| By JIM CARNES, Scripps-McClatchy
Western Service
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – “I didn’t know what I was doing, really,” stand-up comedienne Margaret Cho says of her origins. “If I had started later, I’d have thought too much about what stand-up is and been terrified. “I was lucky enough to be young and fearless.” Cho, now just 29, is fearlessly carrying on her stand-up act in preparation for a television show she has in development. Despite the failure of a groundbreaking sitcom – she was the first Korean American to star in her own series (“All American Girl,” which ran on ABC from September 1994 to March 1995) – she’s ready to try again. “I learned a lot of things (on ‘All-American Girl’),” Cho says. “It was a good experience as far as finding myself, knowing what I was and what direction I wanted to take with my comedy. “There were just so many people involved in that show, and so much importance put on the fact that it was an ethnic show. It’s hard to pin down what ‘ethnic’ is without appearing to be racist. And then, for fear of being too ‘ethnic,’ it got so watered down for television that by the end, it was completely lacking in the essence of what I am and what I do.” And what makes her think the next time will be any different? “We’re crafty, and have learned to get by,” she says of herself and her new performing partner, Karen Kilgariff. “We’re gifted enough writers to stifle any efforts to water it down now.” Cho says the new show is “very hard to describe, kind of a hybrid between sketch comedy and a regular sitcom. People can get a real sense of what we’re going to do by coming to the Punch Line,” she says, adding, “I love working at that Punch Line because the audience is so great. I feel like I grew up, really, learning my craft working there.” Cho was born and raised in San Francisco and actually started performing stand-up in a comedy club called the Rose & Thistle, above a bookstore her parents ran. It was a unique version of “Upstairs Downstairs.” “San Francisco was different than any other place on Earth,” she says. “I grew up and went to grammar school on Haight Street during the ‘70s. I grew up around old hippies, ex-druggies, burnouts from the ‘60s and Chinese people. ... To say it was a melting pot – that’s the least of it. The junkies and the church people. It was all just part of ‘70s San Francisco. “It was a really confusing, enlightening, wonderful time.” Cho’s grandfather was a Methodist minister who ran an orphanage in Seoul during the Korean War. She’s second-generation Korean American. Her father writes joke books – in Korean. “Books like ‘1001 Jokes for Public Speakers’ – real corny stuff,” she says. “I guess we’re in the same line of work. But we don’t understand each other that way. I don’t know why the things he says are funny, and same thing (is true) for him.” Working in the mainstream is more difficult than staying within the Korean community, Cho says, but she says, “I think I found a lot of opportunities to work that I wouldn’t have, had I not been an Asian American woman.” Still, “There’s a great lack of different faces out there. I think part of my journey has to be illustrating my experience, showing what you can do.” In addition to developing the television series and pursuing her stand-up career, Cho has expanded into acting in movies. The most exposure probably came from her bit in John Woo’s “Face/Off,” but her biggest part was a leading dramatic role in “It’s My Party.” She played the best friend of a man (Eric Roberts) who discovers he is dying of AIDS and throws a party for himself. She co-starred with Janeane Garofalo in “Sweethearts,” and has completed two other films that are yet to be released: “Pink as the Day She Was Born” and “Fakin D’ Funk.” “ ‘Pink’ is a really amazing rock ‘n’ roll film,” Cho says. “I love girl bands, and this is a girl-band movie, produced by Linda Perry, who used to be in 4 Non Blondes. I play this deranged karaoke club owner. It went over real big in the gay and lesbian film festivals. And then I played a Chinese exchange student in ‘Funk.’ Like a lot of independent films that slowly make their way to the surface, it should be out later this year,” she says. Cho’s next movie – the working title is “Triple Threat” – is “about dancing. It’s a lifelong dream of mine, to dance. This is a comedy, and it sort of lampoons all of the ‘80s dance trends, like break-dancing. It’s really wild. “Being in the movies is a lot easier than doing stand-up, in a way,” she says. “In comedy, you just have to play yourself, but it’s hard to be up there on stage for an hour every night. In the movies, you have to fit yourself into a role, but you don’t have to sustain that energy for all that long. Being on stage, it’s very hard to keep that relationship up, keep everyone interacting.” Cho doesn’t mind bouncing from small films to majors. And the variety of making movies, television and stand-up gives her life just that – variety. “I really love the way that my life has turned out,” she says. “I love touring and doing stand-up. I love doing a range of films that are all across the map. I love this new project with my new partner Karen. “I feel like I’ve got
to a great place in my life. I just want to do it for a good long time.”
•
|