# Ali Wong

Alexandra "Ali" Wong (born April 19, 1982) is an Asian American actress, comedian and writer.

## Quotes

* I was very dirty back then. Even now, I’ll look back on those days and think: ‘God, you were disgusting.’
** An excerpt from her memoir Dear Girls… (as quoted in “'God, I was disgusting!' – Ali Wong on why women's bodies are the last taboo” in The Guardian; 2019 Oct 17)
* All of these people in the industry kept on telling me: ‘You’re likable and you’re cute, or whatever, but the jokes are really dirty and you’d get booked a lot more, and you’d be a lot more appealing if they were clean’…Maybe people were half-laughing, half-cringing at my jokes. But if you’re successful, people should be too busy laughing to cringe.
** On the advice given to Wong early in her career in “'God, I was disgusting!' – Ali Wong on why women's bodies are the last taboo” in The Guardian (2019 Oct 17)
* Maybe it’s because women feel they want to maintain some mystery that they’re not gross, to be more attractive or something. For me it’s all part of intimacy. That’s how I define intimacy – living closer and being more honest, closer to what your real desires are – and it’s exciting.
** On her views as to why women are reluctant to talk intimately about their bodies in “'God, I was disgusting!' – Ali Wong on why women's bodies are the last taboo” in The Guardian (2019 Oct 17)
* I see kids and how young they really are and I cannot imagine them coming on a boat by themselves, going to another country to work and be separated from their parents. It really humbles me and makes me grateful and it gave me a huge sense of…It’s part of my identity and gave me a very strong work ethic.
** On writing about her family’s immigrant background in her memoir in in “'God, I was disgusting!' – Ali Wong on why women's bodies are the last taboo” in The Guardian (2019 Oct 17)
* I think [if you] consume mainstream pop culture and don’t activate a search for any other niche outlets then you can fall into this feeling that you are inferior.
** On how Asian-Americans might circumvent the feeling of being underrepresented in mainstream culture in in “'God, I was disgusting!' – Ali Wong on why women's bodies are the last taboo” in The Guardian (2019 Oct 17)
* You know, it's tough when you have to wait around for other people to write something for you, because there's no precedent for someone who looks like you to play certain characters, right? So it's such a unique character that I've been dying to see and put on camera for a long time, that [Park] plays. And that's something for me that's really personal.
** On her costar Randall Park’s lead character in Always Be My Maybe in “Ali Wong And Randall Park On Rapping, Rom-Com Tropes And (Keanu) Reeves” in NPR (2019 Jun 9)
* ...Not at all. It’s interesting. I was an Asian-American studies major in college. For a long time, I thought I would go into academia and become an Asian-American professor, and then I fell in love with stand-up comedy. I never set out to specifically speak about representation though — it’s so hard to even just make a joke. I do whatever is first and foremost funny and interesting. Sometimes that happens to concern Asian-American identity, but not a lot of it. But it is something I will always be interested in.
** On whether comedy gives Wong the freedom to express her thoughts on Asian representation in “Ali Wong Loves Kondo-ing So Much, She Named Her Daughter After It” in New York Magazine (2017 Mar 29)
* I want to have it all. I want to have a family, a career, and a side piece.
** In Don Wong (2022) commenting on the disparity of public reaction to successful men having extramarital affairs versus women.