Scully has a point. On the surface, at least, it’s a great time to be Mr Bowen Yang. In 2021, he was named one the 100 most influential people of the year in Time magazine, appeared on Variety’s Power Of Pride list and was named one of People magazine’s sexiest men alive. When Ms Kim Kardashian made a recent cameo appearance on SNL, she sought him out backstage for an autograph. In July, he received his third consecutive Emmy nomination.
“Look, I had no expectation for any of this,” he says. “I want the takeaway of this to be that I have no idea what I’m doing. I feel like Mr Magoo just walking around in a construction zone completely unaware of all the hazards, but somehow surviving.”
His next film, Bros, a Mr Judd Apatow-produced comedy starring, co-written and executive produced by Mr Billy Eichner, is released in September. He will then begin preparing for season 48 of SNL and season three of Comedy Central’s Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens, in which he stars. The Apple TV+ musical comedy Schmigadoon!, for which he was a writer on season one, has also been recommissioned for a second season. All that, while co-captaining his wildly popular podcast, Las Culturistas, which he hosts alongside Mr Matt Rogers, his best friend (and Fire Island co-star). Over the summer, the pair did a sold-out live show at Lincoln Center in New York City, which featured special guests including the actress Ms Lisa Kudrow and the singer Ms Taylor Swift.
Right now, he and his co-stars are doing a victory lap on the island that inspired the film. Fire Island was met with overwhelmingly positive reviews, particularly for Yang’s performance as Howie, the quiet, introspective Jane Bennett of the ensemble, who functions as a counterpoint to the more bombastic Noah (Elizabeth), played by Mr Joel Kim Booster. It’s a friendship that transcends the screen. The pair first met at a New York City improv theatre in 2014. In early drafts of the script, which was written by Booster, the characters were named Joel and Bowen and a lot of the dialogue is pulled from real conversations between the two.
