Jimmy Yang: How to American

“Hey, Dad, I think Jane wants me to audition for the part instead,” I said sheepishly, waiting for him to punch me through the phone.

“I think that’s good, I don’t think I’m ready anyway. You will do better than me.”

I was surprised by this rare moment of vulnerability from my dad. This time, he ran the lines with me. I didn’t have time to second-guess myself when I went into the casting office. What do I have to lose? This wasn’t my part to begin with. Then I got the part, my biggest role yet, on one of my favorite comedy shows, thanks to my dad. And it just so happened that particular episode, “Flowers for Charlie,” was written by the writers/executive producers of my favorite drama on TV, Game of Thrones, David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. I fanboyed super hard when we took a group photo with my favorite drama show creators and my favorite comedy show actors. David, DB, the gang from Always Sunny and I posed inside of the gang’s pub. My dad becoming an actor led to one of the brightest highlights of my acting career.

Glenn Howerton, D. B. Weiss, David Benioff, Asian kid who took the job from his dad, Charlie Day and Rob McElhenney.

Three years later, I made my big-screen debut in Patriots Day . I returned the favor and got my dad a role to play my dad in the movie. In the drama I played the based-on-real-life hero Danny Meng, the Chinese immigrant who was carjacked by the two terrorist brothers responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing. It was an honor to play Danny and get to know him in real life. Peter Berg was the director and Mark Wahlberg was a producer and the star of the film. We made sure to portray every detail accurately to honor the real-life victims and heroes of the tragedy. When Danny is first introduced in the film, he is facetiming his parents back home in Sichuan, China, speaking Mandarin. Originally, they cast a Chinese actor from Boston to play my dad, but unbeknownst to the filmmakers, he spoke Mandarin with a thick Cantonese accent. Since I was born in Hong Kong to parents from Mainland China, I was fluent in both dialects. Although the American audience wouldn’t know the difference between Cantonese and Mandarin, it meant a lot to me to get it right for the Chinese-speaking viewers. Pete trusted me and agreed to recast the dad. And I asked him, “What about my dad? He’s an actor.” They flew my dad out to Boston the following week. He played the scene brilliantly. It was a big deal for my dad to make his feature debut and share this experience with his son.

On the set of Patriots Day with director Peter Berg, my fake mom and my real dad.

One of the shining moments of my life was taking my parents to the Patriots Day premiere at the world-famous Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. We shared the red carpet with all the stars from the film, Mark Wahlberg, Kevin Bacon, J. K. Simmons, John Goodman and Michelle Monaghan. I couldn’t believe I was part of this incredible cast, and so was my dad. It was wonderful to share the red carpet with my parents and sit by them when they watched my movie debut. The highlight of the night was the after-party. My parents and I were seated across from Kevin Bacon, who is officially one degree separated from me. (Sorry, I know this joke is played out, but I had to.) My dad kept nudging me in the arm and whispered, “Hey, you think we can take a picture with Kevin Bacon?” For once in my life, I’m on the same level with Kevin Bacon, why can’t I just enjoy it? I don’t want to be a fanboy! But I relented, knowing that selfie would mean a lot to my parents. So I went up to Kevin with my parents satellited around me. “Hey, Kevin, nice to meet you.” This was the first time we’d met, since we didn’t have any scenes together in the film.

“Hey!” Mr. Bacon enthusiastically replied. “Nice to meet you too.”

“Kevin, these are my parents, and they are big fans of yours. Can we take a picture with you?”

“Of course!”

Kevin was incredibly nice. He leaned in and said to my dad:

“So, what do you think about your son in the movie — he was great, right?”

Oh no! Kevin Bacon is making the same mistake Jack made outside of the comedy club in the MGM.

I braced myself for my dad’s response:

“Yes, yes, my son was in the movie. You know, I was in the movie too.”

Dad was too busy giving himself a plug, instead of throwing me under the bus. Thank God. He took out his phone and snapped a selfie.

All the years of disappointments from my parents seemed to have vanished after this Kevin Bacon selfie. To see them happy was a bigger achievement than any accolade I could get from Kevin Bacon. I’ve learned to embrace my dad as a fellow actor, but he’ll never see me as an actor; I’ll always be his son who fucked up the rice.

This fanboy moment has turned out to be one of our favorite family portraits.

My family emigrated from Hong Kong to Los Angeles in 2000, when I was thirteen years old. Thirteen is an awkward transitional period for any prepubescent teen. Not only did I have to learn about my newly found pubes, I had to move to a new country, learn a new language and assimilate into a new culture.

My parents moved to America hoping for a better college education for my brother and me. To most foreigners, America has the most prestigious universities and the best job opportunities for college graduates. Ironically, the only people who might disagree with that sentiment are people who actually live in America. The grass is always greener and the college diplomas are always shinier from a different country. Even though Hong Kong is one of the biggest metropolitan cities in the world, it just doesn’t seem to have the same opportunities America has. You can make it big as a banker, a real estate developer and a doctor in Hong Kong, but you can literally be an astronaut, a rock star or anything you want in America. We moved here believing in the American dream.

Los Angeles seemed like an easy choice for my family. My aunt and my grandparents had already immigrated and they had lived in LA for more than ten years. And my parents wanted my brother and me to go to USC or UCLA, both of which later rejected me. At least my brother is now a proud UCLA graduate, so the immigration wasn’t a total loss for my parents.

I was scared to leave the only place I’d known, but I couldn’t wait to see all the massive mansions, fancy sports cars and beautiful people that I’d seen in Hollywood movies. I thought I was going to be neighbors with Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. The first day my family got to Los Angeles, we visited my grandparents in Beverly Hills. But it wasn’t anything fancy like I had expected from Beverly Hills. They lived in a quaint little four-unit apartment complex on the edge of town. We walked up some old misshapen stairs to their unit. Coming from the skyscrapers in Hong Kong, I was very amused by this little two-story building. I’d never been to anyone’s home that didn’t require taking an elevator. The apartment had a dull dusty scent; it was some kind of old-people stench. I used to call it “Grandpa smell.” It was a small space and my grandparents had put a familiar Chinese touch to it. From the kitchen to the living room, it was filled with Chinese newspapers, Chinese food and furniture from China you’d never see in other American households, like this small plastic stool you’d squat on in the kitchen; people used it to prep the food on the floor level. You can only find that in China. It was a classic Chinese immigrant’s home where Chinese décor met American architecture.