Ronny Chieng became a U.S. citizen in April. The day it happened was a normal day at work with Chieng sitting behind the desk of The Daily Show, until it wasn’t.
Answering questions from the audience, Chieng was surprised by Bill Murray, a guest on that evening’s show, who congratulated him on his achievement, kissing him on the cheek and saluting him before leaving in a very Murray way.
“It’s a crazy day,” said Chieng. “It is a crazy experience to become a U.S. citizen the same day you’re supposed to interview Bill Murray. It’s been a long day, I had to go for the interview, they ask you like 100 questions. I had to memorize how many colonies there were and who’s the President right now. It was very difficult.”
Chieng is pretty clearly aware of who the U.S. President is at any moment, having moved to the States in 2015 to make fun of them after scoring a job as a correspondent on The Daily Show under Trevor Noah.
“One of the main reasons I’m in America is because I love American institutions, specifically American comedy institutions. The Daily Show is one of those premier institutions that I happen to be lucky enough to have been a part of,” he told Deadline.
“The Daily Show started quite countercultural and then it became the institution because of its longevity and the amount of awards it won, but I do believe that we have maintained that countercultural vibe,” he added.
Case in point: Jon Stewart’s return to the show last year saw him open his first show back in nearly ten years criticizing President Joe Biden, as well as Donald Trump.
Stewart’s return partly answered the question of who would host The Daily Show, a question that had been asked for well over a year after Noah’s hasty departure. But it also offered an opportunity, providing a literal seat for the likes of Chieng, Jordan Klepper, Michael Kosta and Desi Lydic to host on days that were not known as Monday.
Even if The Daily Show has become an American institution – having won the Emmy for Best Talk Series for the last two years in a row – Chieng is pleased that there’s still something transgressive about the Comedy Central series. “Comics should always be the people in the back of the room making fun of institutions. [They] should always be counter cultural,” he added.
Chieng admits maintaining countercultural vibes is hard “when you’re on the right side of history”. “My agenda is to make fun of whatever absurdity happens. That view was only reinforced when Jon came back. He reinforced that view of ‘We’re not here to get anyone elected’. If what we say fucks up someone’s election campaign, that’s not our responsibility. He was so clear with that and he emboldened me personally to be punching. You have more credibility when you just punch up whoever the target is,” he added.
Stewart has been back for well over a year now and the show has found a rhythm with Chieng, Klepper, Kosta and Lydic all taking a week each at a time.
“I think I’m getting better every time I do the job. I can feel it myself. I learn a bit more. I can feel myself get a bit more comfortable with it. So in that sense, there has been a bit of a rhythm. The rhythm is working. If you told us, this was the plan before Jon came back, I don’t know if it would have worked out. I wondered whether there was going to be enough of a cohesive voice in the show, but now with some distance… it did work, for whatever reason, maybe it’s the format of the show, the way it’s consumed now as kind of a clip-based show versus appointment viewing for episode watching or maybe we just are good at our job,” he said.
The news cycle has been pretty insane since Trump was reelected as President and as Chieng’s colleagues including Lydic and showrunner Jen Flanz said recently, the show is in “game shape” to deal with “what Trump’s America looks like now”.
Chieng says they take a very Buddhist approach to the news. “We don’t try to anticipate the future too much because you can’t really foresee it. But if you ask me what I prefer… it’s nice when it’s not a Trump story because as much as he is generating news, it’s also a lot of the same person for a long time so I actually prefer not talking about Trump and maybe commenting on other stuff that’s happening in American politics,” he added.
Stewart is set to remain behind the desk until the end of 2025, at least. Chieng says he used to ponder the questions of who will be hosting and what is the future of late-night, before Stewart’s return. Not so much now. “I used to try to figure that out more and be like, ‘Who could host and what is the future of the show?’ Now I realize, again, it’s that Buddhist mentality, you cannot predict it. Who would have predicted Jon coming back and him doing one day a week and then the rest of us doing that. I kind of stopped trying to figure out what that would look like, and I kind of trust and believe in the machine of The Daily Show,” he said.
He added that he believes that the show will always live on. “I believe that if America cannot do a daily new satire show, then no one can do it, because we have the most resources, the most comedy heritage, the most insane news cycle, the most talented comics in the in the world and the most freedom of speech, current administration notwithstanding, to criticize the government so if we can’t do it, no one can do it. I don’t know what it will look like or how it will be, but Jon’s back so let’s just enjoy Michael Jordan playing.”
Ronny Chieng in Interior Chinatown (Mike Taing /Hulu/Courtesy Everett Collection)
Chieng has also had some pretty sizable roles outside of The Daily Show. He starred in hit movie Crazy Rich Asians and Hulu’s Interior Chinatown and next up is starring in Peacock relationship drama The Miniature Wife alongside Matthew McFadyen and Elizabeth Banks. He said that The Daily Show has always been supportive of him doing other projects. “The show has always had the foresight to allow the talent to flourish outside the show, to bring eyeballs back to the show, instead of trying to to stand in their way, which is why it’s the best job in comedy, and I’ve also been lucky that people have wanted me to be involved in their cool projects,” he added.
Chieng is also a prolific stand-up comedian with specials such as Netflix’s Asian Comedian Destroys America! and Love To Hate It, which was released in December.
In the 80s and 90s, stand-up comedy was a pipeline to Hollywood with the likes of Eddie Murphy making the jump from the clubs to the studio lot. But Chieng believes these two worlds are separate now and he’s glad about that.
“The more I do it, the more I realized I’m kind of glad that stand-up comedy is so separate to Hollywood, in a way, because it makes freer to do what you want,” he said. “When you’re on the road in Oklahoma or Wisconsin, doing shows at the comedy club there, that is very far removed from Los Angeles or Hollywood. It definitely feels like its own thing and I think it should be separate. I used to believe they should be closer together, but the more I do stand-up comedy, the more I think you should not mix these two worlds.”
He joked that no one who wants a stable future gets into comedy. “We were already joining the circus when all our friends were working at the bank or at a law firm. Why would we start worrying as though we’re working office jobs, we’re circus performers,” he said.
As well as writing material for his next stand-up special, and hosting The Daily Show, Chieng is now working on his own comedy movie. “I’m trying to push my own comedy vehicle, movie, in the vein of all the great comedy movies before me, something that can impact culture, like Tropic Thunder or Happy Gilmore, those kind of movies, just a fun comedy movie that people can get behind,” he said.
It’d be surprising if others don’t get behind him soon.
