With each passing episode, Silicon Valley’s Jian-Yang becomes more of an asshole—especially now that T.J. Miller’s Erlich Bachman is off wasting away in an opium den. Jimmy O. Yang, however, is excited for the chance to take his character’s deviant shenanigans to the next level. “I kind of love it,” he admitted in a recent phone interview with V.F. “Because me, myself, I don’t think I’m an asshole in real life. Something about me playing an asshole is very funny, because I look very small and nice.”

As usual, Season 5 of the HBO comedy—premiering March 25—finds everyone doing their best to climb Silicon Valley’s ladder to wealth and fame. In Jian-Yang’s case, that means hoarding all of Erlich’s old stuff for himself. The incubator founder, you’ll recall, took a one-way trip to Tibet in Season 4, before Miller swore that he would never return to make so much as a cameo on the show. (Not long after that, the actor was accused of sexual assault, a charge he denies.)

Though he had a good working relationship with Miller, Yang pointed out that the actor’s exit will also be a positive turning point—both for the series and for his character. “It’s like your best friend got transferred to a different school,” Yang said. “You know, life goes on, you’ve still got other friends on the show and it’s still really fun. It’s a fun school, but you still miss him, man. You know? . . . I mean, all the other cast are so good, so we all pick up the slack. We have deep bench, you know what I mean?”

Plus, after four seasons, it never hurts to re-jigger the starting lineup a bit. With Miller gone, the series can try out new pairings and scenarios for its various usual players. And Yang is more than ready; as he puts it, “When somebody like me gets called off the bench, I can hit the shot.” Given that his character started as a two-line bit part, Yang is particularly enthusiastic about becoming the show’s “main asshole.”

Yang was born in Hong Kong and lived there until age 13, when his family moved to the U.S. In his recently published book, How to American: An Immigrant’s Guide to Disappointing Your Parents, Yang writes about feeling like an outsider—both as an immigrant to the States and even during his time in Hong Kong, as someone whose family came from the mainland. Although Yang majored in economics, he knew a career in the field wasn’t for him—which is where his book’s subtitle comes in. He got his start in show business through stand-up comedy, appearing on one of the Arsenio Hall revival’s last episodes before the series was canceled.

It took 101 auditions before Yang landed on Silicon Valley—for parts including a stoner with two lines on How I Met Your Mother and “guy eating chicken nuggets” in a McDonald’s commercial. (Yang lists all of these in his book.) He actually auditioned for his Silicon Valley role twice—once when the series was still being called Deep Tech, and then later, after the part had been shrunken down to two lines.

Still, there was something about Jian-Yang that made Yang think the part would be different. The show’s creator, Mike Judge, had been his commencement speaker at the University of California, San Diego. As Yang notes in the book, it was Judge who inspired him to follow his dreams. And even as he filmed Jian-Yang’s two-line introduction in the first season’s third episode, something immediately clicked: Jian-Yang was an outsider, just like Yang so often felt like he was.

“I guess I’ve lived my whole life as an outsider,” Yang said. “As an immigrant, as an economics major, sneak into Hollywood as a guest star, sneak in to be a series regular onto the show. It’s kind of art imitating life, and I’m O.K. with it. I’m very comfortable with it.”