You're listening to Comedy Central.
Hello everybody, this is Sebastian Dina Tal, segment director for the Daily Show, and we are back with another You gotta be quiet because I gotta intro you.
Well, don't, ok, I have to introduce you a surprise. Today we're here with Daily Show correspondent and guest host for one entire show. And it's interesting because most people got a whole week to host the other show, but for you, they said, now you know what this guy his perspective, He's got about twenty two.
Minutes of it and that's what we need from him, including the guests. And it's including the guests, which went very long. And it's mister funny pants himself. We call him mister Ronnie Chang.
Thank you, thanks for having me. This is a side of you I have never seen. Oh, come on all this present us.
Oh please, I'm very very unlike your day to day stop stop. That's so fun. So you were corresponding here for a long time and you recently posted, well you're a course, but you've been a corresponding here for a long time. But then you got asked to host, yes, which was very cool, and what was that like, what was your hosting day? Like it was great.
It felt like I was in charge of like cleaning the floors in the kitchen for eight years and then one day to ask you to, you know, be the chef, and you're like, oh, I've seen this for eight years.
I kind of know what you know.
At the very least, I didn't feel nervous about it because I trusted everyone around.
Me, and you were witnessing all of the chefs and everyone.
Exactly every day, and so I kind of I couldn't have been more prepared for it, you know, quite frankly.
Was there a big transition between correspondent hat and host hat for me?
No, because one I maybe I downplayed it. I didn't want to get in my head too much. And two, if you really break it down, there's not much more other than the topics you're talking about. So as the host, you you have to cover everything. But as the correspondent you get to come in and kind of hit on a very specific topic or segment and then get out. Because the host, you're kind of like, whatever happened that day, it's on you. You got to talk about everything that day.
So apparently close to a truce in the Middle East.
That's right.
I accomplished what no other daily show hosts could. Sure, maybe if you gave me the job permanently, I could solve this, But for now, here's what you get, the difference between being a five second kind of joke versus you have to maintain the pace for the whole show. So you can't go too hard the whole time. You know, you have to have a good pace flow.
You got that flow.
Whereas a correspondent, your only job was to hit a home run any way you could as much as you could just keep hitting it.
You yeah, yeah, And so for when you went into the host chair, you recognize, like there will be some lulls here, there's be some momentum bill thing, Yeah, momentum building.
Also, I think the biggest thing on that idea was also, like I have to be more likable as the host. You can't just come in and do your correspondent persona.
You want to Yeah, you're basically kind of straight manning for the show. You kind of stream with the audience to be on your side.
Yes, yes, you want them on your side, and you want them, Like I said, it's kind of about pace, Like you don't want to burn out the pace too soon.
I think did you feel like hosting the show, were you able to slip into like a stand up mentality in terms of how you were presenting to the audience, how you were reacting to the audience, or was it kind of a different perspective.
That's yeah, that's a very nuanced question. I think, like the show and stand up has always been pretty different. The skill sets overlap, but I think I was trying to channel not so much channeling stand up. I was definitely trying to channel everyone I've been watching over the last eight years, Trevor and John and how they would host, and how their pacing would go, and how they.
Would bring you into stories.
Yeah, you know, I think John and Trevor are really good at bringing you into a story, which again it's different skill set to like hitting a home run. So I was very conscious of trying to bring people into stories of like, hey, this is what's happening today, this is crazy, and then you know, making sure the jokes that were doing would want to one dimensional in terms
of yelling or just being angry or whatever. I was conscious of kind of being a bit more multi dimensional of the jokes you know, instead of just being a correspondent character, which which sometimes is one dimensional, and it works because that's the point of it is that you're you're playing a one dimensional character, ironically, but as a host, you're you know, you're not supposed to do that.
You co hosted an app with Costa, Yeah.
Welcome to the I might go Costa and I'm Rodney Shang.
That's right.
So now you're getting two hosts for the price of.
One, but.
Where they're cutting our paychecks and.
Have no, they're just not paying you, all right, So let's just get right into the headlines.
What was that like compared to solo host?
Yeah, host co hosting it wasn't a way easier because it's a much lighter lift in terms of just pure minutes on the screen, in terms of minutes you have to perform.
It was just less, but it was a bit.
The difficulty was in getting a rapport with Casta that makes sense for the show and not just being you do a joke, I do a joke, you do Joe, I do a joke. We were trying to get some kind of rapport and and we really had nothing to go off of, so we we had to kind of develop it.
You know ourselves report in chemistry basically.
Yeah, yeah, not even just report in chemistry because we're good friends. But it's more like, how are we going to do this on the show? How we're going to present this to host thing without it being very siloed off.
Sure, because you need kind of a person. Yeah, because you're co hosting, you have to be a team. So how how does that even what does that even look like? Co hosting also made it less scary hosting kind of for the teammate. Yeah, I literally got I got to see what it was like to half host a show. Sure.
Sure, I couldn't have had better kind of skill set build up, you know. Yeah, cost one years, I got the half hosts show and then I got a host of show. Yeah, I felt like I could have been more prepared. And John Oliver came in and he was a great guest.
You know, John Oliver is a British guy, has a former correspondent on the show. He's a very former host of the show for a small period of time. And you guys talked about being immigrants doing comedy in America, coming over doing comedy in America.
You told me it took you two years to relearn how to do comedy in America.
I think that's probably true.
You want spot onto the day, By the way, I was in hindsight, I was sorry, oh my god, because I remember there was a day I was in New York City gigging at some comedy club and it was two years in literally almost to the day, and I remember things are trying to click a little bit of like relearning how to do comedy because again, like you, like me, we were doing comedy outside of America before we even came here.
Yeah, and so I think the outside the perspective and comedy always works. The thing with being an immigrant here is you kind of have to learn the exact way that your outside a perspective can translate. So you kind of have to learn basically how that can work. And once it does, you're fine. But until that point it does feel a little bit like uncharted waters.
I feel like he's one of the few people who could relate such a specific experience being a non American correspond on a daily show. You know, technically send by Jason Jones a Canadian.
Canadians are basically Americans, get more polite American, Yeah, Jason but man, really going for this. He's a great guy.
And then so not technically the first non American correspondent, but still in many ways the first very foreign correspond on a daily show.
So did you find coming in like I'm going to give an international perspective, I'm going to do this the immigrant way versus trying to do it the American way or is there an American way?
Yeah, it's a really good question. I think I think Trevor was already there. So he kind of set the bar for being non American and having a non American perspective, very non American perspective, I would say, And so I didn't feel the pressure to bring that. And in some ways, you know, the Daily Show and American entertainment, I would say, they don't always want a foreign perspective. Sometimes it's too foreign. And it's not even a conscious thing. It's not even
racism or anything. It's just like it's too alien, it's too the perspective is literally, we don't understand how you could be from a country that doesn't have guns and has good health care, sure, and why you would think that's a good thing. And when you when you start talking about it, because they haven't even experience what healthcare looks like.
Right, And yeah, in terms of like a joke, that setup is completely different because you have a different basis of reality than an American audience.
Right. And it's not racism, it's just it's just completely when you get into a very nuanced joke that they don't even get your perspective from what you're saying now that they don't want to.
They just they haven't seen that, they don't have that basis. Yeah, that makes sense.
So to answer your question, a lot of a lot of the time, I had to americanize more than give international perspective. I had to be more American to make sure I was landing the jokes because end of the day, the Daily Show is about American politics. Yeah, for the most part, you know, And so the international perspective helps a lot in terms of just giving a different look at something.
Right.
So you have, hopefully you have an original idea that someone in America hasn't thought of just because of his new perspective. But the end of the day, we'll talk about American politics. The audience is predominantly American. If we tried to do Australian perspective, for the Daily Show. I think we all be out the door.
So host, correspondent, yeah, and stand up comedian, three kind of different types of comedic roles. You also for your week, and you've done this repeatedly, but you also are a sketch actor as well. Oh, an actor. You're an actor as well, act in movies. You're not playing a stand up in your in megans, that's right. So for your sketches, because you and I did a sketch for your week. Yes, thank you very much, Thank you so much for doing it.
So one of the sketches we do these people behind the people, where it's kind of a sort of look into these more mundane figures in non mundane characters.
Wow, that was the most boring description of economy so much. Well, you know, it's truth in comedy. But you played Trump's scheduler, and that was a funny premise because he has a really busy schedule.
I have a color coded system that falls apart every ten minutes. But red is for state court prep, blue is for federal court cases, yellow is New York City court cases.
Purple is for time he spends with his kids.
But I also use it for fraud charge cases because they basically overlap.
How do you approach comedic acting versus correspondenting or is it the same.
Thing when it comes into sketch. I tried to get into the zone more like when you're doing stand up. It's basically your trying to, in my opinion, get to your own true opinion on a subject. So in many ways, you're trying to get to your own point of view as soon as you can and no one else's. You're trying to be as specific to your own point of view as possible.
Sure, as a.
Correspondent, you are working for other people to get to a middle ground perspective, meaning your own point of view plus other people's mixed in, And with sketch you're completely someone else's point of view. It is my opinion on it. So when you're doing sketch, you totally got to get into a character. You have to like think like the character in the scene. You have to emote like the character. Do you try to bring truth to your acting roles?
Yeah? I do. That's the only way I can do it. No, that's good, that's great.
If I don't do that, I feel like I'm doing a bad job. If I don't get into the character. I'm like, I think I'm half asking this, And even for a comedy sketch, you know you don't want to.
Yeah, No, that's great. And a lot of comedic actors, especially will you know, either pretend or they'll they'll just.
I used to do that probably, but I think I've got more experience of acting and I kind of know where I have to go to get into a zone a little bit better. So yeah, but you know, it's so funny we're talking so seriously about all this stuff. At the end of the day, it's like so much of it is just an odd feel, right, Like when you're doing comedy don't you feel like there's a feel for it that you sure?
Yeah, you mean, like in terms of the what the audience is getting out of it or what I'm getting out of it.
For you to make something that you think is good, don't you think a lot of it is feel instincts, instincts you know, you can't you can't like, So for me, the best comedy sketches are the ones that are funny on the page and then we find magic on the day.
Sure, And if you rely too.
Much on either, I'm like, it's it will be good, but it's not gonna be great totally.
You have to have the preparation. And I still am a huge proponent of like rehearsal, for example, because once you know the lines, you can change the lines. And then on the day because we found a lot of funny stuff on that day.
Your huge stickler for a rehearsal, which is good hash task mask at well you know it's in a good way.
Yeah. I think that's what the you know, best way takes. The best things you can get out of people is when they know what at least the baseline is and they can go off the rails a little bit.
You want good writing on a page, and you want to find the magic on the day, which you're always great at finding, you know.
So are you, Ronnie? He's great. Did you find did you find that for this character? You played like a very frustrated guy? Was that hard for you? It's hard for you to find like that was angry? Do you like do you like being type cast for that kind of stuff, for being younger stuff as wholeish? You weren't as wholish for this, but in some of your other pieces, like some Anger, some kind of.
Uh, you know, I am I tired of it. It depends on the thing. It's very easy for me to do, so in that sense, I don't hate it because I feel like I can.
Type I can tap into that very easily. But do you wish you had opportunities to play against type or play sure?
Yeah, yeah, and I do. I do get opportunities to play against type sometimes. You know, I don't be grudge you. I mean, if it's a good I think what I don't like is when it's you know, kind of for lack of type cast for the sake of being type cast.
Sure. Sure, that's when it is like, yeah, we should do this one because Ronnie's angry.
Yeah, but if it's like, oh, this is a situation and he's an angry persident.
But okay, I can you can tap into that, I think the easiest.
Yeah, yeah, I think the correspondence, yes, especially so in a way it's authenticity, right yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Part of the big component of art is your audience. Okay, right, yes, you would, especially for comedy, I would imagine stand up especially, Yes, yes, they are the instrument that you play. Yes, So what happens when we go into this online world of comments, blog posts, reviews, because I know you're a big anti comment guy. You have bits in your stand up. Yeah, I'm anti comment.
I'm anti unqualified people on social media kind of you know, whatever they feel in a given second, as though it's gospel.
You don't like that, I don't. Don't You don't like people? Do you like? Do not like the judgment? Or do you not like that they're not of the caliber to be able to make such claims.
I don't like the lack of qualifications in the claims, and also don't like the emphasis we put on on that claims. So even who who puts like even us right now? I asked talking about it. Someone was like, well, we shouldn't really care about it, you know.
Do you feel the same way about like, just like art critics in general or critique in general? Yeah, I think so.
I think there's a I think there's qualified critics, sure, you know, I think there's a lot of unqualified critics. I think we can universally agree that unqualified critique is kind of like unnecessary noise. I think it helps anything. Sure, So we all agree on that. So meaning that not all criticism is valid.
Or not all criticism is equal. You know, I think that you don't necessarily need to go to like journalism school or like right for the Wall Street Journal to have as critique of like a play for example, as like a guy that goes to a play. And you know, I think I think there is kind of a sort of what's it called a gatekeeping for art criticism.
Yes, and you agree with that. I like that on your episode. I love gatekeepers. I love I think gatekeepers are what make it. I mean that's why you know, when you got a job, I knew you were good because of the gatekeepers sure to get into the Daily Show.
Yeah, I know, I agree, But I think when it comes to commentary, it's and speech right, because it's a speech, it's a little bit no icer than a gatekeeper that's like, oh, do you know how to use a camera? Do you know how to craft a story? Gatekeeping opinions to me is kind of I don't know. Elitis is very elitist. I wouldn't call it like classist, but I would say that it dead classes. But no, but here's your point though.
I take your point about like you're trying to open up the ability for people to the validity of people to criticize or give comments. And you could say I don't agree with this person, yes, but he has kind of my broad up point because I can't accept that as what you said as a like, okay, that's a reasonable point of view, which is not completely wrong. And you know, obviously when we say like funk, all these its a there's a bit of hyper bullet in hyperbole,
hyperbolic involvement. But the truth of the hyperbole is that it's very hard to make things.
Sure, we can all agreeree.
With that making anythings very difficult. Yes, it's very easy to shit on things. I agree with shitting on things takes zero effort, yes, And so that's kind of the core of my it on that, sure is that, yeah, we spend a lot of time making stuff, and we will profess, you know, we put our effort to making things. And so for people to sit on a toilet while taking a shit, right and look at something for two seconds and blah blah blah.
Yeah.
I've been doing comedy not that long, you know, since two thousand and nine. So what I'm in my fourteenth year now, not not that long, you know, still baby, by comedy standards, I think at least midlife or early you know, twenties, and like whatever the analogy is. But like, I've seen a lot of criticism, you know, of myself, of other people, and a lot of it was like this is totally not valid. Like the way which they come at it, like they don't even get the originating premise.
They don't get like, oh, you're trying to be ironic.
They missed the whole thing.
They missed the whole thing and sincerely missing it is just ignorance and stupidity, which is forgivable. But then there's another one which is like kind of more malicious. Whereas they're trying to critique and they're trying to they're trying to bring you down for no reasons.
I agree, and that I don't. I don't like the energy.
That's that's where all this comes from, is like I don't like the energy of people who just kind of complaining without making anything for themselves, you know, and thinking that that's legitimate.
You know, I don't think that's legitimate. I couldn't help. But notice you had a great Instagram post of you in front of Times Square fourteen years ago with Hannah, your then girlfriend their wife. Yes, and then another post where it was you nowadays. Nowadays it's you now and it's your your on Times Square Billboard to promote your radio city, which is easier than you think it would be to. No, it's hard to get to radio city.
Real city is hot, but Billboard, Times Square Billboard's very double.
Really.
Yeah, that's good to know. So if you're out there that money getting it built. But doesn't I mean, aside from it being a nice humble brag, isn't that sort of the proof in the pudding that you don't even really need to address these people because you have Oh, you're making my point for me. Okay, That's what I'm saying, is you have the receipts, so to speak, to say that at least I'm doing something right in my industry that my industry is repaying me for.
Yeah.
Yeah, but you know, I kind of I think to your point anyway, Yeah, A good evolution of yourself as an artist is when you truly don't care about that stuff and you're not just saying it, meaning when you truly don't care about the critics and you're letting your
work speak for yourself. And I truly believe that now you know I'm not just saying it obviously, you know, shitty comments made me angry, but the time it makes me angry becomes less and less and if you truly move beyond it, meaning letting your work speak for yourself. And so I think that's where I am right now, where you just focus on the work and it's not so much like fuck the haters now, it's more like, no, I just want to make cool stuff now, gotcha? Yeah,
And that's that's where I'm coming from. I think that's a that's a better energy I have as a comic, as a creator, as oddist. Right, I don't think you want to be making from hate.
Do haters stick with you more than lovers or whatever you would call the opposite of a hater, But you have object I objectively tried to find more hateful comments on the YouTube videos to bring Here Today to Ride, and there were overwhelmingly more supportive comments. Now, most of the comments were like, uh wait. One of them they were like, oh, how how freaking extra cute is Ronnie with his messy hair? How cute is Ronnie with bang
Ronnie Chang is adorable with his hair tussled? So other than being I guess in a weird way, like wanting to be taken care of like a baby to some of these people. I shared this clip with my aunts and they loved it. That was an interesting because, yeah, it seemed like that a lot of people, for whatever reason, seemed to love you and not shit on your art
as much. But do you feel the same amount of because I feel like sometimes negativity can stick with people a little bit stronger than Yeah, I think support well, I think a lot of the to that. To answer your question, I think a lot of the job now as a comedian. I can't speak to other art forms, but as a comedian, a lot of it is not overreacting to people's overreaction because, like you said, it's a very small minority.
Yeah, and sometimes we let that stick with us more, you know. And I'm not just saying this to sound cool, but like I think I've moved beyond that a lot, you know, in terms of not caring about you know, and and focusing more on like making good stuff and not overreacting to a minority of people who don't like it, because, like you said, like the proof of the pudding is in what you've accomplished in real life. You know, you've
managed to sell real so I must be doing something right. Yeah, meaning when people don't like it, it's my job to know. Part of my job is to not overreact to the to the other, to the minority of people who don't.
One of the comments for your host day was the Asian guy isn't very funny, but if he can fix the Middle East, hire him full time. Oh okay, Well is that a good one. I feel like that's a fifty to fifty right, that's not that's not entirely bad, right. That's well, he's saying you're not funny, and that's your career, that's basically your entire job. Yeah, but he's also saying you fix the Middle East crisis, which is not your job.
Complimenting you for something you have really no authority. The other comment on the same video for the co host was Michael Costa made this funny. Oh okay, and then I guess the intended host got COVID if Ronnie is hosting tonight? Was the other one? Well, I'm as surprised that that person was that I got the host. The final question I had for you because I tried to find one legitimate as you said, review of any of your week of hosting, and there wasn't my day, Your
day sorry. And the one review I kind of found was about the sketch that we made. It was in huff Po and I'm pretty sure it was written by AI. It was there was a there was a guy that it was a attached to a name of a man.
But the way it was written the sit and not to like drag this guy, but the way it was also it was like Ronnie Chang is Trump's scheduler, like it didn't know that maybe they didn't watch it, they didn't know you were playing a character and it basically yeah, I was I was wondering, are you happy that AI is going to take over all of blog? Like the Sports Illustrated thing just happened, and I'm sure did you hear about that?
No?
Sports Illustrated which just found out most of their articles were written by AI, really and the people working there didn't even know about it, like the writer's working there. So instead of like addressing it, Sports Illustrated just deleted all of their articles from online that were AI. AI asking me, what would are you happy that AI will
replace all these people you hate? Because a lot of AI review is just kind of like, it's more just here's what happened, here's what happened, and it and like they use words like humorous, and they use words like send up. Like it's very generic, but it's never bad. I would say, I haven't read an AI article that's negative.
I love they haven't learned how to be negative. Yeah, I would say I'm glad that AI is replacing these idiots because I don't think one should be paid professionally to complain with paid like maybe like two dollars, hopefully paid less, but I guess it would just make it more. It'll add to the illegitimacy of critiquing, which helps me, it helps you because then I'm like, and then you
could be like, this review is fake. I could be like all review is pointless because it's all you can't separate the good ones on the bad ones and just ignore all it and judge for yourself.
And to that point, that's kind of why I think you gravitate towards stand up, because you have to have an in real person foundation. Yeah, that's like a physical you see that's real in the moment you see that validation or that scorn happening in real time. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yeah all right, well well right, we saw the stand up comedy, but bring it. You know you're gonna bring in the hateful comments.
I have so many.
Again, not a lot of hateful comments. Everyone loves Ronnie Chang and uh yeah, thanks for joining us here in the studio. Thank you, SOT, thanks for and everyone at home, thank you for listening to fan in here. No it's we're almost done to the Daily Show ears, We'll see you next time. Play the song.
Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcast.
Watch The Daily Show week nights at eleven ten Central on Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime on Fair Amount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast