Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.

What was it like for you to come to America as a child?



Any time I think about the Korean War, I end up thinking about raising children in chaos. The ensuing years were a time of great instability in Korea, and for me it was a great trauma to move countries and not speak the language and be made fun of for the way I looked and talked. No sweat for my parents — it must have seemed like a step up for them. They were coming to the United States, the land of opportunity.

Does anything especially stand out?



I remember very vividly, when I was in first grade and very new to the United States, we were told that we would be participating in an activity called show-and-tell. And my father decided this would be a good time to educate these Houstonian children on Korean culture. So he made a little book with a map and pictures, like a little photo album, and sent it off with me. He didn’t realize people brought in their teddy bears, and I was deeply, deeply embarrassed, but what could I do? My teacher was so excited that she saw a teaching opportunity, and I remember the map going down. [Laughs] I guess maybe, if you’re my therapist here, this is full-circle coming to terms with that early childhood trauma, and really I’m doing that show-and-tell all these years later.

You kind of have a political theme going, with a “Twilight Zone” episode that feels ominously prescient.

I was worried about that idea. You know, drawing parallels to this president is tricky and I didn’t want it to come off as a critique. I think it should come off as a thought exercise.



Were you perhaps also worried about going to dark places with Jordan after seeing “Us”?

I haven’t seen “Us” yet but “Key & Peele,” I was just like, These guys are geniuses. I don’t want to necessarily compare myself to Jordan Peele. It’s just that “Harold & Kumar” also talked about race in the context of a stoner comedy. And I was like, Oh my god, these guys are doing it so much better than I could have ever imagined. And then he did “Get Out,” talking about race within the framework of a horror movie, and I just thought that was the most difficult Greg Louganis dive I have ever seen in cinema.