I come from Oregon, which is this super-white state, so I didn't really have a lot of Asian friends in high school and college. And my background's in comedy, and your friends are just your peers in comedy, which is a whole mix of people.
It's interesting because with a lot of people who I've met in comedy, it seems not to matter what your background is. In terms of formal schooling - I feel like that's a nineteenth century term - but in terms of where you went to high school or college, or wherever, all that really is irrelevant, I have found, in comedy.
I had a great high-school experience. I had a lot of friends that I'm still really good friends with, but there's always times where a group can't understand what the individual is experiencing, or you're going through something at home that you can't bring to school and have a total understanding among your peers.
I love comedy and did a lot of comedy in college. I was in an improv comedy group with my friends.
Before I did comedy, I'd freestyle with all of my friends. In high school and into college, I recorded songs with my friends, not to perform but just to play for them. So I've had interest in music for a while. Early on, I'd host a lot of music open nights or hip-hop nights, so a lot of my early experience performing was around music.
Comedy people like other comedy people. People hang out and are friends and do shows together, and when you get something going like a TV show or a movie, you want your friends to be in it and make it funnier. That's just the way it should be.
I was voted Most Humorous in my senior class in high school, and I was a fan of comedy, my whole life. I never got into the horror genre, and action was fine, but I just loved comedy. Any comedy I could get my hands on, I would. I watched Saturday Night Live religiously. I've just been a fan of comedy, my whole life.
When I stopped going to school, I got the strongest dose of perspective. When you're a kid, your friends, your school, your teachers, your family - that's your whole world, your whole existence. And then when I stopped going, I lost all my friends but the few that were really close to me.
I grew up with white friends, Asian friends - Vietnamese, Chinese, Pacific Islanders. I had Hispanic friends, not just Mexican friends, but Guatemalan friends, Honduran friends, and we knew the difference, you know?
The marriages come and go but your friendships stay, which is the opposite of what it used to be, so that there will be people in our lives for 30 years and often it is not your husband, it's your women friends, male friends with whom you come of age.
What are friends ? Friends are people that you think are your friends
But they really your enemies, with secret indentities
And disguises, to hide they true colors
So just when you think you close enough to be brothers
They wanna come back and cut your throat when you ain't lookin'.
I went to high school, which was a good thing because I hadn't interacted with many people my age, and I didn't really have friends. I had a million acquaintances and no friends.
My experience - and it might be just the kind of comedy that I do, which is usually sketch comedy - is that there's a lot more texture and subplot in drama than in comedy.
Drama is what I'm really obsessed by. It's what gets me up in the morning, what I live for. But I'll always have a love for comedy because it was my first opportunity, and I associate it with my best friends, who I made during 'School of Comedy'.
I don't really have friends in general. I never have. I didn't go to college and didn't have friends in high school.
I acted in high school and studied at the British American Drama Academy in Oxford for one summer. I minored in theater, and I was always acting growing up and stuff, but really, I was just more interested in the comedy of it all. So for me, it's always comedy, and then acting is just one medium of comedy.
I think I'm one of those guys who was sort of always in comedy. I thought of myself - and other people seemed to think of me - as funny from a very young age. I was a very young comedy nerd and I even did sketch comedy in high school and college. I wrote and shot sketches on video and acted in them.