Asian A.V. Club newsletter #34: Charles Yu
How did Charles Yu transform his award-winning novel Interior Chinatown into a wildly inventive, boundary-breaking new TV series? We chatted with Yu to explore his journey to this wonderful moment.
Writer Charles Yu was surprised at the amount of attention his long-gestating novel, Interior Chinatown, was receiving. Written over a period of almost seven years, the book tells the fantastical story of Willis Wu, a generic Asian man living as a background bit player in a police procedural with no lines or significant plot. Over time, Willis finds himself at the center of a mystery and forces himself into the storyline to become the lead of his own narrative.
When Interior Chinatown was published in 2020, it earned rave reviews and won the National Book Award for Fiction. Readers immediately connected with Yu’s take on how Asians are often invisible in mainstream America, but forced to perform in stereotype tropes when the focus turns to them. It’s that smart blend of aspiration, humor and frustration that made the book a stand out.
Four years later, Yu has adapted his work by writing, producing and show-running Interior Chinatown into an expansive 10 part mini-series starring comedians Jimmy O. Yang (Silicon Valley), Ronny Chieng (The Daily Show) and actor Chloe Bennet (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.). We got some time with Yu recently and had loads to ask!
Asian A.V. Club: When I talk to writers, I’m always curious about the kind of stories you wrote as a kid that not only gave you happiness, but maybe planted the seed for you to want to continue writing over the years.
Charles Yu: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I remember, I took a class trip to Yosemite in third grade, and we wrote some poems about nature. My teacher found them, and shared them with the class, which was very embarrassing. That did not make me super popular, but I remember enjoying that. And then my brother Kelvin and I used to play a lot growing up. And though it wasn’t exactly a form of writing, but we were creating worlds very early on, and it gave me a lot of joy world building at a young age.
Asian A.V. Club: You followed the classic good “Asian son” path, studying biology, then getting a law degree at Columbia, all the while doing creative writing on the side. At what point did the draw of being creative overtake the responsibility of your corporate life?
Charles Yu: Yeah, that's a good question for me. My point was when I was almost 40, I got health insurance to the Writers Guild of America. I actually practiced law and was writing fiction on the side. I had a full-on day job, a family, and a new mortgage, and then I got hired to write for Westworld season one.
That was really the switch because I could then get a steady income for at least a few months and get health insurance. Like you said, I kind of did the “Asian son” thing for a long time, because I honestly didn't see writing as a viable livelihood. Living in Southern California, it's so expensive, and so I just felt like not having to depend on writing for my income, until TV was able to provide for that.
Asian A.V. Club: I’m really curious, how did you transition from writing novels to screenwriting? Did it help that your brother was already working in the industry?
Charles Yu: A little bit. My brother, Kelvin, is an actor and a writer, so growing up in LA I had some familiarity, but the main thing was through my books. After I had started publishing for a little bit [How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe, Third Class Superhero] I got the attention of agents in TV and film. Through that, I started to have meetings and I somehow got on the hiring lists for various things. Lisa joy, who's one of the show runners and creators of Westworld with Jonathan Nolan, for some reason, wanted to hire me. I think Lisa was a former lawyer, maybe that helped too. (laughs)
Asian A.V. Club: You continued to write for various shows, but you also took on the title of producer for shows like Legion and Sorry for Your Loss. When did that transition happen where you felt confident enough to become a writer-slash-producer?
Charles Yu: When I first started, I think it was a big mystery to me as well. But the truth is, it's not as mysterious as you might think. I think it's a bit more organic, especially in television. I used to think producers were the old-fashioned type - someone who's having martinis at lunch and make a couple phone calls. And maybe there are those producers, I just don't have that job yet. (laughs)
In TV, there are two ways in. You either get on staff and write for someone else's show, or you create something and actually get to be part of it. Either way, your writing is what's going to form the basis of the show. So, you have to start thinking about all the other creative choices. Like, what does the set look like? What are the costumes? And then, even beyond that, who's casting? Do you have any ideas? So, as you kind of go up the ladder in writing, you're basically producing because you're on set or in post. By the way, this is an amazing question, because my dad has two sons who are working as writer-producers, and we probably have this conversation a few times a year. (laughs) He still doesn't know.
Asian A.V. Club: Your novel Interior Chinatown was written in a script format. Did that make it easier for studios to greenlight it into a series because it was already broken down for them?
Charles Yu: The short answer is that it was easy on the front end and super hard all the way through. (laughs) The slightly longer answer is that I had the good fortune of meeting some people at Hulu prior and came close to working with them a couple of times. Because of that, there were some familial comforts on my end. So, when this book came out, Hulu was immediately interested in it, and they felt like the right home. That was in early 2020. Then the whole world went into lockdown.
Asian A.V. Club: Yikes. How did that affect the adaptation?
Charles Yu: One of the few benefits was that I got to actually work during this period and just focus on the script. And that's where the difficulty starts. How do you translate the idea that it's written as part of the book in the format of a screenplay? You would think in some ways, it would lend itself to adaptation. And it is true, there's some juice to be gotten from this. The tricky part is how you make the transition from one medium to another because they really are different.
Obviously principally, there’s visual and sound, but a book is just words that create an image in the reader's head. With the reader, you have the ultimate cinematographer with the ultimate production budget. Making that tangible was really hard. I didn't do it by myself. I got to learn from many, many people, how you might be able to do that.
Asian A.V. Club: When it came to finding actors to play these roles you created, was it a trip to see Jimmy O. Yang inhabit Willis Wu? How did you know he was the one to bring this character that existed in your mind for so long, to life?
Charles Yu: The book took many years to write, and on some level, there was always going to be an adjustment period to the thing in your head. All the character are ethereal, but specific, and then to have it played by actual human beings. For a long time, I really just thought, this couldn't really be adapted. Who would actually play this? Who would have the stature and particular set of talents that it would take to kind of do all the things that Willis has to do?
With Jimmy, it was a series of conversations. There are many reasons why he stood out early on. One, he’s so funny. And I think that was always something that was important to me. But the big surprise was how committed and how good he was at the dramatic parts. If anything, Jimmy understands Willis, because he actually lived it in some ways. He was a background guy on Silicon Valley.
He then became a star of that show by breaking out. It's pretty amazing to have someone who has this kind of inner confidence to subvert your expectations and be a lead.
Asian A.V. Club: Did Jimmy ever do anything in character during his performance that surprised you?
Charles Yu: There are a lot. One comes to mind. In the pilot, Willis and his mom, Lily Wu (Diana Lin) are they're talking about his missing brother. It’s a tender conversation, but the way Jimmy interacts with Diana, there's this look that is both sweet and a little bit like he’s dealing with a loving overbearing mom. Which I can identify with. (laughs)
Asian A.V. Club: I’m really curious, do you remember the moment which you actually called yourself a ‘writer’ without having to add extra words afterwards to soften the claim?
Charles Yu: I don't remember that there's one particular moment, but on some level, I am still dealing with that title. Because when you're a fiction writer who writes as slowly as I do, you're not a writer most days. So how do you even justify that? You would think that the publication of my first book would be a natural place, but it really wasn't. At the time, I didn't know if I would have another book.
Even after three books, you would think I would feel that way. But Interior Chinatown took so long, I actually thought I might never publish again. And when that book came out, I finally said, “Well, okay, I think I'm a writer.” So, it took about 20 years from when I started. (laughs)
Asian A.V. Club: Well, you are an amazing writer - thank you for chatting with us!
Charles Yu: Thank you.