Ronny Chieng got booed off stage but still impressed Trevor Noah enough to have him move to USA

Gruff stand-up comic Ronny Chieng has been booed off stage, retains an illusion of nonchalance and now has his face on 10 metre billboards in the ‘States

HEEEEERE’S Ronny. Reintroducing Ronny Chieng, ladies and gents.

He’s the Malaysian born, US-raised stand-up comedian who came to Australia to study law, went to an Open Mic night, slayed them in the aisles and found his true calling. Now he’s back living in the States again after hitting the big time as a correspondent on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. The South African born comedian saw Chieng’s show when Noah toured here three years ago and fired off an offer not soon after.

“As soon as Trevor emailed me to see if I wanted to join the show I was out of here,” he says quickly in his chopped, always half joking half serious tones.

You could tell Chieng had the X factor in 2011 when he acquitted himself very well in trying circumstances at the Raw Comedy heats at the Esplanade Hotel in St Kilda.

He owned the stage after a budding, possibly inebriated comic bombed. The room had fallen quiet after the previous hopeful said “I slept *hick* on the beach last night” (tumbleweeds blew by). He was played off stage by loud rock music.

The energy in the room dipped. Like, really dipped. An unknown Chinese-Australian guy was up next. Chieng took the mic, paused for a beat, then opened with “Don’t do drugs”. The Gershwin Room rocked with relieved, knowing laughter. A star was born.

The next year he broke through at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for his show The Ron Way. He and Matt Okine were awarded joint winners of the Best Newcomer Award.

Comedian Ronny Chieng and his “illusion of nonchalance.”

Ronny’s dry, faux-grumpy style resonated with crowds, even when he was spruiking merch. “I’ll be selling CDs and Members Only towels … but you don’t need to buy it, it’s just more stuff, you don’t need more stuff.” People still bought it.

Chieng has played bigger rooms each year at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and had to add extra dates to his 2015 show You Don’t Know What You’re Talking About.

That set earned him a rare 5 star review from this humble critic, especially for the way Chieng renamed the Border Security TV program and made fun of himself being the face of Tsingtao beer (“I don’t drink, it makes my face turn red … but I’m also susceptible to peer pressure”). Despite all the tough talk, he admitted in that show he was always walking around with a look that is “the illusion of nonchalance”.

That’s when Noah came knocking. Now he has that same face on 10 metre high billboards in New York championing his spots on The Daily Show and does “two to three sets each night” at the revered Comedy Cellar.

It hasn’t been all lavish green rooms and backslaps though.

“I got booed off stage in Bunbury.” Why? “Because I sucked. It was a music festival (Groovin’ the Moo), not the ideal place for comedy,” he says. “I did a racial harmony gig in Parramatta and someone yelled they were going to kidnap me and f--- me up (laughs). That was an intense gig, I did it with Aaron Chen. I didn’t even provoke it. Then afterwards I did provoke him. I said ‘Let’s go’ and I asked the guy to try and kidnap me, then I kept asking him to kidnap me. If you’re gonna kidnap someone it’s probably the best not to give the game away,” he adds.

Now based in America, which suits “NBA tragic” just fine, Chieng came back last year after a pilot he was involved in was green-lit titled Ronny Chieng: International Student. It’s based on his experience at Law School and stars, yep, Ronny. His 8 Mile, if you will. “You could say that, I guess,” he chuckles.

“In Australia people seem to like it, it’s hard to judge pop culture penetration Down Under because I’m so far away. But I haven’t received a single bad comment about it. It’s my first attempt at acting,” he says.

Good news on that front: “It’s airing in the UK on the BBC and Comedy Central will air it too. They co-produced it,” he says.

While he was back here, Chieng heard about other students doing some very good work via his social media. He discovered Melbourne “medical nerds” had made a HIV drug treatment for a fraction of the price that pharmaceutical villain Martin Shkreli’s was charging. “The students made the drug and I found out about it and happened to be in Australia filming International Student and I thought we should film a sketch about it and Trevor was like ‘Do it!’”

The cliffnotes: Shkreli raised the price of the drug by 5500 per cent. What a guy. He’s now in jail. Chieng dressed up like Walter White (sans pants) in Breaking Bad and piled the students into a Winnebago with beakers and dry ice. The clip went viral and showed a sharper, more issues-focused side to his comedy.

Comedian Ronny Chieng doesn’t need a flying car, he can levitate. Maybe.

Social media wise, for so long Ronny was like Liam Gallagher — he followed nobody on Twitter. Now Chieng follows 856, (he’s amassed 36.4K followers) and has got with the program. “I wasn’t seeing updates from people and organisations. I was missing that, I never saw the value of Twitter,“ he laughs, self-deprecatingly. “It’s fast-paced, it’s insanity, laughter, anger, man, you learn so much and also so little. Sometimes you come out stupider than when you started.”

YO WTF https://t.co/wYfZ5boxwg

— Ronny Chieng (@ronnychieng) October 27, 2017

I read a few years the perfect description: Twitter is an unchecked fire-hose.

“An unchecked fire-hose (muses), yeah I can run with that. You do get real-time updates but most of the time it’s an unchecked fire-hose that’s just whacking you in the face.”

Chieng has picked up some more acting work in the big budget film starring Constance Wu and Michelle Yeoh, Crazy Rich Asians, due 2018. “Everything about that movie was method. I got crazy and rich,” he deadpans.

“We filmed in my home town in Malaysia in Singapore. It’s a cool movie, I think it’ll be culturally significant because its telling an Asian story, Singapore is like a character in the film. There’s an authenticity in the way they made the movie that’ll come through.

“When do you ever see Singapore in an American movie apart from a cutaway take in James Bond when he’s having sex with a woman? It feels like a Woody Allen film where Singapore is like a character in the movie. I can’t talk about the role. The whole film has a cosmopolitan feel. The only Asian Americans are Constance Wu and Awkwafina. I had to act opposite Michelle Yeoh and these serious actors, I had to lift my game, I don’t wanna look like an idiot on screen.” Chieng has more acting roles he “can’t really talk about it yet.”

For his upcoming stand-up shows Down Under, “I’ll be doing nearly 100 percent new material Australian audiences haven’t seen. The last two years have been a real rollercoaster.” And he’ll come out firing. “I wasn’t able to vote in the Same Sex Marriage poll in Australia, I can’t vote in the US elections, I can’t vote anywhere. I really have no control over my own destiny in any situation. But…a postal vote to decide the Same Sex Marriage debate? That’s the dumbest s--- I’ve ever heard. I can do a poll on my Twitter, you’re telling me you can’t do a poll for the country?”

Recently, Noah did a bit on a wild, ridiculous fight in the Uganda Parliament and it went viral. “Next time I’m in a fight I’ll pull a Michael Jackson move if I know someone is recording it on Snapchat. Parliament fights should have their own YouTube channel. There’s too much heckling in Australian parliament, when someone talks everyone else should shut the f--- up. It’s supposed to be a civilised debate but it’s like a schoolyard.”

“It’s sad that same sex marriage is still a debate, it should have been legalised a long time ago. Obviously the people in favour of it know it’s what should be done, as for the people who aren’t in favour of it, my only pitch to them, in a very practical sense, even if you don’t support it, let’s get it over with and move on, we have bigger problems in the world to focus on.

“Who knows if it will get legalised? If you go on your Facebook page it looks like it’ll be a Yes (laughs), but who knows about anything anymore? That’s what we thought about the American election. There’s just too many old people in charge in Australia, that’s what the problem is. It’s like asking a bunch of people to help you buy shoes. ‘What do you think of this colour?’ Go with your gut! We can’t run a government if we make every decision by post. Strong leaders is what we need, that’s how we progress.”

Hamer Hall, the Arts Centre. Wed, 7pm and 9pm. $49.90. artscentremelbourne.com.au