Charles Yu stopped by the Daily Show to discuss the Hulu adaptation of his novel Interior Chinatown.
Yu’s novel, published by Pantheon in 2020, follows Willis Wu, an extra in a police procedural who yearns to be a main character. A critic for Kirkus called the book, which won the National Book Award, “an acid indictment of Asian stereotypes and a parable for outcasts feeling invisible in this fast-moving world.”
The Hulu series adaptation stars Jimmy O. Yang, Ronny Chieng, and Chloe Bennet. David Rapp of Kirkus called the show “an extended remix of the original work—a spinoff, of sorts, and a very entertaining one.”
Yu told Daily Show correspondent Chieng, “I wrote the book wanting to tell the story about what it’s like to be someone like Willis Wu: a background character, someone who doesn’t feel like their story really matters. And what does it look like when you take the background character and say, This story could be yours now if you choose to accept that mission.”
Chieng asked Yu, “Between me, Chloe Bennet, and Jimmy O. Yang, who got paid the most?”
The audience laughed, and Yu said, “Taika Waititi,” referring to one of the show’s executive producers, who also directed the pilot episode. Chieng asked how he came to work with Waititi on the series.
“A little bit of luck,” Yu said. “The script for this, I think maybe his manager sent it to him, and somehow he read it and liked it enough that he wanted to do it.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
