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“My act is a love letter to my wife and I talk about her fight against breast cancer,” the star of Community and Dr. Ken says. “So needless to say this show is more heartfelt and real.”

Before he headed to Toronto, Jeong rang us from Los Angeles to reminisce on his first big break, the impact of Crazy Rich Asians and tells us why we’ll likely never see Leslie Chow from The Hangover ever again.

You were a real doctor. For most immigrant families, becoming a doctor is the dream. So how did you go from practicing medicine to doing standup and then going on to movies and TV?

It wasn’t a dream for me to become a physician, it was more my parents’ dream. I always joked that I was Korean-ed into becoming a doctor (laughs). I discovered acting in high school. I started doing improv and when I went to college I thought about taking an acting class, but I was pre-med at the same time. It was a very difficult time for me. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I wanted to try out acting, but the Korean side of me was telling me, ‘I don’t know if this is a viable profession for a guy that looks like me.’ There weren’t a lot of short Asian guys acting. So I didn’t know if that was what Hollywood was looking for. That’s why a movie like Crazy Rich Asians is so important because I don’t want any Asian in America or Canada thinking that. I want them to know that there’s a place in this business for them and that if they follow their heart, anything can happen. I’m living proof of that. In a lot of ways, I’m not supposed to be here. My career has been a very, very pleasant surprise.