BOWEN YANG, born on this date, is an Australian-born American actor, comedian, writer, and podcaster based in New York City. Yang was hired to join the writing staff of the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live in September 2018, ahead of its 44th season, and a year later was promoted to on-air cast status for SNL‘s 45th season, becoming its first Chinese-American, first Australian-American, third oout gay male, and fourth-ever cast member of Asian descent. He made history becoming the first SNL featured player to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in 2021. He was promoted to repertory status before the 47th season. He co-hosts a comedy pop-culture podcast, Las Culturistas, with Matt Rogers.
In 2018, Yang was hired as a staff writer on Saturday Night Live for the show’s 44th season. He said he “always loved SNL growing up, but had trouble imagining himself on the show, because he’d never seen people who looked like him associated with the series”. Yang has writing credits on twenty-one episodes of the show for the 2018–2019 season. His writing included: “GP Yass”, a play on a vehicle’s GPS navigation device that utilizes drag queens to deliver driving directions; and two sketches co-written with Julio Torres, which features Yang’s talent for infusing “drama, tension, and exquisite backstory” into an everyday activity like paying bills in “Cheques” with Sandra Oh, and an actress doing a cameo in a gay pornography film, “The Actress” with Emma Stone. “The Actress” was hailed by Out as the “gayest SNL sketch of all-time,” and featured Stone as an earnest method actress taking her role as a cheated-on housewife too seriously alongside real-life gay porn actor Ty Mitchell. The pre-tape—so-called as it is filmed days ahead rather than acted live—was championed by Stone to be included on air. SNL creator Lorne Michaels knew Yang would be an on-air talent but wanted him to be comfortable on their stage first. Yang made a cameo appearance during the Sandra Oh/Tame Impala episode as North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un while Oh played his translator.
Yang’s first episode as a regular cast member was the season’s opening episode September 28, 2019, with host Woody Harrelson. Notably he was included in the show’s cold open playing Kim Jong-un giving advice to Trump on handling the Ukraine controversy including the whistleblower who helped trigger the 2019 impeachment hearings. In other sketches he portrayed Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang in a parody town hall debate, and was an extra in a mock movie trailer for Downton Abbey. In October 2019, Yang made his debut on Weekend Update (WU), as Chinese trade representative Chen “Trade Daddy” Biao in a segment about Donald Trump’s trade war that was “brief, funny and took some clever satirical shots”. Yang’s Biao character returned to WU as the newly appointed health minister for the COVID-19 pandemic which he unconvincingly tries to assure China has in control. Perhaps his “filthiest” sketch, also co-written with friend Julio Torres, was for guest host Harry Styles as an incompetent Sara Lee Corporation social media manager who mixes up his own gay BDSM account on Instagram with the company’s “wholesome bread brand”. He was listed #2 in Variety‘s Power of Pride list of most influential queer artists in Hollywood in 2021.
Yang has appeared in the television series Girls5Eva, Ziwe, and The Other Two, and is a cast member on Awkwafina is Nora from Queens. He is also known for his appearances in the LGBTQ romantic comedies Fire Island and Bros, both released in 2022.