Bowen Yang
Birthdate: Nov 6, 1990
Birthplace: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Bowen Yang is a fast-rising comic actor who first made a national splash as a member of the writing team and then the cast of Saturday Night Live (2019-2025). He then parlayed his new fame into a movie career, launched with a string of supporting roles in such movies as Warner Bros.’ Isn’t It Romantic (2019), co-starring Rebel Wilson, Liam Hemsworth, Adam Devine, and Priyanka Chopra, under Todd Strauss-Schulson’s direction. Co-director/co-writer/co-editor/co-star Matthew Fifer’s indie gay romance, Cicada (2020), co-directed by Kieran Mulcare and co-written by co-star Sheldon D. Brown, and released by Strand Releasing.
And co-director/co-writers Aaron and Adam Nee’s hit comedy adventure, The Lost City (2022), starring Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum, with Daniel Radcliffe, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and Brad Pitt, grossed $193 million for Paramount Pictures. Yang landed his first starring role in Searchlight Pictures’ gay rom-com Fire Island (2022), directed by Andrew Ahn and written by and starring Joel Kim Booster.
Yang was cast by director/co-writer Nicholas Stoller and producer Judd Apatow for the rare studio-backed gay rom-com, Bros (2022), with an openly LGBTQ+ cast including Billy Eichner, Luke Macfarlane and Guy Branum, but lost money for Universal Pictures ($14 million against $22 million costs) after premiering at the Toronto Film Festival.
Yang co-starred (in the role of God) in the first musical backed by producer-distributor A24, Dicks: The Musical (2023), based on co-screenwriters’ Aaron Jackson’s and Josh Sharp’s off-Broadway musical, Fucking Identical Twins, with Megan Mullally, Megan Thee Stallion and Nathan Lane, but bombing at the box office ($1.5 million return on $8 million costs) after premiering at the Toronto Film Festival.
Bowen Yang tackled a voice role in the sixth Garfield movie adaptation, The Garfield Movie (2024), starring the voices of Chris Pratt, Samuel L. Jackson, Hannah Waddington, Ving Rhames, Nicholas Hoult, Cecile Strong, Harvey Guillen and Snoop Dogg under Mark Dindal’s direction, and grossing a robust $257 million for Sony Pictures Releasing.
Yang played the supporting role of Pfannee in Universal Pictures’ box-office smash version ($747.4 million gross) of the Broadway musical, Wicked (2024), nominated for ten Oscars, and its immediate sequel, Wicked for Good (2025), both starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande under Jon M. Chu’s direction.
Yang took on another voice role in Warner Animation Group/Warner Bros.’ long-awaited animated version of Dr. Seuss’ Cat in the Hat (2026), starring the voice of Bill Hader (as the Cat), with fellow voice actors Quinta Brunson, Xochitl Gomez, Matt Berry and Paula Pell under the co-direction of Erica Rivinoja and Alessandro Carloni.
Yang joined another animated movie project as a voice actor in one of his rare dramas, Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer’s, My Mother and Me (date to be announced), directed and co-written by Leah Nelson and co-starring the voices of Pamela Adlon, Seth Rogen, Bryan Cranston, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Sarah Silverman, Samira Wiley, Abbi Jacobson, Beanie Feldstein and Wanda Sykes.
Personal life
Bowen Yang was born in Brisbane, Australia, and was raised in Brisbane, Montreal, Canada, and Aurora, Colorado by his Chinese-born mother and Inner Mongolian-born father, Ruilin. Yang has one older sister. Yang graduated from Smoky Hill High School in 2008, while being named homecoming king. Yang then attended New York University, attending pre-med classes and earning a B.A. in Chemistry while also performing improv with the New York group Dangerbox. Yang’s height is 5’ 8”.
Known For
Bowen Yang Movies
actor
Upcoming (2)
- 2026 | The Cat in the Hat
- 2025 |
Wicked: For Good
asPfannee
Follows Elphaba, the future Wicked Witch of the West and her relationship with Glinda, the Good Witch of the North. The second of a two-part feature film adaptation of the Broadway musical.
Previous (10)
- 2025 |
The Wedding Banquet
asChris
A gay man makes a deal with his lesbian friend: a green-card marriage for him, in exchange for in vitro fertilization treatments for her. Plans evolve as Min's grandmother surprises them with a Korean wedding banquet.
- 2024 | The Tiger's Apprenticeas Sidney
- 2024 |
- 2024 |
The Garfield Movie
asNolan
After Garfield's unexpected reunion with his long-lost father, ragged alley cat Vic, he and his canine friend Odie are forced from their perfectly pampered lives to join Vic on a risky heist.
- 2023 | The Monkey Kingas Dragon King
- 2023 |
Dicks: The Musical
asGod
A pair of business rivals discover that they're identical twins and decide to swap places in an attempt to trick their divorced parents to get back together.
- 2023 |
Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain
asDeetch Nordwind
Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain
When three friends who live together realize that they don't like their life trajectory, they set off to find a gold treasure that is rumored to be buried in the nearby mountain.
- 2022 | Fire Islandas Howie
- 2022 |
The Lost City
asRay the Moderator
A reclusive romance novelist on a book tour with her cover model gets swept up in a kidnapping attempt that lands them both in a cutthroat jungle adventure.
- 2021 |
Facts About Bowen Yang
Most Likely To…: Bowen Yang was selected as “most likely to be a cast member of the ‘Saturday Night Live’ cast” by his Smoky Hill High School graduating class of 2008.
Generational Leap: Yang is a famous comic actor and with already iconic status as a prominent gay Asian performer with a hot Hollywood career, while his father was born in a mud hut in Inner Mongolia—making a remarkable leap of culture and fortune in a single generation.
Gay “conversion”: Bowen Yang’s father at first refused to accept his son as gay, and made him attend gay “conversion” therapy sessions, which failed utterly.
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