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Melissa Harris-Perry: We're back with The Takeaway, I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. Back in 2021, comedian Atsuko Okatsuka made her late-night debut on The Late Late Show with James Corden. She had some candid thoughts on marriage.

Atsuko Okatsuka: People think I'm mature because I'm married, but I would argue that getting married is the childlike thing to do. Because married people, what do they say? They say things like, 'I found my best friend."

[laughter]

Melissa: When I sat down with Atsuko earlier this week ehe told me her earnest sense of humor isn't a fiction. It's part of her experience of figuring out the difficulty of adulting.

Atsuko: I feel I'm a little bit stunted as an adult. I feel I'm a definite late bloomer to a lot of things. I just learned how to clean the lint tray out of the dryer for the first time. Things like that. We've had a dryer for a while in our house. I have a lot of realizations like that. I think maybe because I live with my head in the clouds a lot. The late bloomer thing. I feel my grandma sheltered me from the realities of the world growing up. I'm just a little late to things and that's where the curiosity comes from.

Melissa: Nearly a year after Atsuko's viral TikTok drop-it challenge, her playful jokes landed her a comedy special of her own called The Intruder. It premiers December 10th on HBO and HBO MAX.

Atsuko: I had an intruder come to my house three times in the same day. In a way, when I was growing up in the States as an immigrant, formerly undocumented immigrant, and just trying to catch up with everything so fast and figuring out if I fit in or not, I felt like an intruder myself too, onto a whole new other people's culture, a whole new country. My grandma, my mom, and me just lived in a garage and my grandma told me we were coming to the States for a two-month vacation. She didn't tell me the truth about a lot of things like we're going to live there permanently, in Los Angeles. A lot of the truth was hidden from me to protect me.

Melissa: It's interesting that I hear you talk about it, that those lies that the adults who love us tell us can both stunt us and serve us at the same time.

Atsuko: It's very true [laughs] because she was the one dealing with things like applying for us to get a green card behind our backs. She had planned the move to the States. She had planned where we would live. In a way, I could just try to concentrate on just being a kid and growing up while she dealt with all that, but in turn, I have the curiosities and I found comedy. It was a good way to channel that and convey that.

Melissa: That idea of growing up comes fast and adulting is hard. One of the challenges of adulting is also a challenge of youth, and that is making friends. Talk to me a little bit about that.

Atsuko: I had a realization the other day where sometimes I go into a bar and I see a group of people that are having fun or something and laughing together, and I go, "How do I approach that table?" It's so daunting. It's high school all over again. Being in the quad during lunch, seeing groups of different people, and it's still the same thing as an adult. Just like, "Hello what's your favorite color?" How do you approach people that are already pretty happy with their friend group? Most adults come with their set of friends already. What do you do? "Hey, you want to arm wrestle with me at this bar?" That's something I realize and have started to talk about, at least from my new hour of standup.

Melissa: The way you described it, adults already come with their own friend group and you're trying to break in, trying to figure out where to sit at the table. It does sound, in a certain way, a metaphor for the immigrant experience as well. Showing up in a nation where folks think of all the seats as already taken or fairly rigidly defined, and what it means to break into that space.

Atsuko: Yes. That's so true because then you go, "Maybe I try to hang out with fellow immigrants, fellow people from my place." That's assuming having just that as a commonality will have enough chemistry, you know what I mean? There's still whole personalities that people carry with them. Your friend group should look like the Avengers. If you were actually approaching friendships for a heart-to-heart connection everyone shouldn't like look you, you shouldn't all look the same.

Melissa: Tell me about finding Margaret Cho in church.

Atsuko: [chuckles] I was going to church because, like I was saying, you try to find your own community. When I first came to the States, my uncle, who we were staying with was going to church. He was the choir director. He was like, "Do you want to make friends or not?" [laughs] Church is a great way to do it and that's how they get immigrants. They go, "There's free lunch, there's people who speak your language." I went to Church and a friend of mine in youth group passed a DVD of Margaret Cho's standup to me during one of the sermons.

It was this very hush-hush like, "Hey, take this home." I was like, "What's this? What? A DVD?" She's like, "That's standup comedy." I was like, "Standup comedy?" I'd never heard of that before. I was blown away. I was laughing so hard. It was one person holding court just talking, using her mouth to make people laugh just with words and stories and impressions and jokes. It was someone who looked like me and I had also never seen that before. That was the start of me realizing standup comedy could be a path for me.

Melissa: I love this visual I now have of almost contraband passing a Margaret Cho DVD down the pew during the sermon.

Atsuko: It wasn't so bad, but she might curse, you know what I mean? Talk about dirty things. It was in church, right after we ate the body of Jesus or whatever and drank his blood, that was the only thing getting passed around or the donation bag. It was pretty cool to get Margaret Cho instead that day.

Melissa: I actually want to play something for you.

Margaret Cho: Atsuko is such an inspiration to me. She shows me that there is so much that is possible in terms of comedy, in terms of Asianness, in terms of Americanness, in terms of feminism, in terms of fashion. She is wildly inventive, such a weirdo in the best way and she always really just, I think, impresses me, instigates this joy and fierce excitement. She's everything come through Atsuko. I love you.

Atsuko: Oh my gosh. Am I on Ricki Lake?

Melissa: [laughs] It's so good.

Atsuko: Is anybody there? Hello. Wait, who am I? Hello?

Melissa: How does it feel to be called such a weirdo in the best way, by Margaret Cho?

Atsuko: That was so sweet. I recognize her voice from anywhere, from miles away. Oh my gosh, it was heartwarming to hear my idol, someone I grew up watching that I'm friends with now, but that is so sweet. These are the kinds of words I say about her behind her back. We're doing something I think historical with HBO because on HBO, Margaret Cho was the first Asian American female standup I had seen with a special on there. The second one is going to be me. I went to her place and we talked about this and I was like, "Do you have any advice for the third Asian American female standup that's going to have a special in HBO?" She said, "Wear antiperspirant," because she could still see the sweat stains in her special 22 years later.

Melissa: That's so real. That's actual advice, real and actual advice. [laughs]

Atsuko: You can do the whole like, "Believe in yourself. Just go for it, girl." When it comes to the time of the taping I need some technical advice too, and that's what I love about Margaret. She always finds levity and things and gets to the point. It's like, gosh, I didn't actually wear a deodorant on the day of my taping. How could I forget?

Melissa: I think the question is though, when you dropped it for the creation of the drop challenge, were you wearing clean underwear?

Atsuko: Was I wearing underwear? I don't think anyone's ever asked me that in an interview before.

Melissa: These are the key questions, are you wearing deodorant and clean underwear? These are like the grandma questions.

Atsuko: 100%, is it always clean? I don't know about that. As long as my husband did the laundry it is.

Melissa: There you go. I have to say, your grandmother's expression, though, as you dropped it all over Tokyo is my favorite thing.

Atsuko: What, just deadpan and confused?

Melissa: Yes. She's just like, "Why? Why is this happening?"

[laughter]

Atsuko: That's my entire upbringing I think. Something about being raised by someone two generations above you, is that there's always going to be a, "What is going on? What are kids doing these days?" She's 50 years older than me and so that's always been a constant ever since I was a kid, anything I did. I remember one time I even made my grandma be my boyfriend while we were in public because I just wanted a boyfriend. "Maybe from the back if I put my arms around her, she has short hair, people will think this is my boyfriend." I've done weird things to her.

Melissa: As we go out, if you were to leave a voice memo to your grandmother at this point, what would it say?

Atsuko: I never thought about that. I thought I tried to tell her everything, but I'll say that she's worked really, really, really hard in her life and I'm so glad that even if it's been more recent times, I'm glad that she's able to relax and have fun too because out of anyone I know she deserves it.

Melissa: I love that. Atsuko thank you so much for taking the time with us today.

Atsuko: Thank you so much for having me.

Melissa: That was comedian Atsuko Okatsuka. Her comedy special, The intruder premieres December 10:00 on HBO and HBO Max.

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