[Editor’s note: The following contains some spoilers for Interior Chinatown.]

The Big Picture

The Hulu series ‘Interior Chinatown’ follows Willis Wu, played by Jimmy O. Yang, a waiter in a police procedural, uncovering family secrets.
Co-stars Ronny Chieng (who plays Fatty Choi) and Chloe Bennet (who plays Detective Lana Lee) share real-life TV series they’d want to be trapped in.
The cast enjoyed the opportunity to navigate between two worlds in the series, with lighting and camera movement used to highlight the differences.

Based on the novel by Charles Yu, who’s also the series showrunner, Hulu’s Interior Chinatown follows Willis Wu (Jimmy O. Yang), a waiter working alongside co-worker and best friend, Fatty Choi (Ronny Chieng), used to being in the background of his own life when he witnesses a crime that pushes him into the spotlight as a main character. Being trapped in a police procedural called Black & White has left Willis wanting more, so when he finds himself drawn into the investigation by teaming up with a detective (Chloe Bennet) who is herself overlooked, he uncovers family secrets that he never could have imagined.

During this interview with Collider, co-stars Bennet and Chieng talked about which real-life TV series they’d want to be trapped in, navigating a story told between two different worlds and establishing the differences in their look and feel, being comic relief for Yang, how you should never talk about who wrote what with comedy, playing a character fighting to get recognition after having previously played a superhero that couldn’t be ignored on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and how pretending to be very powerful can also be very awkward.

Chloe Bennet and Ronny Chieng Have Some Real-Life TV Shows They’d Be Willing To Get Trapped In
Image via Hulu 

Collider: To start with a silly question, Willis finds himself trapped in a police procedural. If you guys were suddenly trapped in a TV series, what genre or specific show would you want to find yourself trapped in?

CHLOE BENNET: Well, I certainly was trapped in one for about seven years and it was a procedural cop show. I will say that I feel like that was the one to be trapped in. I’m really thankful for the time I worked on it. At its core, it was certainly a case by case procedural show. So, I guess I’ll say that one because I was, and I’m here.

RONNY CHIENG: I don’t know if I wanna be trapped in a crime show because someone’s always dying. I wanna be trapped in a comedy show. Does it have to be a procedural?

It can be any show or any type of show.

CHIENG: I’d wanna be trapped in Mad About You. That sounds like a cool world to be in.

BENNET: Okay, I take my answer back.

CHIENG: You could have picked anything.

BENNET: I don’t know. What would I wanna be trapped in? Succession.

CHIENG: Succession? That’s a dark world. Go to The O.C., that’s fun. Get trapped in Gossip Girl.

BENNET: No, there’s too much drama. I don’t know. There are so many options. Oh, I would get trapped in The Great British Bake-Off.

CHIENG: That’s a good one. That’s a fun show.

BENNET: I would be there with Noel [Fielding], eating cookies and doing cake and bread week. That would be the life.

CHIENG: Can I be trapped in 60 Minutes? You’d always know about what’s going on.

Related ‘Interior Chinatown’ Review: Jimmy O. Yang Charmingly Leads a Metafictional Police Caper ‘Interior Chinatown’ premieres November 19 on Hulu.

When this came your way, how was it presented to you? Unless you’re familiar with the book, it seems like this would have been very confusing on paper. This is now an easy show to explain.

BENNET: It certainly is not. I think it was actually easier to read and understand. Applying these broader themes and the differentiation between the world and the characters and how they interact with each other throughout the entire production is where you really notice the shift between the media of books and TV. It’s not even film. We have to tell these stories over the span of 10 hours, and that has to make sense, we have to make the world make sense, we have to make each character’s arc make sense, and they have to work well together. And there’s a lot of satire. A lot of it is meta. It was never, “Show up to set and we’ll just do the scene,” at least for me because I’m annoying. Also, my character is the only one for most of the episodes who goes back and forth between the worlds. There was a lot of navigating how each world is lit differently and how each world is shot differently. We have very playful camera movements. It’s very handheld when we’re interior Chinatown, but then it’ll lock off into either steadicam or dolly shots. For any cinephiles or film nerds, there’s a lot of stuff to dissect and appreciate. It took a ton of effort throughout the production to nail how to capture these worlds in the worlds for each character and make that cohesive. Did we do it? I think we did. We tried.

Related Jimmy O. Yang’s Wild Road From “Chinese Teenager #1” on ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ to Leading ‘Interior Chinatown’ “I don’t think people expect me to do martial arts, but I made sure I trained for it,” says Yang, about his ‘Interior Chinatown’ fight scenes.

Ronny, how did you find the experience of playing comic relief to Jimmy O. Yang? Did you guys find that dynamic pretty easily?

CHIENG: With Jimmy, he and I have known each other for so long now that any dynamic between me and him comes very naturally, whether it’s fighting or comedy or just hanging out. I’ve known him for a while now and we’re very different people, but we have very similar backgrounds, in terms of coming from Asia and doing stand-up comedy in America. Working with him is very easy for me. And being comedic relief is easier for me than vice versa.

‘Interior Chinatown’s Ronny Chieng Believes You Should Never Reveal Who Wrote What With Comedy
Image via Hulu

I particularly enjoyed the moment when Fatty is taking the table’s order and he goes off on this couple for wanting orange chicken and for not drinking the free tea. Were all those insults scripted? Did you improvise any of that?

CHIENG: The thing with comedy is that you never wanna talk about who wrote what because it’s all collaborative. Charles Yu is probably the smartest writer in Hollywood right now. We had Taika [Waititi] on this, who’s a goddamn genius. We also had a writers’ room writing scripts. It was everybody. Everybody put a little bit in. I honestly can’t even remember who wrote what. That’s how spot-on it was, that we managed to hit something that people like because all these people knew what they were doing.

Is there a difference between finding the funny when it’s your own comedy versus finding the funny that works for a specific character?

CHIENG: One thing I really appreciate about this role is that, in my opinion, it brought me the most out of my comfort zone, in terms of having to act, play this character, and do the comedy that wasn’t necessarily my own. There is a lot of comedy in the show and a lot of it is intentionally awkward or making a different point, which is not something I would normally say myself, but that’s the point of acting. I welcome not having to be myself, as much as possible. I welcome trying to throw myself into this thing and saying someone else’s lines, like the great Charles Yu, and yell at Jimmy. I welcomed the opportunity to play an actual character.

Chloe Bennet Is Just Fine With Not Doing Many Stunts For ‘Interior Chinatown’

Chloe, you’ve gone in reverse, playing the character that kicks ass in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to now being the one that nobody notices at the precinct in Interior Chinatown. What was it like to make that shift?

BENNET: It’s interesting. That’s a great question. One, I’m older and I kicked so much that all my bones are aching and I’m injured everywhere. I was really, really happy, physically, to not have to do anything. The one stunt I did, I’m pretty sure I dislocated my finger and it still hurts. I shouldn’t be doing that stuff anymore. S.H.I.E.L.D. was always super difficult for me because I don’t feel that way. I had to play a superhero when I was in my most awkward phase as a young woman growing into her body and I never was comfortable with it. I always felt incredibly awkward having to play very powerful because I didn’t feel it at all.

CHIENG: It didn’t show.

BENNET: I really struggled with having to navigate that. I think they worked that into that show in its own way. But for this, it was nice to play a character that actually felt more realistic to me. As someone who’s worked in the industry for a long time, it felt more authentic, actually, to be code switching and going between two worlds and not really belonging in either. We watch Lana realize how much that has affected her. She masks it with this confidence and playing these different characters, and that could not be more relatable to me. I was really happy and it was very therapeutic.

CHIENG: It’s also fun to subvert the trope and to go backwards.

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At what point did you find out that Jimmy had played “Chinese Teenager #1” on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.?

BENNET: During a panel not that long ago. I did not know that at all. I was not there that day. I was not in that scene. He didn’t tell me that, even while we were shooting. I didn’t know at all. That was a surprise to me. It’s a really fun switch. I’m really happy for him.

Interior Chinatown Interior Chinatown, adapted from Charles Yu’s novel, follows Willis Wu, a background character in a TV police procedural. After witnessing a crime, he uncovers a criminal conspiracy in Chinatown and his family’s hidden past while exploring what it means to take the lead in his own story.Release Date November 19, 2024 Main Genre Drama Seasons 1 Creator(s) Charles Yu Streaming Service(s) Hulu Expand

Interior Chinatown is available to stream on Hulu. Check out the trailer:

Watch on Hulu