Joe Skinner: You say in the special that America is like an escape room.
Atsuko Okatsuka: I can understand people being stoked about escape rooms, being like, “Ooh. Like, I’m gonna get thrown off.” And I paid for it.
Joe Skinner: Usually the fun thing about escape rooms is that it’s kind of a construction, right? But then America-
Atsuko Okatsuka: Yes. Yeah.
Joe Skinner: Can’t escape the health insurance industry.
Atsuko Okatsuka: For sure, but sometimes you’ll get close, right, to solving the game. And then, you win enough and you go, “Okay, I’ll stay a little longer. I’ll do it again.” Yeah, and I think that’s the resilience of human beings, though. We get a little taste of, like, the dream or what you came for could be. And then, boom, sweetie, you’re stuck in the… You just bought another season of the escape room pass or whatever. Yeah.
Joe Skinner (Host): This is “American Masters: Creative Spark,” and I’m your host, Joe Skinner. Our guest today is comedian Atsuko Okatsuka. She was last on the show five years ago during the peak of a global pandemic. And since then, her career has skyrocketed, defined by jokes about her immigrant experience told in her own autobiographical style. In her most recent special called “Father,” Atsuko reflects on reconnecting with her dad through trips to Japan. We love Atsuko’s Fearless embrace of her own weirdness, and we’re thrilled to have her back; this time, in person.
Joe Skinner: A lot has changed since we last spoke. 2021 was kind of a big time for you with TikTok in particular.
Atsuko Okatsuka: Yeah, I guess so, yeah. It was a big moment for TikTok, too. Not because of me necessarily, but because everyone was on there because we were all locked down and the pandemic had us all inside. And so, the way to stay connected was social media. But I did learn a lot of things about myself as a performer, doing comedy shows on Zoom, for example, or turning to my phone more, and talking directly to people on TikTok or Instagram, doing dance videos, trying to make people feel better from home with my grandma, and then posting it online, and suddenly growing an audience online that was bigger than before, going, quote, unquote, “Viral,” by accident. So, when standup comedy was like allowed back live, I had already grown as a performer and in a way where I was more vulnerable. And also, there was no… I didn’t want to take anything for granted anymore, too. Right, so I started talking about things even in standup that I never did before. I’d been doing standup where I started like 16 years ago, but suddenly I was now talking about my mom who has schizophrenia and also gets seizures a couple times a week. And so, things that were difficult to talk about, I finally was able to.
Joe Skinner: Was it something about being kind of stuck at home in that virtual world that kind of you think helped you get better at talking about those things?
Atsuko Okatsuka: Yeah, it was like… There’s no more BS, there’s no more time to waste. I was with my mom a lot, and I knew other people who were suffering, so I was like, “Let’s talk about the difficult things, but make it funny, that’s my job.” And I think, and I was seeing more and more people as I became more… Not just vulnerable, but real and an open book. They also were that back to me, too. That’s when they felt seen, finally. And in turn, I felt seen, too. And that’s what a, quote, unquote, audience is, is fellow weirdos who go, “Oh, yeah, you’ve built a community of us. We wanna come see you live. we connect with your standup and your thoughts. Thanks for making schizophrenia funny.” “My mom has it too,” or, “My brother had it,” or, “I have it,” people started opening up.
Joe Skinner: I mean, it sounds to me like you’re describing the process of becoming yourself.
Atsuko Okatsuka: Right, which is so hard to, I think, find.
Joe Skinner: Yeah, I can imagine.
Atsuko Okatsuka: Yeah.
Joe Skinner: So, why do you think our culture values that so much right now for artists is the idea of being yourself?
Atsuko Okatsuka: I mean, maybe because of like… Again, like the life is short, it’s fleeting, maybe. Internationally, we all went through something together that, for once, you knew what someone else in like Iceland was feeling, or maybe it was Iceland lockdown, maybe not, but for the most part, right, we all were connected and for once in a long time. And I think that that helped with not wanting BS. But then with every, like, thing that happens, there’s like a counterculture that happens right after, right? And so, it’s funny you said like, “People value, like, being yourself,” and then immediately after that it was like suddenly, like AI got really strong and AI videos or something. And so, we’re craving reality still, like this video of like a person reuniting with their dog they haven’t seen in 20 years is so sweet, and then you find out it’s AI and you’re like, “Oh, I was craving that real moment.”
Joe Skinner: Right.
Atsuko Okatsuka: Right? I think so more than ever, too, it’s back. Like, we want authenticity. Real people, real feelings. Yeah.
Joe Skinner: And so are you thinking about that when you’re developing something like “Father”?
Atsuko Okatsuka: Yeah, I think so. Yeah, for sure. I’m thinking a lot about, “Okay, I want it to be entertaining and funny.” So, I struggle because it’s like, “Well, I wanna talk about how I reconnected with my dad this time around. And I want to talk about how I was undocumented a little bit more than I did in the first special, but how to make that funny.” So, it’s a struggle. Like, “Okay, well, I don’t wanna stay in darkness too long.” Reconnecting with a whole father, that’s a drama, right?
Joe Skinner: Right, yeah.
Atsuko Okatsuka: But how to make that funny. I was raised by two women, my mom and grandma. Yes. We were a girl gang, except one of us was extremely old; one of us had schizophrenia, my mom; and I was a child. So, we were more like a social worker’s worst nightmare.
Joe Skinner: When you’re sort of putting that together, are you balancing out like, “Oh, this is veering into too dramatic right now,” and are you kind of like putting your hand on the scales to try to balance that out as you’re going, or it’s more intuitive than that?
Atsuko Okatsuka: So I tape every show, and then I’ll watch the performance, and I’ll really like try to put myself in the shoes of someone watching it or hearing it for the first time. And I’ll go, “Okay, okay, this part is way too dragged out. This is now just storytelling time.” Or, “Now, this is a TED Talk, it’s more of a speech. Let’s entertain again.” Or ’cause storytelling is entertaining, too, but I just have to remember, “Okay, wait, let’s…” I think sometimes, it’s hard because sometimes the standup comedy person in me could be the person like attacking my genuine self a little bit. Judging it. “Hey, where’s the funny jokes per minute?” Like, it’s like the traditional old-school standups of, like, New York or something, what they would say. These terms that club comics throw around, right? Jokes per minute.
Joe Skinner: But also, like, clearly your special is pushing back against a lot of those conventions and rules, right? And that seems to create like a tension.
Atsuko Okatsuka: That’s true. Yeah. I think I have to remember that that’s also me, like not speaking English properly or not even using the right words. Sometimes, I make up words. Sometimes, it’s just a sound that comes out of my mouth. And then, you know what I mean? It’s in my eyes, sometimes, that what I just told you is like… It was frightening to me or whatever. I’m very emotive because English wasn’t always a language I spoke. It’s not my first language, it’s my third. And so, I think that… Yeah, I have to remember, I’m not the… I’m not traditional, I’m unconventional. But, traditional rules work, too, for a reason. So, yeah.
Joe Skinner: Hmm. How do you think about comedy as a way to bridge culture?
Atsuko Okatsuka: Comedy, what is it, bridged me with the rest of the world, so I should be able to do the same. Meaning when I was little kid living in Japan, I was watching Lucille Ball and I didn’t know what she was saying, but I could, from her physicality, and the set pieces, and her facial expressions, what was happening, the gist of it, I got. So, I think that’s why I’m also very physical, and I gesture a lot, or emote a lot with my face because that’s universal, right? And I don’t use super difficult English words. Like, I’m not very cerebral. I’m not using references that are very local. It’s important to me that I reach as many people as possible. The point for me with art is I always wanted to be understood, so why would I make myself even hard to understand? That’s good if you want… Trust me, I went to art school. Like, I know trying to have a small audience, okay? Or not trying to, but living in that space, right? It’s like, “This is for the art, this is for my integrity.” And that’s cool. But I want to talk to more than 15 people. I’m an only child, I have half siblings that I’m just meeting for the first time. And I was separated from my dad as a kid without me wanting that. Moved to the US without me wanting that. Became undocumented, live in a garage. My first friends were the pigeons. Of course I want to be understood internationally with as many people as possible. And so, yeah, like I’ll make sure my references, if like the punchline, while I was working on it, is like something like Trader Joe’s, I’ll make sure to change it to something that internationally people will know as much as possible. I’ve even started workshopping jokes in Japan to start before I tour now.
Joe Skinner: Oh, wow.
Atsuko Okatsuka: So, during the holidays, I spend time in Japan now. I’ve been doing this like for two years, where I’ll be near my dad and some of my relatives in Japan. And then, at the Tokyo Comedy Bar there, I will start writing new jokes for my new tour.
Joe Skinner: Do international audiences receive your comedy differently?
Atsuko Okatsuka: They all get it. Everyone’s started to, because of online, because of Instagram, TikTok, people mostly see standup there, honestly. They understand the cadence and they understand American standup comedy, and watching it in English, and what a set up punchline looks like, too. Yeah, they’ve even started learning English more. Sometimes, through… A lot of, like, Japanese people, Japanese locals who are shy about their English have even told me they learn English through watching my standup, too.
Joe Skinner: Oh, wow.
Atsuko Okatsuka: The places that get laughs in the US, or Canada, or London, or something get laughs in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Norway. Yeah,. it’s been really cool to see. Some things, some references I’ll change. Like, in “Father,” I talk about cheerleading, and so I would just set it up a little differently because cheerleaders don’t exist outside of the US. So, but they’ve… Internationally, people have seen “Bring It On” or they know what it is because America number one, Or which is such a… It’s a wild thing to be constantly reminded of, actually-
Joe Skinner: Right.
Atsuko Okatsuka: Is that God, we are the center of the world.
Joe Skinner: Right.
Atsuko Okatsuka: Culture-wise, everyone watches our stuff.
Joe Skinner: For now.
Atsuko Okatsuka: For now, for now. But it’s like, “We took it for granted. What spoiled brats we are.” That, like, “Dude, we could travel and not have learned another language.” Americans, like English speakers, we’re so lucky. Truly, other people bend over backwards trying to understand. They know what we’re going through, they know our economics. We go to a place, we have no idea. Wait, you have a president? You have elections? I didn’t know, I didn’t know that. ‘Cause we didn’t have to learn about other places, and we don’t… Anyway.
Joe Skinner: It’s pretty cocky.
Atsuko Okatsuka: It’s pretty cocky, yeah.
Joe Skinner: You say in the special that America is like an escape room.
Atsuko Okatsuka: Right, yeah.
Joe Skinner: What keeps you in America? Why not just-
Atsuko Okatsuka: What keeps people going back to escape rooms?
Joe Skinner: Yeah, what keeps people going back to escape rooms? I’ve never been to one.
Atsuko Okatsuka: People love escape… Oh, I’ve never been to an escape room, too, but, oh, I have so many friends who love it. Love. Oh, my goodness. They love the mystique, the mystery. They love like, “Oh, we have 10 seconds to figure this out.” The anxiety, I think. Built in anxiety. I like thrills, so I love like an amusement park, so I kind of get that mindset. I love, like, Disneyland. I’m kind of a… Not quite a Disney adult in that, like, remember when during the pandemic, when like people were like protesting outside Disneyland for like being shut down, with signs that say like, “Bring back the happiness, bring back the joy.” Remember?
Joe Skinner: Mm-hmm.
Atsuko Okatsuka: I’m not like that. I was like, “Okay.”
Joe Skinner: One rung below that level of Disney adult.
Atsuko Okatsuka: Yeah, like, I get excited, I get really stoked and, like, I get super organized suddenly. My husband calls it my Disneyland brain where I’m not organized typically. Like, I was late today coming here. I have a hard time finding my keys, but once you drop me off at Disneyland, I’m suddenly the leader. I’m like, “Okay, guys, I have the app here. I’ve planned out the whole day. We’re going on this ride first, and then we’re gonna hit this food cart, okay?” Because usually, there’s not a line around 10:30 in the morning. I’m like that with Disneyland. And so, I can understand people being stoked about escape rooms, being like, “Ooh, like… I’m gonna get thrown off, and I paid for it.” And there’s set pieces, and maybe there’s a storyline, I’ll be entertained at the same time, I can show off my skills. Different people’s personalities come out. I think people… That’s why people liked watching “Squid Game,” too, right? That was a big like, quote, unquote, kind of escape room.
Joe Skinner: Right, yeah.
Atsuko Okatsuka: Right.
Joe Skinner: Usually, the fun thing about escape rooms is that it’s kind of a construction, right? But then America-
Atsuko Okatsuka: Yes. Yeah.
Joe Skinner: Can’t escape the health insurance industry here, right?
Atsuko Okatsuka: For sure, but sometimes you’ll get close, right, to solving the game. And then you win enough and you go, “Okay, I’ll stay a little longer, I’ll do it again.” And then, it’s good at that. It’s like you go… Yeah, and I think that’s the resilience of human beings, though, too, is we get a little taste of like what the dream or what you came for could be. And you go, “Whoa.” Oh, God, sorry. I got so sad thinking about that. But it’s really cool of human beings to be able to do that. Like, I will keep going, then, because… Yeah, I do have a kid or like… I’m child free, but I can imagine you see your kid playing with another kid or something, getting along with them, and you go, “Oh, well, they made a friend, so yeah, this… Yeah, right, this is for them. So, yeah, I’ll stay longer.” I can see that happening, for sure. And then, boom, sweetie, you’re stuck in the… You just bought another season of the escape room pass or whatever. Yeah.
Joe Skinner: So, when did you start going back to Japan more frequently? It sounds like that’s something that’s kind of been a new thing for you.
Atsuko Okatsuka: Yeah, so because of standup comedy, I was able to go back to Japan more. It’s so wild. I had to go away from Japan, be away for so many years, and then get good at this craft in a language that’s not my first, my native tongue. And then, they’re like, “Come back, come back. Come. We love you.” And yeah, so that’s something I think about and trip about all the time where I’m like, “That’s so wild. Like, I never wanted to leave you guys.” But now, like strangers there know my name. Not just that, they’re proud of me. Not just proud of me, but, like, stoked. They’re like, “You represent us.” It’s like, “Oh, God, I feel like a Olympian athlete or something.” And I was getting to perform in front of my dad, too. He had missed out on so much of my life. And so that’s something I always feel a little sad about, and I think he feels sad about, too, because neither of us kind of had a say in that when my grandma just took me from him to come to the US for the two-month vacation that turned into forever, right? So, he got to come see my shows. He was at both that I did initially. I did four shows in Tokyo total for like 4,000 people. And in Japan, right, like when you come home from work or school, you go, ” , I’m home.” And everyone in your family goes, ” , welcome home.” Right, so I got on stage. The first show in Tokyo got… And I hadn’t been back in a long time, never performed there. I tried singing. I said, ” ,” I said, “I’m home.” And thousands of people said, back to me, “Welcome home.” And I was like, “Oh, my God. What was that? That wasn’t practiced.” I got so emotional. Yeah, it was a really cool moment, where it was like, “God, like…” I felt like we all went through it together. Yeah.
Joe Skinner: I love that.
Atsuko Okatsuka: Yeah, it was really cool. But there’s still like a layer of me that’s sad about, like, my dad didn’t know what I was saying ’cause I’m doing standup in English. So, some things were won, but at many costs, right, like a lot of things. I was undocumented, and lost a lot of Japanese language, and I can’t even communicate with my dad, really, without a translator. So, it’s like a… Yeah, that’s a lot of immigrant stories, though.
Joe Skinner: Wow, that’s such a sweet story. I love that.
Atsuko Okatsuka: Yeah. I didn’t know. I didn’t know you could do it on stage. I don’t know the rules. But again, break the rules, try it out.
Joe Skinner: It also reminds me of the cheerleading bit from “Father” too. I guess that’s the American version of .
Atsuko Okatsuka: Right, yeah. Ready? Okay. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I love a call and response. The cheerleader in me is always trying to get a group of people to do something at the same time. Dance moves say the same thing. I’d be a great dictator. Everyone, at the same time.
Joe Skinner: I like to think you’re building community.
Atsuko Okatsuka: Yeah. It’s a fine line, honestly, because people have started to show up to my shows wearing wigs of my bowl cut, and I bring them onto stage and I’m just looking out at the sea of people. And then the people on stage wearing wigs of my bowl cut. I go, “God, this is just one way to start a cult.”
Joe Skinner: One way to build community, Atsuko.
Atsuko Okatsuka: Thank you. Yeah, yeah. That’s what Jonestown was, was a community, too. Exactly. That’s right, yeah.
Joe Skinner: That’s what we’re all doing here is we’re building communities.
Atsuko Okatsuka: I think Charles Manson famously said that, too, many times, “Hey, guys.”
Joe Skinner: Southern California’s good for that, I guess.
Atsuko Okatsuka: When people are like, “Hey, this feels kind of…” Sweetie, this is for the community, yeah. I think famous, famous, famous Manson words. “Sweetie, this is for the community.” Or maybe it’s a drag race I’m quoting.
Joe Skinner: Six of one, half dozen of another.
Atsuko Okatsuka: Another saying I don’t know.
Joe Skinner: Well, a lot of your comedy does mind the autobiographical, as we’ve been talking about, and so I’m just curious: Do you ever worry about running out of things to say about yourself?
Atsuko Okatsuka: I’ve had that fear, and like very recently too, as I’m touring my latest hour, and writing and rewriting, throwing away jokes. But I think I’m always reminded, there’s always so much more to talk about as… Because you are a constant moving thing, just like the world is. And so, as long as you go with the world, there’s always so much to talk about. A perspective like America’s the escape room of countries, that comes from my POV and what I’ve gone through, but also it’s because I’m moving with the world. And so, other people have also felt that way. They’re like, “I also live in America and I also feel that same way.” Or people who don’t even live in America can see that that’s true, right, just from the news, or having family in the US, or friends. And so, I think as long as you’re staying in conversation of the times, with the times, there’s always so much to talk about from your perspective, from what you’re going through. So, yeah, I’m… And then, like, I’m always trying to look for the absurd as a way of surviving and as a way of… It’s a necessity for me to laugh about things. So, the jokes will always come. I’ve had to remind myself of that, yeah.
Joe Skinner: Yeah, I think in the special, you kind of nod at this idea, though, ’cause you talk about, “I want to cut my hair, I want to try this hair.”
Atsuko Okatsuka: Right, right. But I can’t because this is my brand. Yeah, and that’s another thing. Like, it’s a observation. It’s a silly one. It’s also true. This haircut is on merch, it’s on so many shirts.
Joe Skinner: It’s on a salad bowl.
Atsuko Okatsuka: Hundreds of shirts, yeah, exactly. Yeah, and not just bowl, but it’s because it’s a pun, right? It’s a play on the fact that I have a bowl cut, that’s why there’s two restaurants doing bowls.
Joe Skinner: And “The Big Bowl Tour,” right?
Atsuko Okatsuka: And “The Big Bowl Tour,” which is my tour that I’m on right now to… Yeah, so… There was even like a giveaway we did through a whiskey company, where it was like a bowl that had my hair cut on it, so people could, like, eat out of it. Anyway, so there’s been a lot of puns, a lot of merch made, and people show up to my shows wearing wigs of it. And it represents to me, like, embracing the things that made me feel like a freak in the past, like a weirdo. A lot of children have this haircut that were forced on. It was forced on them by their parents, and they hated it. They’re like, “It was ugly. I just want long, beautiful hair.” And it’s just me being, like, “I embrace my weirdo self. I embrace the things that made me feel embarrassed in the past.” Also, I like to play with like gender norms a lot when I do get… When I have gotten hateful comments about my looks, it’s been from guys who hate short hair on a girl. They’re like, “Is this a girl or a boy?” They get weirdly, like, transphobic about it, and they’re like, “‘Cause girls have, like, long hair. I’m not attracted to this.” And so, it’s like a… Not an act of defiance, but it means a lot, this haircut. And it’s also a nod to my culture and where I’m from, in Asia. In Asia, when I say, “Every child had this haircut,” every child had this haircut. And like when I’m in Asia, it’s like me and babies we’re staring at each other. They look at me like, “Are you our leader?” You know what I mean? Because we go, “Yeah.” It’s like the “Spider-Man” thing, but they’re like, “This is an elongated version of us. Why does she get her own seat on an airplane? Why does she get to walk around without her parents?” They all look at me like that. And… So, it would be, I think, like another phase in my life. Maybe something big has to happen for me to change the hair, but I do want to. Like, musicians get to do that too.
Joe Skinner: For my last question, what do you hope people get out of the special?
Atsuko Okatsuka: I think, like, my main message always is being an adult is hard, right? I talk about making friends as an adult. How do you do it? Gosh, it’s, like, you even have to have different groups of friends. You have to separate your daytime friends from your nighttime friends. If they meet, they’ll know you’re a liar because you act different when you’re at night. And it’s like, “Oh, you drink?” And your daytime friends are like, “Oh, okay. You party this hard?” It’s like, “Oh, sorry, I was trying to keep that away from you.” And to realizing me and my husband were never married because paperwork is hard. But what does that mean? Who made the rules on that? I was undocumented. I didn’t want that as a kid to… My dad wanted me to have kids, and I’m like, “Dad, I think our family should stop.” And to my husband, getting a vasectomy is what we decided. And he has gotten one since. But we even did that wrong. Like, we… Oh, we somehow forgot that there were two procedures being done, a vasectomy and this other, like, one for an injury that he had in the past. So, anyway, he couldn’t walk for like three weeks. And I’m like, “Oh, God,” I’m like cooking. I just learned how to do the laundry. I talk about that, how I didn’t know. I hadn’t been doing the laundry for the past seven years. It’s been my husband this whole time. So, the point is like none of us were really taught exactly how to be adults. We weren’t really ready for it. So, we might as well, like, have fun while we’re doing it and laugh about it. Don’t be hard on yourself because it truly is like all an experiment, you know? We’re all truly just improvising and trying our best. Yeah.
