Ali Wong: The Comedy Queen of Hollywood
The crowd bursts into fits of laughter. Ali Wong has just told a rip-roaringly funny joke in her 2016 critically-acclaimed Netflix comedy special, Ali Wong: Baby Cobra. Something about Fancy Asians versus Jungle Asians. It’s Ali Wong’s signature dry, self-deprecating humour, and her audience is lapping it up.
Several months pregnant, Ali waddles across the stage, her prominent baby-bump very visible under her black and white tube maternity skirt. Wong looks sorta over it (the pregnancy might be taking it out of her)—exhausted, with a hacked-off expression on her face. That guise could also have been all part of the act. She knows she’s got the fans hooked. She has a lot to say and knows just how she’s going to say it.
From trying her hand at stand-up to a crowd of twenty people at a laundromat-cum-coffee bar in San Francisco to becoming the first woman of Asian descent to take the gong for a lead acting Primetime Emmy for her stellar performance in Beef, to having three wildly successful Netflix specials under her belt, she’s proved to us all that she’s got what it takes. As a loud-and-proud American-born Asian woman, she’s funny, daring, always has fun, embraces her roots and is a hilarious role model. In her award-winning role in the 2023 Netflix series, Beef, she certainly took the world by storm. Created by Korean-American screenwriter, Lee Sung Jin, the series—starring Ali as Amy Lau—was an utter success. Following the aftermath of a road rage incident between two very different strangers, Amy Lau, an entrepreneur with quite the picturesque life, and Danny Cho, a failing contractor with a chip on his shoulder. It’s all, in part, what Ali brought to the role. It was unchartered waters for Wong. A veteran comedian and comedy actor, she poured herself into this project with such gusto. Beef (and Ali) took over awards season too, either winning or being nominated for 25 big gongs for Wong. Another comedy special for her would’ve been a walk in the park, but she needed something new, another skill to add to her increasingly dense resume.
I mean, look, she’s a busy lady, guys. She’s a New York Times best-selling author, walked at New York Fashion Week, appeared in a superhero movie (the 2020 DC Comics Birds of Prey) and even graciously manoeuvred a very public separation with her ex-husband and she still stays cool and calm throughout the process. Does she see herself as a role model? ‘I don’t know. Parts of me,’ she says. ‘Maybe my work ethic is something to aspire to.’ No matter what she says, Ali Wong is the performer that many girls aspire to be. Born in 1982 to Adolphus and Tammy Wong in the Pacific Heights neighbourhood of San Francisco, Ali grew up a happy and very imaginative kid. Her parents, both of Asian descent, raised their four children (Ali being the youngest) in a kind and caring household. According to online gossip, Ali liked getting her own way, and was quite bossy when she wanted to be.
Her parents would jokingly accuse her of being a ‘dictator’ and her primary school teacher even informed Adolphus and Tammy in a parent-teacher evening that she may suffer from ‘Napoleonic syndrome’, a purported condition given to a person of short stature who is quite domineering. At home when she was a kid, Adolphus’ Chinese heritage reigned supreme in her childhood home so she quickly grew up knowing her roots. Her mother’s Vietnamese upbringing, however, was pushed to the wayside.
‘I spent all of my summers and Friday nights at Donaldina Cameron House,’ Wong wrote in her short essay, Discoveries Terrible And Magnificent, whilst attending the University of California. ‘Donaldina Cameron and other female white missionaries founded Cameron House in the late 1800s as a rescue home for Chinese prostitutes and abused wives. Rescued women learned how to sew, cook, speak English and read in order to become more self-sufficient.’
It was whilst assisting at the House that she and her mum really bonded. Their relationship flourished throughout her childhood. As a cute side-note, in her acceptance speech at the 30th annual SAG awards this year at the Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall in LA, Wong gave a heartfelt shout-out to her mum.
‘I want to thank my 83-year-old mother, who’s here tonight in her pearls and her Tevas because she doesn’t give a f**k. I know it was really hard when I told you I wanted to do stand-up comedy. I hope you feel like it’s all worked out.’
As the Donaldina Cameron House is situated in Chinatown, Wong took to really thriving there in her youth. As the community she had grown up around in Pacific Heights was predominantly white middle-class, she loved using the district as a space for recreation, where she could find her own, unique voice.
Her family were very interested in art too, and her mum and dad regularly took Ali and her siblings to the Asian American Film Festival. Reportedly, every time there was a new Wong Kar-wai film release, the excitement sizzled amongst the Wongs.
Over her teen years and into her early twenties, Wong used that time to strengthen her comedic voice. Her presentation and word usage too. She often showed her parents, who were supportive, yes, but made sure that she was also dedicated to her studies as well. After graduating from the San Francisco University High School (where she was student body class president and achieved top grades in all her classes), she still yearned to know more about her Vietnamese heritage.
‘I have the proficiency of a second grader,’ she joked on Marc Maron’s podcast, WTF. ‘When I talk to Vietnamese people they’re like, “What the f**k is wrong with you? Just speak English.”’
She enrolled herself at UCLA to study Asian-American studies and, whilst studying in her first year, was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to go and study in Hanoi, Vietnam in Reportedly, whilst studying at UCLA, her main goal was to become a lecturer, specialising in Asian culture. The allure of being a funny girl on stage allowed her to take up a side hobby as a member of the longest-running Asian-American theatre company in the USA, Lapu, the Coyote that Cares (LCC for short). Years later, in the run-up to the release of her second Netflix comedy special, Ali Wong: Hard Knock Wife (in which she was pregnant with yet another baby), Wong told HuffPost, ‘People obsess about casting and representation, but really all the real work is behind the camera,’ referencing the importance of what she learned at LCC in people of colour also writing for other actors.
The LCC was co-founded by Randall Park, Ali’s buddy from UCLA, who would later go on to collaborate and co-star in Fresh Off the Boat. The two had met in quite funny circumstances. As the story goes, Ali had entered a fried rice competition (as ya do) to be held at Park’s apartment. The annual party was strictly for LCC members only and Ali had only heard rumours of Park, this illustrious ‘legend’. When he eventually did turn up, it was as though Jesus had entered the room.
‘I was very aware of who he was,’ Wong told Glamour in 2019. ‘But I don’t think he had any idea who I was at the time.’
Her infamous cranberry fried rice didn’t take home the prize that night (apparently a chocolate fried rice did—ick) but the two eventually became pals and frequent collaborators. Wholesome.
After graduating from UCLA in 2005, the idea of pursuing an academic route seemed daunting to her, so she packed up her things and moved to New York to pursue a career in stand-up, much to her parent’s dismay.
“Before I packed up,’ Ali wrote in her 2019 memoir, Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets and Advice for Living Your Best Life, ‘my best friend told me how her friend had witnessed a rat giving birth on a homeless lady’s lap on the subway. And that single image pretty much sums up New York.’
She recalled to The Washington Post that she was eating beans from the can and lived in overcrowded flats as she was starting to find her footing in the industry. She’d work a full day in a cafe as a wait staff, rush home and (if she didn’t have any gigs that night) would work from 9 pm to 2 am perfecting her voice, stage presence and delivery.
‘When I was hustling, I would sometimes do up to thirteen sets a night,’ she told Seth Meyers on his talk show in 2023. ‘Bouncing all over the city. Sometimes to Brooklyn, back to the Upper East Side, to Bed-Stuy, back to the Lower East Side. It was sometimes for no money and usually only three-minute sets.’
She did that to practise her art, giving everything to her passion. It was over the years of trying and trying, her first proper flash of serious recognition came her way in 2011.
Variety magazine had named her one of the ‘10 Comics To Watch’ alongside the likes of Amy Schumer, Rebel Wilson and Tim Minchin. She was also given her first spots on late-night TV, in shows such as The Tonight Show, John Oliver’s New York Stand-Up Show and Dave Attell’s Comedy Underground.
With that boost in her confidence (and as well as doing more and more stand-up gigs on the side) she auditioned for the role of Olivia in the NBC sitcom, Are You There, Chelsea?
The sitcom went on to receive a mixture of reviews and unfortunately got cancelled after its first season. The Rotten Tomatoes consensus reads that the show ‘tries hard, but never matches the book’s caustic wit’.
Ali took it in her stride, though. She didn’t let her confidence waver at all. She went on to star in VH1’s Best Week Ever and ended up starring alongside Vanessa Redgrave in the American Psychological drama, Black Box, and guest starred in three episodes of Inside Amy Schumer.
This was when her fame started to rise. She had started really making a name for herself as a comedian (thanks to the Variety list) and had heard mutterings of a new show being written called Fresh Off the Boat. Her friend from UCLA, Randall Park (who had scored the lead role in the series), had gotten in touch with the team and had put her name forward to be a writer. She got the gig and wrote for the series for the first three seasons. Fresh Off the Boat follows the adventures of a Taiwanese-American family adapting to suburban life in Florida in the 1990s.
‘For a lot of Asian-American comedians,’ Park told The New Yorker in 2016, ‘myself included, the crutch when you first start out is to do hacky ethnic jokes. It’s in a lot of ways an easier laugh. She never really relied on that. Her voice is just so…it’s Ali.’
Alongside writing for Fresh Off the Boat, Wong released her first Netflix special, Baby Cobra which certainly put her name on the map.
Filmed in the U-District’s very own Neptune Theatre, Baby Cobra knows no bounds. After years of asking if women are funny, the resounding answer is a big yes. She cemented that fact in her 2018 Hard Knock Wife and the 2022 Netflix special, Don Wong. All of her specials are hilarious. All are brutally honest and brutally funny. Her unique experiences and the unfiltered humour in the special undoubtedly made her a comedian to look out for.
After the release of Baby Cobra, the roles started flooding in. She was getting calls from Hollywood—stage, screen and even animation. All of the calls she accepted, adding to her impressive resume.
After the huge success of Fresh Off the Boat, and her many acting roles and stand-up specials, she received the call that would change her life in 2021. It was from Lee Sung Jin asking if Wong was keen at all for a role in a little Netflix thing he was working on. She was told that she would be acting alongside The Walking Dead’s Steven Yeun, who would play Danny Cho, the other lead in the series. She jumped at the chance and did a fantastic job in the role.
At the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards, it took out the night, with awards for every aspect of the show being recognized and Wong taking a female lead award too, making her the first actress of Asian descent to ever win a lead acting Emmy award.
‘I think the challenge of it was just really fulfilling,’ Wong told Newsweek. ‘So, I’m looking back on the footage and the episodes and being like, “Wow, who is that person?” When I see myself, it’s pretty mystifying and satisfying at the same time. But, I was like “OK, I think you can do that”. I’m still really surprised with all of it and I’m really happy I did it. It was an incredible experience.’
It would seem then that Ali Wong’s got it in the bag with being the comedy queen of Hollywood. She’s hit the ground running. She’s nailed it. Her success thus far from the mean streets of San Francisco to hustling stand-up gigs in New York to becoming one of the biggest comedy stars in the world, makes one thing crystal clear. That her drive for her success is unwavering and her passion will never die. Long may she reign.
