Ken Jeong returns to stand-up; tour will stop at Isleta
Comedian and actor Ken Jeong had been doing stand-up comedy for 15 years before his career catapulted with his performance in the film “The Hangover.”
Now he returns to the stage with a stand-up show that is deeply personal and provides a behind-the-scenes look at his life and career, including his work over the past 10 years.
“I am giving them a little bit of a glimpse behind the curtain and kind of see how the sausage is made and also talk about my life and talk about my wife and my kids,” Jeong said. “And also my wife is a breast cancer survivor going on 10 years cancer-free, and I talk about that and how that actually is somehow connected to me taking the part of Mr. Chow in ‘The Hangover.’ You’ll have to see my act to find out why, but there’s a lot of tie-ins that a lot of people don’t know … in sort of a stand-up fashion, in a stand-up cadence, I’ve never done before. So it’s really nice to talk about my life through the lens of a stand-up comic.”
Jeong’s years in entertainment have now surpassed his years as a practicing medical doctor.
“I was a practicing physician maybe 6-7 years, but now I’ve been in the business, full time, 12 years,” he said. “Over that time, I’ve been very lucky to be in over 30 movies and six seasons of (the TV show) ‘Community,’ two seasons of (the TV show) ‘Dr. Ken,’ so I’ve been very, very fortunate where I’ve been able to hone my craft of acting. That’s why I took a break from stand-up for 10 years because I wanted to really learn how to act, and when I was on ‘Community’ that was a full-time job. It was difficult to do standup and do movies at the same time. It was better to put the stand-up on hold and just kind of really delve deep into acting.”
Jeong has been juggling doing stand-up comedy shows in Australia, Canada and the United States with filming movies in Georgia, Los Angeles and Toronto.
Comedy has evolved since Jeong last did stand-up 10 years ago, which Jeong said is “great.” The film world has also advanced with the movie “Crazy Rich Asians,” which Jeong starred in. He talks about the profound effect of the film with an all Asian-American cast, which has made more than $235 million worldwide.
“You’re going to see more AsianAmerican-themed projects, because showing that it is, from a show business standpoint, profitable, there’s an audience that is craving to see that, and that to me makes it even more special, and it truly is one of the few movies, one of the rare films I have done that I am happier for the success of my peers and my friends on the movie than I am for my own benefit,” Jeong said. “I’ve been fortunate to have a career prior to ‘Crazy Rich Asians,’ but to experience this on a different level, in many ways, this movie is just more than trying to get to the next level by doing a movie selfishly. To me, this movie is a forward movie for the whole Asian-American community, and it’s very emotional and one of the most rewarding experiences of my career.”