If you’ve ever considered a pickup line for a potential new friend, “Hello, hi! Gemini!” seems as good an attempt as any. That’s comedian Atsuko Okatsuka’s suggestion in her delightful new special, Father (out June 13 on Hulu and Disney±), bemoaning how awkward the pursuit of new adult friendships can be.
“I always wanted to be normal—but I’m not normal,” Okatsuka tells me over coffee in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, her neon nails decorated with miniature 3D shrimp and orange slices and her hair in its famous bowl cut. “My personality and circumstances stop me from being that, and so that’s the part I’m embracing.”
Known for her exuberant physicality and dopamine dressing, Okatsuka is the originator of 2022’s viral Drop Challenge, in which she swiftly and nonchalantly squats to the beat drop in Beyonce’s “Partition”—in the grocery store, on an elevator, shopping around LA’s Little Tokyo—often with her 90-year-old Grandma Li giggling next to her.
TikTok content
Her second special’s title is a play on her rejection of marital stereotypes: “I’m married, but I’ve never done the laundry. My husband does it.” Nevertheless, to her fans, she is decidedly mother.
Here, Vogue catches up with Okatsuka in advance of her special and upcoming Big Bowl Tour.
Vogue: What’s your personal evolution been like in the years between your last special, 2022’s The Intruder, and Father?
Atsuko Okatsuka: With Father, I got to tour it a lot more, and I evolved as a person. With your first project, some people really know themselves. Some people are like, “I knew since I was four years old I was going to be a filmmaker.” And I’m like, How do you have this self-confidence to even say such a thing? I wish I had that kind of delusion or self-confidence. I’ve been doing it 16 years, but I didn’t start saying I was a stand-up until 2015 because I wanted to make sure it looked like something that could be full-time. It’s my upbringing. In The Intruder, I’m talking faster. I was excited to be debuting. But with Father, I got to go back into some of my roots and my true self, which is a lot of deadpan and not being scared of the silence—more observational comedy and taking my time. I love The Intruder, but somehow Father is even funnier and more me.
You’re also writing for and starring in several upcoming TV and film projects. Has that always been a goal for you?
Yeah, whichever way I can feel seen and able to share my story. Stand-up is the most efficient way to do that. You’re physically in front of people and able to have that connection back and forth. When you’re shooting scenes for TV or film, you’re with the film crew and your fellow actors. You don’t see the real people there. You’re just imagining that one day they’ll see it. You might never even see how they react to your work, which is so the opposite of stand-up. They’ll tell you later, but you don’t even know if they’re telling you the truth. I want to be watching your face. I’m a psychopath. I want the real-time reaction I get when I’m literally telling you the jokes. But I do have different ways I could tell a story, and I really love movies.
In Father, you’re open about the codependency between you and your husband, painter and producer Ryan Harper Gray, who directed the special. You celebrate marriage in a way that almost feels subversive for a comedian.
Being your authentic self is feminism too. I’m inspired by all kinds of fellow female comedians, and some of them are more rigid and more anti-man. And that’s their authentic self. I’m good friends with Chelsea Handler, and she’s like that, but she also loves [Ryan’s and my] love. And when she’s been in relationships and love, she loves love too. But her general sense is, I hate men, and that’s her true self. I’ve been tempted in the past to be like, Maybe that’s how I talk about guys too. But that’s not how I feel about Ryan. That’s the revolutionary thing. You be you. That’s its own movement too. And maybe it’ll encourage men to be better. Like: Oh shit. Our wives could be stoked about us.
You’ve talked about the difficulty of making friends as an adult. With your rising fame, do you feel like it’s been even harder? Or is it easier because more people are drawn to you?
It’s both, where it is maybe easier to be approached by other people. There are more applicants. But then there’s also having to figure that out. A lot of times, you really don’t know if someone is a good fit as a friend until you’ve gone through something intense together. A lunch date once in a while, you really don’t know. As a comedian, I tend to be friends with more comedians because they also understand tour life or getting recognized in public. It was so hard to navigate high school, but I’m back in it again. We’re always back in it. Every situation, every party you go to, I’m like, Oh great. Prom again? Who’s the cool kid at this party? It’s truly a repeat of everything from childhood. That’s why I reminisce on childhood a lot. It was easier to make friends. It was just forced on us. Even though our parents told us who to hang out with, I’m like, please, let’s try that again!
You say in the special that having a common enemy is a great way to make friends.
Right. Or you need an earthquake or something—everyone will get really close. I always say that a common enemy doesn’t have to be a person. It could be Mother Nature. It could be a long line.
Your grandmother raised you, and she figures so prominently in your content that she’s become a celebrity herself.
I do get along with the elderly more. Kids and I butt heads a lot. They don’t like me. I’ve met so many babies with my haircut, and they’re like, Why does this baby get to walk around? Why does she get her own seat on an airplane? And I’m like, “You have no idea. You have so many things ahead of you. Every rule, every law is for you. You are the future.” People would email me asking to get my grandma in their films because they needed a Taiwanese or Asian grandma. It was, like, 12-hour shoot days for a SAG [Screen Actors Guild union] production. There are rules for children for SAG. They can only work certain hours, and they have to have a teacher on set. So I was like, surely there are labor rules for seniors there. There aren’t. They’d be able to work my grandma the whole 12 hours without rest. I’m finding out that with elders there isn’t anything protecting them.
You’ve said you feel like you have a sixth sense about culture. Do you feel like it’s nurture or nature that’s made you such a keen observer?
It’s probably both. You do have to be curious about other people and how they live and think. I was born in Taiwan and then moved to Japan, and then I was moved to America abruptly—not my choice, any of these things. So I had to adapt quickly and be able to read people. The first language I really heard in America was Spanish because of my classmates. And then I had Russians in my class, a classmate from Turkey. I had to learn where that was. The Russian kids didn’t speak English, and I didn’t either, so we were like, Do we come up with a third language? Do we use our physicality? I’m a very physical performer. I use my eyes a lot. Sometimes I make a noise instead of a word. All of that developed from me trying to connect with all kinds of people from all kinds of places.
I think your celebration of your multidimensionality encourages other people to celebrate theirs, which is beautiful.
I just did my Europe tour, and Scandinavia really surprised me. There’s a lot of Tokyo fashion in Scandinavia. There was a cartoon character in Japan that was huge, Moomin, so much so I thought Japanese people invented it, like Hello Kitty. I went to Finland, and it was invented there. There are a lot of similarities. In America, I always have to teach people how to pronounce my name: The U is silent, but it’s there. How am I going to explain that in Norway or Iceland? And they’re like, “Girl, my name is Thyrbyrsgorsdottir. I have a cousin named Yeeeork, four E’s. Atsuko is not an issue for us.” And I was like, Oh my God, I feel so seen.
This interview has been edited and condensed.