Sabrina Wu’s family and friends didn’t really comprehend that they were starring in the raunchy comedy “Joy Ride” alongside Ashley Park, Stephanie Hsu and Sherry Colauntil until the movie hit theaters. Before then, the stand-up comic’s only Hollywood job was as a writer on Disney+’s “Doogie Kameāloha, M.D.” “I remember calling my dad and telling him I got the part,” Wu tells me. “This is verbatim what he said: ‘Sabrina, I can’t wait to show you my new car.’ It went right over his head because it was too bizarre.”
Like their character Deadeye, the 25-year-old Wu uses “they/them” pronouns. They asked that Deadeye not have a big coming-out scene about their gender identity. “I definitely begged them to do it that way because I don’t think this R-rated comedy needed a moment where I’m like, ‘Hey, guys, I’m nonbinary.’ The level of care that kind of scene needs is not one that is for this genre,” Wu recalls.
Before being open about their identity professionally, Wu told close family and friends. “But I also have a very hard time lying. It feels really bad in my body, so I pretty much always try to tell the truth. And also, it just feels bad to hide parts of who you are,” says Wu, who grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, but now lives in Brooklyn.
They continue, “I use nonbinary and trans interchangeably. I haven’t quite figured out the perfect language yet. I just oscillate between transmasc and nonbinary gender non-conforming. They’re all fine.”
One thing that needs to happen sooner rather than later is Wu meeting Margaret Cho. Wu says Cho has been an inspiration since childhood. In high school, Wu emailed Cho after they came under fire for making a joke about tampons during a standup set at a student talent show. “I thought I was being funny and I didn’t understand why I couldn’t say that, but like this other guy can talk about unzipping his jeans and peeing,” Wu recalls. “I just felt so embarrassed and ashamed for not being a good Asian girl, but just knowing Margaret Cho was out in the world was so comforting. I thought she was the coolest.”
I ask Wu what would a buddy movie with Cho look like. Wu laughs, “Just reboot ‘Harold & Kumar’ but it’s me and Margaret.”
With their newfound fame, Wu has been confronted on social media by hateful trolls. “I will go on their social media page and see what they’re up to and it’s usually so much more embarrassing than anything I’ve ever done,” Wu says, laughing. “They’re like playing a guitar on Instagram and I’m like, ‘That is so embarrassing!’ and then I feel better.”
Joking aside, Wu says, “It reminds me that a lot of those people are dealing with their own repression, that something may not be totally quite right in their life. It’s like what does it take to have that much anger towards me, a total stranger. So I try to have some empathy.”
Wu’s community helps them move on. “I’m in a transmasc support group. The internet could be a terrible place for someone like me, but obviously also a place where I connect with lots of people like me. My real life is full of people who love me and I just try to stay focused on that.”
And Wu, one of PvNew‘s new 10 Comics to Watch, is also becoming someone’s Margaret Cho. “Someone will write to me and say they feel seen,” Wu says. “I’ll look on their socials and they’re usually even way more trans than I am. It’s like rainbow, rainbow, rainbow emoji. I’m like, ‘OK, I guess I could learn a thing or two.’”
The interview with Wu was conducted before SAG-AFTRA went on strike.
