Next month, comedian Ali Wong will star in her first dramatic role on Netflix, in a dark comedy series called Beef. Her role is described as “a high-achieving working wife and mother whose road-rage encounter pushes her into increasingly destructive territory” and Steven Yeun plays the other half of the road-rage scenario. Sounds intriguing. The Hollywood Reporter profiled Ali ahead of the series premiere on April 6 and here are some highlights:
On her relationship with her ex-husband: She recently watched the first two episodes with her ex-husband, Justin Hakuta — the two announced their divorce in April 2022, while she was filming Beef. ” ‘Ali, it’s really good,’ ” she recalls him saying. ” ‘And I also feel like our lives might change again.’” “We’re really, really close; we’re best friends. We’ve been through so much together. It’s a very unconventional divorce,” says Wong, who played pickleball with her ex-husband on this very morning and will travel with him and their daughters when she goes back on tour in June with new material about her post-divorce dating life (she was briefly linked to Bill Hader late last year).
On how much of herself she puts into her work: I don’t put the pressure of ‘this is the whole me’ [on my work]. All of this — my stand-up, Beef, Always Be My Maybe, how I am with my friends, how they relay a conversation I had with them — is never going to be the whole truth. It is always going to be an abstraction of truth, and I think that’s very comforting. I can’t help what people expect. I don’t try to control what they think or take away at all. That’s not the goal. The goal is to surprise them and make them laugh and make myself laugh and have fun.
On how she grew up: “I’m very blessed, I think, because of how I grew up. Other Asian American people in entertainment have spoken to this when they’re like, ‘You just seem very free.’ I haven’t known any other way. I have my [family] and the communities that I grew up in to thank for that.” Wong credits her parents for immersing her and her three older siblings in the Asian American community as well as for nurturing their creative expression from a young age.”
I remember being pretty surprised and yet somehow not when Ali and her husband announced their divorce last year. So much of her standup was about him, their sex life, swapping breadwinner roles, that when they did announce their divorce I wondered if all the attention had anything to do with it. Is talking about your spouse a lot in standup the kiss of death for a comedian’s marriage (ahemJohnMulaney)? But with Ali it sounds like there’s no scorched earth there and they’re still very close. Though if he is touring with her and their daughters, it might be a little awkward to go back to chilling right after a bunch of jokes about her new single life. Anyway, I like what Ali says about her work being an abstraction of truth. And it’s nice that she gives props to how she grew up because there is still dearth of Asian Americans in the entertainment community. Ali still loves touring and how it works for her family, and smaller venues, and plans to focus on standup for the near future.
Photos credit: Max S Gerber/Netflix, Milla Cochran/startraksphoto.com, Getty and THR via Instagram
Ali is wonderful. My friend just had her first baby and was struggling SO HARD with breastfeeding. She watched Hard Knock Wife and said that Ali’s stand up made her problems feel so much lighter because she could laugh at them. She makes women feel less alone.
YES! oddly enough when I had my first miscarriage and was struggling with going through fertility treatments Baby Cobra literally saved my mental health. I mean that LITERALLY. I remember the exact scene where she was talking about miscarriages and I couldn’t believe I was laughing, how can something so horrible and traumatic possibly be spoken about in a way that feels human, compassionate, light and …funny? Enter Baby Cobra. ***Disclaimer: everyone handles loss differently and she might not be your cup of tea at that point so tread carefully and know that (fertility, pregnancy difficulties) is a fairly large subject in that special but *for me* I am so eternally grateful to her for helping me through a really dark part of my life
So random tip from a stranger: Ask you pediatrician about “tongue tie” bc a lot of babies have minor ones which keeps tongue to bottom/near bottom of the mouth and prevents efficient latching on/ breastfeeding. It’s a quick cut below the tongue to fix this – better when they are younger.
I’ve been telling all my pregnant friends about this bc nephew in family had it.
I love her stand up specials.
Same. I also loved “Always Be My Maybe.”
I’m here to profess my love for AW. Don Wong was brilliant – she’s hilarious
I think I am the only person who is not into her kind of comedy. I find her shouty and her reverse feminism for laughs annoys me. However, I really appreciate her outside of a stage. She is self-affirming, lives her life and relationships without being apologetic about anything as we women (me included) usually are. She has a strong style, a positive force and a no BS attitude I live to see.
Very mature of you to acknowledge you don’t like her comedy but you appreciate her! So rare on the web!
Thanks!
I’m not a fan of her stand-up either. It is shouty and it makes me cringe. But I love her acting. I can’t think of a character she has played that I don’t like. Always Be My Maybe is one of my favorite Rom-Coms. I don’t know how many times I’ve watched it. And she’s the only reason I watched American Housewife.
That’s nice but what we really want to know about is Bill Hader.
I enjoyed her Netflix stand ups and ABMM. A lot of her material is about “trapping” her husband and their relationship.
But, that last one, she basically shredded her marriage for most of the show.
Jim Jefferies also has gone from various topics to his last 2 stand ups are filled with incredibly personal details of his personal life. Even when told with good comedy timing it is more like therapy vs. comedy.
I was strangely sad about their divorce. 🤷♀️
Yeah. A divorce like this is either incredibly healthy or deeply fvcked up. You can’t tell from the outside.
I was too, because she ended Don Wong—which included a lot of talk about wanting to hook up with other people while she was young and hot—on a really high note about what a good husband she had and how he exemplified healthy support.
I am married with two kids and related to her musings to a small extent. I have no desire to cheat on my husband but we are all human, and it was comforting to hear someone say aloud what most coupled up people (even happy ones) do think sometimes. But when the divorce came to pass I was like, uh oh, I guess the urges were too strong! It was a total bummer but I guess they had deeper issues (his family’s insistence on a prenup being a major one).
LOL Whenever people call themselves “unconventional” you now they’re anything but. I like her. But she talked so much about her marriage in her stand up, I wonder how that’s going to play out in her next special.
I have been a fan since the first special, loved Hard Knock Wife and Baby Cobra, but after seeing Don Wong, I was not even a little bit surprised they separated. That special aged like milk. But so glad they have found a way to have a different version of their relationship and be friends and prioritize their family.
She does seem very free. She talks about herself and sex without shame, and I admire that.
I love love love her!
I wasn’t surprised by their divorce because it was clear she missed trying out different items at The Dude Buffet, and was so unapologetic about it (same).
She rocks!
I watched one of her comedy specials and was appalled that one “joke” was that Sheryl Sandberg (Lean In) probably likes to be choked by a man in bed. I bristled it was so disgusting.
I think their divorce was basically the more common case now where they still care for each other and can co-parent, but just not interested in living together or being sole sexual partners anymore. At least from Ali’s side. She seems from her comedy to be really overtly sexual, and I assume marriage and having one partner was boring to her. That mixed with him giving up his career for hers doomed the marriage. Partners should retain some sort of their own identity to sustain a marriage long-term.