Bowen Yang Says His Body Shut Down During ‘Wicked’ Production: I Couldn’t ‘Lift an Arm’

Samantha Bergeson
·4 min read

Bowen Yang realized that he couldn’t defy gravity — or sleep deprivation — when filming “Wicked.”

The “SNL” star told Vanity Fair that he found it “mentally fraying” to fly back and forth between the “Wicked” production in London and his weekly sketch series in New York City. Even “SNL” creator Lorne Michaels seemingly warned Yang against spreading himself too thin.

More from IndieWire

“This is when Lorne Michaels comes in,” Yang said. “Whatever you think about the situation, however you think it’s unique to you, however you think you might be the exception to the rule, Lorne is here to be like, ‘Actually, it might not be so good on the body for you to fly back and forth between New York and London to go shoot a movie.'”

Yang admitted that he was referencing “Wicked” as the most recent example of balancing both his TV and film obligations.

“I’ll say ‘Wicked,’ for example. [It] was an incredible experience and I wouldn’t trade it for anything, but I really thought I could hack it,” he said. “I was like, OK, I’ve got my nootropic gels that I’m going to suck on the airplane, and I’m going to take my little CBD potions that are going to help me fall asleep and get over the jet lag. I had all these things in the armory, and then none of it really could beat back that tide. It really did get to me just on a somatic level — I was just like, Wow, my body is refusing to lift an arm, or whatever. It really got to that point that was a little mentally fraying. It was a tough summer, just between the strikes and the constant bouncing back and forth.”

Yang stars alongside Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jonathan Bailey, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, and Peter Dinklage in the musical adaptation. Yet after five seasons on the sketch series, Yang was convinced he could do anything.

“Maybe it sounds so press-friendly to say that everything’s changed and nothing’s changed at all, but I really feel that way,” Yang said of his years on “SNL” thus far. “Nothing fundamentally has changed about the job since that time, and yet I feel a sort of healthy comfort. It’s tough to feel too much comfort. It’s potentially sort of—not dangerous. Or maybe it’s a red flag to feel comfort at ‘SNL,’ right? Maybe that means it’s your time to go. But I feel like there’s a comfort setting in for me that makes it so that the day-to-day is not quite as tumultuous or perturbing as it once was.”

Yang added that he actually prefers being under stress at the fast-paced environment of “SNL.”

“I would be really rattled back in the day, early on, when on a Friday morning they’d be like, ‘Oh, maybe we’re going to order up a Weekend Update piece from you.’ Always a huge gift and a great privilege, but that would really stress me out in an earlier time,” Yang said. “Now it’s like, OK, this is part of my charge as a cast member here. This is part of the work.”

And Yang isn’t slowing down his film roles at all, even during the “SNL” season. The actor is set to star in “The Wedding Banquet” which reunites him with “Fire Island” director Andrew Ahn. Recent Oscar nominee Lily Gladstone will co-lead the reimagining of Ang Lee’s 1993 feature alongside Yang.

“The Wedding Banquet” centers on a gay man who agrees to a marriage of convenience with a female friend, only to find his life complicated when his overbearing parents travel to America to plan his wedding banquet. Ahn’s updated take will actually be double the plot, with two same-sex couples set in the family dynamics in the Korean community. The official synopsis for the new film reads: “When Min’s boyfriend Chris rejects his spontaneous marriage proposal, he convinces his best friend Angela to marry him instead, paying for her partner Liz’s IVF treatments in exchange for his green card. Their plans for a subtle city hall elopement are turned upside down when Min’s grandmother makes a surprise trip from Seoul to throw them an extravagant Korean wedding banquet.”

Best of IndieWire

Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.