Sam Wang: Top lawyer, comedian on TV show Homebound 3.0

Sam Wang, writer and star of Homebound 3.0.

He landed a lead role Australian drama New Gold Mountain, then wrote and performed in the hit play Skyduck, which won awards in Sydney before charming audiences in Auckland and Wellington. Now, former lawyer Sam Wang is the writer and lead of a new comedy series, Homebound 3.0, about to hit Aotearoa screens.

By all metrics, Sam Wang is successful. But when I put it to him he pushes it away with typical modesty. “I’ve just been lucky.”

It’s a warm winter’s morning in Auckland when we meet for tea and homemade persimmon cake. Confession: we’re already friends when we meet for this interview - the Auckland arts community is small; the Asian arts community even smaller. Wang remembers my house from the last time he was here, rehearsing a play we were in. In fact, it’s how he met one of the directors of Homebound 3.0, Hweiling Ow.

Sam Wang cover Homebound

He tells me how he had landed the deal to write and star in the series: “It was funny really, I’d been pitching my idea around for a year in Australia.” By this time Ow was already attached to the project, Wang having loved her innate understanding of offbeat comedy. “Then I saw by chance someone’s post about a pitch competition closing that day. I had four hours to apply.”

The competition was the South Pacific Pictures Big Pitch, 2019. Wang and Ow won and local funders took notice. Four years later - short for a screen project, even more of an achievement in pandemic times - a goofy new romantic comedy, packed with the on and off-screen talents of Asian Kiwi actors, directors and crew, will debut on Discovery with the backing of local powerhouse production company Kevin and Co.

Homebound 3.0 follows Henry, a hapless 30-something who is back living with his parents and being hassled to make something of his life, i.e. marry, when all he wants is the time and space to write. When he encounters Melissa Wu (Michelle Ang), in a similar situation, they make a deal to fake a relationship - with predictably disastrous results.

So how much of Henry is based on Wang’s own life? After all, he’s a writer/actor/ex-lawyer who lives with his parents in Sydney when he’s not away for work. And what about … that stereotype of Asian kids needing to make their parents proud?

Wang smiles. “In the moment they’ll fight me, of course they want the best for me. But once they lose the battle, they’re supportive.”

Wang’s parents jet across the Tasman to see his plays. They’ve also helped him buy a small flat in Auckland so he can more easily pursue local opportunities. “They’re my biggest fans.”

Yan Du and Dian Wang emigrated from Wuhan, China in the early 90s, bringing 6-year-old Sam with them. Despite being an electrical engineer and a maths teacher respectively, they got jobs as labourers in a factory making Australian boogie boards. The irony isn’t lost on Wang: “The foam came from Japan!”

While his parents worked their way up to owning a local newsagent, working 12 hours, seven days a week, Wang roamed Sydney’s Inner West, consuming pop culture (“I was obsessed with Top Gun and everything similar”) and nurturing an obsession with the Manchester United football team. (“Did you know Wuhan and Manchester are sister cities? I was so excited when I found out!”)

As Wang tells it, enrolling in a joint law/film-making degree at the University of Technology Sydney was his third choice. “I wanted medicine, though I didn’t know much other than it was a stable job. After that I wanted aerospace engineering, because of Top Gun. But then I saw the law/film-making degree - it’s the only place in Australia to offer that combination - and loved the novelty. Plus, with the law attached I could sell it to my parents.”

It’s an understatement to say that Wang took an instant dislike to law. Wang quit one year short of completing the five-year degree to attend drama school - in Aotearoa. “I knew by then I wanted to act, and Toi Whakaari holds its auditions mid-year, so I did it as a kind of practice for the Australian schools.”

He got in and started - he loved it - but ended up failing his classes two years in and being asked to leave. “They didn’t kick me out exactly, they just said I wasn’t ready. It turned out they were doing me a huge favour. Back then the only response I knew if I was failing was to try even harder - but with acting you also have to learn how to relax, to trust yourself.”

With his parents worried about keeping their business in the economic recession, Wang took the only option he saw - he went back to law school and finished his degree. And then he got back into Toi Whakaari and finished that degree too. Instead of working as an actor, he scored a coveted job in a top international corporate law firm.

“It was my safety net. I knew I wanted to act, but I needed to get five years’ experience just in case acting didn’t work out.” Wang did well - very well - as a lawyer handling high-stakes immigration cases.

Typically, he downplays his success. “I worked hard because I knew that’s not what I wanted to do. Law is very adversarial - everyone else is there to get ahead. So I knew that I needed to put in more, because I didn’t have that drive. I didn’t want to screw up.”

It was during that period that Wang honed his writing sensibilities. “Most of law is dealing with a series of disasters. By the time people come to see you, they’re at rock bottom.” His coping response was to turn the situations into comedy in his head. “It’s my way of making light of a s*** situation.” And what of the stress of his competitive workplace? “I was just too busy trying to survive. I remember getting on the train every morning, thinking, ‘Is today the day I stuff it up?’ But I knew it was temporary.”

At the end of five years, Wang got out of law for good. His parents tried to get him to stay - but Wang knew where his heart and real talents lay. Not that it was a shiny new world there, either.

“Yes, of course I was typecast as an Asian - I was happy with any role I could get,” Wang says. “I had such low expectations I was surprised to be asked to audition for open roles, romantic leads even.” Wang sees that it’s different now. “I see the new Asian grads coming out, there’s so much more available for them. Not only that but they’re more skilled, they’ve been equipped to take those opportunities.”

I point out that that growth wouldn’t have happened without the people who went before, and Wang grins. “I’ve had to back myself as a writer, I knew that if I wanted to act, I needed to write those roles for myself.” He’s gathered more than just writing skills: “When we got Homebound 3.0 funded I had to take a step up, I was working with people I idolised. I had to learn about production, writers’ rooms, everything.”

And what does he want to say with his writing? “I want to entertain, to write stuff that’s irreverent and accessible. I don’t care about politics - we’re all just people getting by. It means there’s enough equity now - what everyone has fought for - that I don’t feel pigeonholed into writing what someone thinks I should write.”

In many ways, Wang is a typical child of migrant parents - political even in avoiding politics, gunning for every gain, doing the hard work to prepare, yet maintaining low expectations in case of disappointment. He’s also good at spreading his bets - honing multiple genres, evolving with the situation and letting his skills spill from one career to the other. But what of that other stereotype we’re saddled with, always carrying the expectations of your parents? Wang looks thoughtful. “The reason my parents emigrated was so I could choose my own path. They see that I’m happy now, doing what I want and on my terms.”