Eugene Lee Yang looks back on the moments that shaped his career and reflects on his journey to becoming a voice of representation in the entertainment industry. From getting his start as a producer at BuzzFeed to finding his place within The Try Guys and expressing his most authentic voice through his artistry, Eugene breaks down some of the memorable highlights from his life.Eugene Lee Yang is the voice of Ambrosius Goldenloin in NIMONA, available now on Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/nimona SAG-AFTRA members are currently on strike; as part of the strike, union actors are not promoting their film and TV projects. This interview was conducted prior to the strike.Director: Juliet Lopez Director of Photography: Malcolm Cook Editor: Ron Douglas Producer: Funmi SunmonuLine Producer: Jen Santos Associate Producer: Emebeit BeyeneProduction Manager: Andressa Pelachi and Peter Brunette Production Coordinator: Kariesha KiddTalent Booking: Meredith Judkins, Keaton BellCamera Operator: Shay Eberle-GunstSound : Gray Thomas-SowersProduction Assistant: Liza AntonovaPost Production Supervisor: Christian OlguinPost Production Coordinator: Scout AlterSupervising Editor: Erica DillmanAssistant Editor: Jason MaliziaGraphics Supervisor: Ross Rackin
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 There's a joy for queer people.
00:02 It's not just coming out, it's not just finding
00:05 or checking all of the serious points in your life.
00:07 It's how much gayer you get day by day.
00:11 You just get gayer and gayer and more queer.
00:15 Like you feel your power grow.
00:18 It is wild.
00:19 Hi, I'm Eugene Leang and I am looking back
00:22 at some moments that have shaped my identity and career.
00:25 This is becoming Eugene Leang.
00:28 I hope I am dressed.
00:30 I probably am most recognizable to people
00:34 from my time at BuzzFeed.
00:37 BuzzFeed was a really fascinating
00:39 lateral career step for me.
00:42 Again, I was hyper-focused on writing and directing
00:45 and was applying to Sundance Labs.
00:47 I was doing the typical slow, sad, upward track
00:51 that we all do as young filmmakers
00:52 where you're just staring into the mirror every day
00:54 saying like, "When will life begin?"
00:56 But I was desperate for a full-time job
01:00 and BuzzFeed Video was just this fledgling new department
01:05 in 2013 when I joined.
01:06 I was already, I think a lot of people can relate to,
01:09 small town girl, big city, far away from the family
01:12 so I could establish this really vibrant,
01:15 wonderful, close community,
01:17 spread my wings as a young gay man.
01:19 Even though I had told my parents
01:21 that I was gay when I was 18,
01:23 I'm just one of those classic cases of a family
01:25 that didn't talk about it probably for 15 years after that.
01:29 So even if you come out,
01:30 it doesn't mean that you actually have come out
01:32 into the open because other people are just ready
01:34 to close the door back on you.
01:35 And I love my family and you'll see
01:37 with some of the future work
01:38 and the exposure I had online,
01:39 it forced quite a bit of that conversation
01:42 to happen more quickly than it might have naturally.
01:45 The last thing I ever expected
01:46 was to have to confront my identity,
01:48 which I was already doing internally
01:49 and with my family behind four walls,
01:52 to millions of people online.
01:54 And that's where you start seeing my journey
01:56 really sort of skyrocket.
01:58 Luckily, I think I was more well prepared
02:00 as an older person.
02:01 By the time I was in my 30s,
02:02 I had enough safety, personal security
02:04 that I could take bigger swings with exposing myself.
02:08 Not that way.
02:08 Don't Google me, you'll see some really embarrassing things.
02:11 The first thing everyone has to know
02:12 is if they are in a safe, secure space.
02:15 And once they have that,
02:17 some people just might not be on the same ride with you
02:19 and that's okay,
02:20 but some people are just a little slower.
02:22 They're just a little slower on that journey.
02:24 And that was my situation with my family.
02:27 Let's see what we have next.
02:29 The drag video is really interesting
02:31 because that was, I think,
02:33 the fourth official Try Guys video.
02:34 There were no casts at Buzzfeed prior to us.
02:36 We were the first to say,
02:37 "Oh, we should just repeat ourselves as a cast.
02:39 "This is an interesting dynamic."
02:40 The worst was shaving the legs and that took two hours.
02:43 Poor Mayhem was on her knees shaving
02:45 and got my actual leg hair in her mouth.
02:48 It was disgusting.
02:49 Hi, Mayhem.
02:50 Hi, Mom.
02:51 She's still my mom.
02:52 You know what I love about this video too
02:54 is that that was the first time I tucked.
02:55 That was the first time I completely shaved my legs.
02:57 That was the first time I ever had
02:58 that much makeup on my face.
03:00 And look at me now.
03:01 And the drag video was the first one
03:04 that I actually personally produced and edited.
03:06 And the previous videos were like men try women things.
03:10 One, no other guy in the office would do it
03:12 besides us four.
03:14 And two, allegedly I have a very distinct perspective
03:17 and I did understand that eventually there's value
03:19 with the way that I spoke and the way that I brought
03:23 a marginalized point of view to things.
03:25 Having that perspective be just you laid bare on camera,
03:30 our lives became the story and the content.
03:35 I'm gonna go tuck in the bathroom.
03:36 Oh, (beep)
03:37 Oh my God.
03:38 I think I did it.
03:38 Once the group had formed,
03:40 was there either pressure or like a conversation
03:42 of like who you would be?
03:43 Because to me, from an outsider's perspective,
03:47 you were a Spice Girl, you would be Posh Spice.
03:49 Oh my God, thank you.
03:51 That's so nice of you.
03:52 [laughing]
03:55 Think of your friend group, right?
03:57 You naturally sort of inhabit like,
03:59 oh, she's a little more Sailor Jupiter,
04:00 she's a little more Sailor Mars.
04:01 I just happen to be more Mars, naturally.
04:03 Having to deal with this idea of presentation
04:07 within a cast was really quick because I'm so used to it.
04:11 I'm so used to covering and presenting.
04:13 I think a lot of great people are like,
04:14 do you change a little bit when grandma comes
04:17 to the dinner table?
04:18 You know what I mean?
04:19 Those are those things that I'm just more well equipped
04:21 to be, I guess, hypercognizant of,
04:23 as opposed to like my lovely cast members, Zack and Keith.
04:26 Sometimes you're just really jealous of white men.
04:27 They can just walk into any situation and be like,
04:30 I own this room, I own this country.
04:32 So initially it was very obvious I was, as you said,
04:36 like a little sexier, but it was like,
04:37 I mean, you're gonna look spicy in a pile of marshmallows.
04:39 You know what I mean?
04:41 I love Zack and Keith.
04:42 I will [beep] go to war for them,
04:44 but they are the softest, sweetest boys you will ever meet.
04:48 So I basically just had to like,
04:49 and they're like sexy and serious.
04:53 Wow.
04:54 Next milestone.
04:55 So this was one of my proudest moments
05:00 when I was a producer at Buzzfeed.
05:02 I was sitting on this rare gold mine,
05:07 a platform that reaches millions of people instantly.
05:11 And if I'm not doing something with it,
05:13 that speaks both to my inner scared child
05:16 and hopefully a lot of viewers out there
05:19 who also can benefit,
05:21 then what am I doing in this space?
05:23 Queer prom has always existed outside
05:24 in different variations for different cities
05:26 and different events,
05:27 but this sort of idea of flying in, you know,
05:30 six young people with their families
05:32 to experience sort of this like fun LA treatment of a prom
05:36 was really special.
05:37 And it was the first time I feel like I was able to say
05:41 on camera that I was queer.
05:43 There was like a rumor mill always since I was on camera,
05:45 since I started, like, is he, isn't he?
05:47 Which we see in every level of media and entertainment,
05:52 especially kind of surrounding and swirling
05:55 around people's identities since the, you know,
05:57 Hay's Code.
05:58 And that bull [beep] was always so awful for me
06:01 to like wear every day,
06:02 like go home to my boyfriend and just him being like,
06:05 well, there's all these people asking about if you're gay
06:07 or not, not being able to say it explicitly,
06:08 but it's because I wasn't sure about where certain people
06:12 very close to me in my life would land.
06:13 That was even my life with a relatively liberal family
06:18 into my thirties.
06:19 And as someone who was seen on camera all the time.
06:21 And at that point in drag and wearing like, you know,
06:25 lots of like gender nonconforming clothes,
06:27 it still was to Asian communities,
06:30 especially seen as sort of like artistic fantasy
06:32 and expression.
06:33 So when I did something like Queer Prom,
06:35 it was still seen as far enough, like arm's length
06:37 extension of something in my persona,
06:40 but it wasn't my sexuality.
06:41 You know, it was my artistic expression.
06:43 Ooh, one of my favorite comments someone had said
06:47 when this first came out was,
06:48 oh, Eugene's not just coming out as gay,
06:50 he's coming out as himself,
06:52 which was really just right on the money.
06:54 And maybe that actually made me tear up a little bit.
06:56 The actual title of this video is I'm Gay, Eugene Lee Yang,
07:00 which people had to force me to do.
07:02 I didn't even want my face in the thumbnail.
07:03 I didn't even want to be in it initially.
07:05 I just wanted to do something that for me was a very
07:07 comfortable, innate form of expression.
07:10 This entire project from the moment that I said,
07:13 I have to do it to the moment it premiered
07:14 was less than a month.
07:15 And I choreographed it, I directed it.
07:16 I just went, all right, this is what you've trained for.
07:19 And it just kind of, you know,
07:20 it was like putting on my old pair of shoes,
07:22 but I was most worried about the fact that I was the central
07:25 focus of it.
07:26 'Cause I had initially conceived it with the idea of casting
07:28 someone else,
07:29 because I was more comfortable with this idea of creating
07:32 a short film, a music video that told this story,
07:35 but didn't push my identity or face forward.
07:39 I then realized that through the internet,
07:42 through being able to find myself in front of millions of
07:46 people, if I can show them this,
07:48 while also then bringing in every single tool that they
07:51 haven't seen from me, from my filmmaking toolbox,
07:54 that way it crosses creatively,
07:57 will create something special and unique and powerful.
08:01 It is so rare for me to watch something back and not
08:05 criticize every small thing about it.
08:06 Anything I do, I just like look back and I say,
08:08 this could be better.
08:09 This could be bigger.
08:10 This could be brighter.
08:10 This could be bolder.
08:11 And this was just one of those things that it felt like an
08:14 exhale and there's no way to go back and say,
08:16 I'm going to control the breath.
08:17 I watch it and I just feel my,
08:18 my body just sort of deflating.
08:20 And I like, I exhale with it.
08:22 I just can't see it being anything other than what it was.
08:24 And it was appropriate for the time.
08:26 It was appropriate for my journey.
08:27 And it made the family members I had who were completely in
08:30 the dark about it,
08:31 started a lot of conversations and thankfully those
08:33 conversations, some of them had a positive ending,
08:37 but if they were going to see me really come out to not
08:41 just them, but to like everyone,
08:43 I'm going to do it in my most authentic voice.
08:46 It's the one time really on, on the internet.
08:48 I'm just happy that that can continue to live on and I
08:52 wouldn't change it for the world.
08:54 - Thousands of Asians in the U.S.
08:56 have become targets of harassment.
08:58 - It was just one of these times where with the COVID
09:01 pandemic, this heightened focus on Asians and immigration
09:05 and the China virus was just the right time to like,
09:08 be able to drop some education into that conversation.
09:13 Cause we know on those online conversations happen,
09:15 especially during a worldwide pandemic,
09:17 education goes out the window.
09:18 Like people don't want to know about facts.
09:20 We have actual leaders coming up with the most bull stories
09:25 to take things like critical race theory out of our schools,
09:27 which isn't even in our schools.
09:29 - The passage of the infamous Chinese exclusion act in 1882,
09:33 the first law in the United States that barred immigration
09:37 solely based on race.
09:39 - This is essentially critical race theory.
09:41 Being able to put that out there for anyone to see,
09:44 even if one middle school teacher picked it up and showed
09:47 you their kids,
09:48 I would feel like that this was a worthwhile endeavor.
09:50 We can't responsibly live in a society now,
09:53 even as artists without engaging critically in these
09:55 conversations, because unfortunately politics are just like,
09:58 just one step away from entertainment.
10:01 It's almost the same thing.
10:02 - The stop AAPI hate reporting center found that bullying
10:06 assaults and verbal abuse were becoming more normalized
10:09 across the United States.
10:11 - I had a relatively diverse community growing up.
10:13 There weren't many other Asians until I was in middle school
10:16 and a lot of tech companies moved to central Texas.
10:18 It's becoming more rare.
10:19 The experience of growing up in a town where you are like
10:21 the only of one particular other, you know,
10:23 I got bullied and I got pushed around and people just thought
10:26 it was funny and that my, my food smelled funny.
10:28 And that was like, for me, extremely formative.
10:31 They tried to create a Asian American club and our
10:35 principal, we all got the signatures and our principal
10:38 shot it down.
10:39 Cause he said,
10:40 Asian Americans didn't contribute enough to American society
10:42 besides the railroads.
10:43 Like that was the type of town I grew up in.
10:44 He said, you got diversity club.
10:46 That's enough, which was still like fun.
10:48 Cause it was like all the non-white people hanging out.
10:51 I learned how to step.
10:52 It was a lot of cultural sharing in a place like a small
10:55 Texas town.
10:56 - What else is he hiding?
10:58 Who is the real him?
11:00 Who am I?
11:01 - Nimona.
11:02 I am so excited for people to see this.
11:04 The original story, Nimona,
11:06 is by an incredible creative force, Andy Stevenson.
11:10 Actually originated as this, I believe a grad project.
11:14 That was a web comic and then became a graphic novel,
11:16 but it has a huge queer cult following.
11:18 The character that I play is Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin.
11:23 I was very lucky to have been cast in 2020, actually.
11:26 So I've been with this for three years.
11:27 The reason my name came up because I was already kind of
11:32 asking my agents, like,
11:33 I would love to start voice acting and being a totally
11:36 different character where no one can see my face.
11:38 This came through directly from the producers because when
11:41 they translated Ambrosius Goldenloin to the film version,
11:46 they essentially made him Asian.
11:48 I would find out later that one of the animators had used
11:52 several references and I was included in it visually because
11:57 I guess I've done something in my career where they said,
11:59 I'm going to think of a gay ass Asian man.
12:01 And this character needs to be just like right off the bat.
12:04 Like that's a gay man. I don't care what you say.
12:06 Look at his hair. Look at that face.
12:08 So they brought me in for the audition.
12:10 I auditioned like everyone else and I landed the part.
12:12 My version of Goldenloin is a little more warm,
12:17 a little more charming and certainly very much obviously in
12:23 love with the other lead, Ballister.
12:27 It's like not a question.
12:28 And that's what's beautiful about this film is that I'm not
12:30 ruining anything. It's not like a, Oh, well, they won't,
12:33 they it's not a, Oh, you should watch this.
12:34 So they have this revelation in the end of the third act.
12:37 They're gay from the jump. It's just gay.
12:39 And to have my first voice performance experience,
12:43 be a character that is dependent on at the very least me
12:47 informing my perspective,
12:49 infusing him with my perspective because that's what the
12:51 directors really wanted.
12:52 I thought I was going to walk in and be way more nightly.
12:54 And they said, no, no, no, no.
12:55 We want the essence of your queer experience to be like,
12:59 to permeate this character.
13:00 And that's not something you hear from higher ups in
13:04 Hollywood every day.
13:05 It was very fortunate and beautiful experience for me to be
13:10 able to lend part of myself to this character.
13:13 - I'm not the villain here.
13:14 - I know.
13:15 I know.
13:19 I'm sorry for everything.
13:23 - And on top of that, Nimona herself,
13:25 she's essentially this wonderful non-binary,
13:30 gender non-conforming, just rebel.
13:33 And I cannot wait for people,
13:37 especially our community to be able to see where this story
13:42 takes us and how it resolves and what that message is in
13:47 the end.
13:48 It's a fantastic action adventure film with a lot of humor
13:51 and a lot of heart,
13:52 but it's also very much for us as a community.
13:57 I'm just really blessed to have been part of this film.
13:59 Thank you so much for revisiting these milestones with me.
14:02 This has been Becoming Eugene Lee Yang.
14:05 I can't wait to become even gayer.
14:07 That's what's going to happen right after you stop this
14:10 video.
14:11 I'm going to be out there being so much more gay.
14:14 It's going to be wild.
14:15 In a year, I'm going to be in like my final form,
14:19 just a unicorn on fire.
14:22 You're going to see like a comet across the sky and that's
14:23 going to be my gay ass just like,
14:25 "Yang!"
14:26 Just blinding all the bigots.
14:30 (upbeat music)
14:33 [BLANK_AUDIO]