Hulu’s Interior Chinatown stars Jimmy O. Yang as a waiter named Willis Wu who dreams of something more. He’s a background character who witnesses a crime, and he’ll do anything to help solve the case and try to become the lead in the story. However, outside forces are preventing him from achieving his goals, and he also uncovers a family secret that will turn his life upside down.

The Hulu show feels like part WandaVision and part Free Guy, and audiences are in for an extraordinary journey that takes the crime drama genre and turns it on its head.

“It’s kind of wild,” Yang tells Nerd Reactor about the similarities between his life and the series. “Like when I was reading the script and the book, I’m like, ‘Man, I can relate so well. Was this based on me?’ Charlie, you better give me some royalty on this. [laughs] But then that’s the brilliance of the book, right? And the show. It’s like a lot of people can relate to it.

“You know, whether you’re Asian American or an actor in this industry or just someone who’s ever been an underdog that felt like you’re stuck in the background of someone else’s story, whether you’re working at a desk in your office, you feel like this is really a boss’s story, but you’re stuck. So just an underdog story that I hope everyone can relate to, but the similarity was kind of crazy, you know, like he started off as Generic Asian man. I was Chinese teenager number one on a show, and then he snuck his way into being a tech guy, and I was a tech guy for like six years on Silicon Valley. So a lot of it was just pieces of myself that I was able to put into the character.”

There’s a lot of mystery in the show, and it feels like it’s someone who is trapped inside a TV show, kind of like WandaVision. Willis doesn’t know it yet, but layers start to peel off as he continues to push through the walls.

“It’s almost maybe it’s an allegory to life,” Yang said. “It’s almost like a video game. Whenever you feel like a background character and NPC, if you believe in it, if you feel like you can do more, go do it and then fight for it. You know, nobody’s just gonna open the door and let you in. You gotta kick it down. You gotta find ways around it, you know. And each episode is almost like Willis going through a level of life. And this video game that he cracks the code in, and he gets one level after another.”

About Hulu’s Interior Chinatown

Synopsis: Based on Charles Yu’s award-winning book of the same name, the show follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural called “Black & White.” Relegated to the background, Willis goes through the motions of his on-screen job, waiting tables, dreaming about a world beyond Chinatown and aspiring to be the lead of his own story. When Willis inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, he begins to unravel a criminal web in Chinatown, while discovering his own family’s buried history and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

The show is created by Charles Yu and stars Jimmy O. Yang, Ronny Chieng, Chloe Bennet, Sullivan Jones, Lisa Gilroy, Archie Kao, Diana Lin, Tzy Ma and more.

All 10 episodes of Interior Chinatown are now streaming on Hulu.