A few years ago, I was lucky enough to produce a one hour special for the super talented Dwayne Perkins called Take Notes. (If you want to check it out, it’s on Netflix). It was a fun and great project to work on. That’s why when director/producer Quentin Lee and I were trying to figure out our next project, doing a stand up series featuring Asian Americans made sense. Comedy InvAsian is what came out of those conversations.
Comedy InvAsian, a six-part live stand-up series featuring some of the country’s top Asian American comedians as well as talented newcomers, each performing one-hour specials. Our first season includes Paul Kim, Atsuko Okatsuka, Kevin Yee, Joey Guila, Robin Tran and Amy Hill.
I decided to ask them all 8 questions. Next up is, Amy Hill.
Amy Hill’s television and film credits number over 150. She is recently recurring on “Crazy Ex Girlfriend”, “UnReal” and “The Great Indoors”. She’s a regular on Amazon Prime’s “Just Add Magic” which is currently streaming the first season and is set to release seasons 2 and 3 early next year.
1. On a scale from 1 to 5, how would you rate your childhood and why? (With 1 being the perfect All-American childhood and 5 being completely and utterly traumatized.)
In the midst of my childhood, I thought it was HORRIBLE. My mom was an immigrant Japanese war bride with thick accent who insisted on putting Japanese food in my lunch. I went to an all-white elementary school with a white collar population. My dad was blue collar Finnish American with a mid-western Finn attitude and accent who struggled to keep a job. We were super poor and I was shunned by most kids and disliked by some teachers due to the my mixed heritage. As I grew older and learned how the others lived, my parents and my family was closer to being All-American than any of the others. Thus, I give my childhood a “1”.
2. Tell us about the moment you knew you wanted to be a comedian/actor.
After moving to San Francisco to study theater, it was the heyday of improv and sketch comedy and I fell in love with it.
3. How did your parents react?
My parents were always supportive. I think they were concerned that we might not succeed in life, being biracial, so whatever we did was great.
4. If you weren’t a comedian/actor, what would you have been?
A drama queen?
5. How funny are you in real life?
I think I’m funnier in real life because life is so hard!!
6. This isn’t a question, but a statement. Make me laugh.
I don’t do stand up.
7. Tell us about your worst troll or heckler and how you responded.
I don’t do stand up. I’m going to heckled?? Nobody told me!!!
8. What advice would you give to young Asian American comedians/actors?
Don’t do stand up, you’ll apparently be heckled!!
Amy will be performing on Sunday, February 26, 2017 at 7:30 pm at the Japanese American National Museum. Click here to buy tickets.
Follow me on Twitter @ksakai1
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