Phil Wang’s fame is relatively new. He’s been active in the comedy scene for years, but now that he’s nabbing gigs in big Hollywood projects and regularly pumping out new material, he has at last graduated to what he refers to as “minor fame.”
Sure, Wang works his new(ish) status as a public figure into his sets, but he balances it with bits inspired by his British-Malaysian heritage. His new Netflix special, Wang in There, Baby!, exemplifies this carefully curated mélange of ideas. It’s both an uproarious illumination of cultural quirks and a self-deprecating acknowledgement of his progress as a comic. When I catch up with Wang via Zoom, he’s exactly what I saw on my watermarked screener: affable, earnest, and passionate, and quick with self-directed, good-natured digs.
“I don’t think I’m gonna get canceled,” he tells the audience during the special. This is obviously meant to tee up another punchline, but it also reflects his unfiltered thoughts about fame and the illusion of control. “But what you can’t foresee [is] what you’re recognized for or how you are recognized or who recognizes you,” Wang says on our call. “And I think that can be what surprises some people in my position. But I think I’m at, for me, in a pretty ideal level of notoriety. I think I’m well known enough that the people who recognize me like me, I don’t think I ever want to be so famous that people who hate me know who I am. I think that’s real fame, right?”
But saying anything onstage is a different animal. At this point in Wang’s career, ruminating on fame in a way that resonates with unassuming audiences is as difficult as it is thrilling. “If anything, I’m usually more excited about being recognized than the person who has recognized me,” he admits to his chortling chorus. The crowd devours the bit.
As is often the case with comics on the rise, Wang’s stand-up success coincides with supporting roles in big Hollywood projects. Most recently, Wang popped up in 2023’s Wonka and in Netflix’s sci-fi adaptation 3-Body Problem. His first Netflix special, Phil Wang: Philly Philly Wang Wang, aired in August 2021, weeks before the publication of his first book, Sidesplitter: How to Be from Two Worlds at Once.
Like every artist, though, Wang isn’t immune to self-sabotage. He cuts himself down, indulges his imposter syndrome, and judges his jokes before he can polish them. The way to combat these bad habits, Wang says, is to be real about where you’re at—especially if it’s not where you want to be—while nurturing a supportive internal dialogue. Basically? Critiquing your own work should never escalate to self-flagellation.
“My self-talk is often very critical, which is good for quality control, but not so good for creativity, I think. You need the supportive voice to come up with new ideas [and] to be brave enough to come up with new ideas, but you also need a critical voice to tell you this isn’t good enough,” he tells us.
Before the specials and the Hollywooding, Wang made his rounds on numerous British TV series, showing up on programs such as Have I Got News For You, Taskmaster, and Hypothetical. He has made tremendous strides as a writer, actor, and comedian, but he’s stayed humble through it all. Even now, as he deftly juggles stand-up, Hollywood, and his sketch comedy group Daphne, he knows growth will always be necessary.
“It’s an ongoing process for sure,” he explains. “And dropping routines that made me feel bad is part of that improvement. Dropping the routines that would feed my negative voice by going, this routine sucks. You haven’t worked on this. You’re lazy, you’re bad at writing. Dropping those routines has really helped to break that pattern of negative thinking.”
For Wang, “process” is everything but a neat, obvious, and easily defined thing. He maintains that writing jokes and brainstorming potential sets is still something he does actively, but he also points out that improving his material always comes down to on-stage refinement.
Wang’s fame seemed to come just in time, too, and he’s quick to point out that the way comedians get big is changing. Gaining an audience and growing a brand, particularly for new comics, has shifted to accommodate shorter attention spans as well as social media parameters.
“I feel like I’m part of a generation that was the equivalent of Indiana Jones grabbing his hat from under; we were the last generation to be able to make a name for ourselves outside of social media,” he explains. “I feel like if you’re starting now, there’s really no choice. You have to keep up this ongoing churn of content and it looks exhausting.”
Wang has been writing and performing comedy for years, but it is only now that he’s fully showing us—and himself—what he can do. As he puts it: “When I was younger—by way younger I mean a year, two years ago—I thought I only had a finite number of ideas in my head, and if I got rid of something that was it, gone forever, I would never be able to replace it. Now I know that I can replace it, so that’s a big step forward.”
Wang in There, Baby! is now available on Netflix.
Hayden Mears is an autistic writer who enjoys fitness boxing, moviegoing, and writing bios in the third person.