Bowen Yang made history in 2021 becoming the first SNL featured player to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.
41 Facts About Bowen Yang
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Bowen Yang was promoted to repertory status before the 47th season.
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Bowen Yang has appeared in the television series Girls5Eva, Ziwe, and The Other Two, and was recurring on Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens.
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Bowen Yang is known for his appearances in the LGBTQ romantic comedies Fire Island and Bros, both released in 2022, and in the 2024 musical fantasy film Wicked.
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Bowen Yang was born in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, to a family that had emigrated from China in 1986.
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Bowen Yang's mother, from Shenyang, was a highly educated, now retired physician who was an obstetrician-gynecologist in China before working in diagnostics.
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When Bowen Yang was six months old, the family moved to Canada and eventually settled in Montreal, where Bowen Yang first discovered Saturday Night Live.
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Bowen Yang got a near perfect score on the ACT and a 2200 on his SAT, and graduated from high school in 2008.
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Bowen Yang was named homecoming king and voted "Most Likely to Be a Cast Member on Saturday Night Live" in his high school's yearbook.
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When he was seventeen, Bowen Yang's father found out his son was gay from an "open chat window" on the family's computer.
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Bowen Yang's parents were not receptive to the news, stating that such things "did not happen in China".
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Bowen Yang's father cried often over the revelation and, being non-religious but wanting to "solve problems", arranged for him to attend eight sessions of gay conversion therapy.
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Bowen Yang agreed to attend the sessions to appease his parents, who said they would otherwise not allow him to move to New York to attend New York University, which his sister was already attending.
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Bowen Yang was immediately alarmed by the counselor's mix of religion and use of pseudo-scientific reasoning to explain away positive homosexual manifestations.
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In 2008, Bowen Yang moved to New York City and joined his sister at NYU.
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Bowen Yang was inspired by Sandra Oh's character Cristina Bowen Yang on Grey's Anatomy for her neurotic and relentless pursuits, and aspired to be a doctor.
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Bowen Yang went to pre-med classes and graduated from NYU with a bachelor's degree in chemistry.
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At NYU, he met Matt Rogers, with whom he started Las Culturistas, a weekly comedy podcast where Bowen Yang "unapologetically expresses his personality, story and himself by sharing his experiences as a member of the LGBTQ community".
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Bowen Yang taught himself Adobe Photoshop and graphic design software and later worked at One Kings Lane, a luxury interior and home design website, from 2013 to 2018 as a graphic designer.
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Bowen Yang was flexible with Yang's time-off needs for comedy.
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Bowen Yang appeared in shows such as Comedy Central's Broad City, a Vimeo web series The Outs, and the HBO web comedy High Maintenance.
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Bowen Yang was a supporting cast member in the 2019 film Isn't It Romantic.
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Bowen Yang played fashion designer Alexander Wang in a sketch series on Comedy Central, Up Next.
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In 2019, Bowen Yang received press coverage for his viral Twitter posts consisting of "expertly-timed lip-sync videos of famous movie scenes", in which he "reproduces dialogue from diva scenes" and well-known moments in popular culture.
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In 2018, Bowen Yang was hired as a staff writer on Saturday Night Live for the show's 44th season.
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Bowen Yang 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".
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SNL creator Lorne Michaels knew Bowen Yang would be an on-air talent but wanted him to be comfortable on their stage first.
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In September 2019, Bowen Yang was promoted to featured player for the 45th season, alongside improviser Chloe Fineman, both of whom were promoted to repertory status at the start of the show's 47th season in September 2021.
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Bowen Yang is the show's first ever Chinese-American cast member, and third gay male cast member after Terry Sweeney and John Milhiser.
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Bowen Yang is the third gay male, and sixth LGBTQ cast member.
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The announcement of Bowen Yang's casting on Saturday Night Live was reported internationally, and within hours was overshadowed by revelations that comedian Shane Gillis, who had been hired at the same time, aired homophobic and anti-Asian jokes.
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In other sketches he portrayed Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Bowen Yang in a parody town hall debate, and was an extra in a mock movie trailer for Downton Abbey.
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In October 2019, Bowen Yang made his debut on Weekend Update, 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".
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Bowen Yang was listed No 2 in Variety's Power of Pride list of most influential queer artists in Hollywood in 2021.
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Bowen Yang is the first featured player to ever be nominated.
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Bowen Yang played NBA hall-of-famer Yao Ming in January 2022.
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In 2021, Bowen Yang was applauded for speaking out on the recent surge in violence against Asian-Americans during a Weekend Update segment.
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Bowen Yang told audiences to "fuel up" and do more for Asian Americans.
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Bowen Yang plays Nora Lin's mobile app-developer cousin in the Comedy Central sitcom Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens, which premiered in January 2020 and was renewed for a third season in 2022.
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Bowen Yang appeared in the 2022 film Bros and is part of the cast of Dicks: The Musical with Aaron Jackson, Josh Sharp, and Megan Thee Stallion.
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Bowen Yang appears as Pfannee in the film adaptation of the musical Wicked released in 2024.