I guess you could say many of my acting choices are born out of stupidity.”
But Jeong is always looking for opportunities to challenge himself. When he joined the cast of “The Afterparty” in its second season, it was to stretch his range by playing a desperate would-be entrepreneur. Creator Christopher Miller says that Jeong reached out to him for a role.
“The concept of the show gave every actor their own episode to be the protagonist, allowing the audience to see a new dimension and depth to a character that they may have only thought of as two-dimensional or archetypical,” Miller notes. And while Jeong’s episode is a very funny found-footage parody, there are moments of great pathos and pain. “Ken is such a thoughtful and intelligent and emotional guy, but the world had mostly only seen only one side of him. It seemed like a good chance to show audiences something they hadn’t seen before. And he delivered.”
And for the first time, Jeong will be playing a full-on dramatic leading role in an upcoming episode of the Fox crime anthology series “Accused.” Set to air Dec. 3, the episode stars Jeong as the owner of a jewelry store with a secret past. Howard Gordon, behind such shows as “24,” developed the series and serves as an EP and showrunner. Gordon had met Jeong briefly years ago, when the latter emceed a fundraiser for the Jonsson Cancer Center at UCLA. He later learned Jeong was a fan of “Accused” and would love to be considered for an episode.
Gordon didn’t hesitate. “We had a general meeting with Ken, and we talked for an hour — which felt like five minutes — and it was basically love at first sight for us,” the producer says.
Asked if there’s anything it might surprise people to know about his good friend, McHale doesn’t hesitate: “Yeah, we’re the same height.”
Tipsheet
WHAT Ken Jeong receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
WHEN 11:30 a.m., Oct. 23
WHERE 1708 Vine St., Hollywood
WEB walkoffame.com
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