Atsuko Okatsuka | |
|---|---|
 Okatsuka in December 2023 | |
| Born | May 27, 1988 |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Spouse | Ryan Harper Gray (m. 2017) |
| Comedy career | |
| Years active | 2008–present |
| Medium |
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| Website | atsukocomedy |
Atsuko Okatsuka [a] (born May 27, 1988) is an American stand-up comedian, actress, and writer. [2] [3] She was named one of Variety 's "Top 10 Comics to Watch" in 2022 and is the second Asian-American woman to have a standup special on HBO. [4] [5]
Okatsuka was born in Taiwan on May 27, 1988, the daughter of a Taiwanese mother and Japanese father. [6] She spent her early childhood in Japan. Her parents had met on a Japanese dating show [7] and divorced when she was a child, in part due to her mother developing schizophrenia after giving birth. [8] After the divorce, custody was given to Okatsuka's father, who lived in Chiba. [8] She also has two older half-siblings from her father's first marriage. [9] Her maternal grandfather was assassinated by the Kuomintang during the White Terror. [1]
At the age of eight, [10] Okatsuka was kidnapped by her maternal grandmother and taken to her mother in Los Angeles, [11] [12] where she lived for the next seven years as an undocumented immigrant in a room above her maternal uncle's garage. [7] [9] [13] She has said that she used humor and outlandishness to get her mother's attention while growing up: "When she has the voices going in her head, she can't hear me. But if I can do something dramatic enough, she might hear me." [7] She has also mentioned watching comedians Lucille Ball, Charlie Chaplin, Margaret Cho, Buster Keaton, and Ken Shimura during her childhood. [7] [9]
Okatsuka attended Venice High School, [14] where she was part of the cheerleading squad. She then studied psychology at the University of California, Riverside, [15] before dropping out [15] and later graduating from the California Institute of the Arts. [16] While attending community college in Valencia, California, she found that her interest in comedy and performing was something that she wanted to pursue seriously:
I was never really good at school, but I always performed in some aspect throughout my life... whether it's dancing, cheerleading, theatre. When I was in community college I was like, "I like making people laugh. How do I take that and make that into a thing I can start doing?" At the time the only way I knew how to learn something was through the guidance of a class. I looked up stand-up comedy classes on Craigslist and found "Pretty Funny Women". It's an all women's stand-up class. At the time I signed up for the class, they were filming a documentary for it. I didn't have to start off just by going to open mics, which were pretty much dangerous if you were a woman. It still is now, but ten years ago, it was like walking into wolves. I still did it after the class was over, but I didn't have to start off that way, [about] which I feel lucky. [9]
Okatsuka began doing stand-up in small clubs around Los Angeles. [9]
In 2020, Okatsuka released her debut album with Comedy Dynamics, But I Control Me. [17] She hosted and executive produced Let's Go Atsuko, for the now defunct Quibi. [18] Paste said that her comedy style "has a childlike quality to it, with stage persona informed by a complex and challenging upbringing." [19]
In 2019, Okatsuka performed a stand-up set during an earthquake at The Ice House comedy club in Pasadena, California, which went viral. She was commended for keeping the audience calm and serving quick-witted jokes while the earthquake went on. [20] She made her late-night debut on The Late Late Show with James Corden on November 1, 2021, which was praised by Vulture as having "won late night" the week that it aired. [21]
In February 2022, Okatsuka contributed original poems to Eating Salad Drunk, a comedian poetry anthology (edited by author Gabe Henry) that benefited Comedy Gives Back, a nonprofit supporting comedians facing financial hardship from the Covid-19 pandemic. [22] [23] In September 2022, Okatsuka, alongside Joel Kim Booster and EDM DJ Freya Fox, hosted a comedy special at the 2022 Life Is Beautiful Music & Art Festival. [24] [25] [26]
Okatsuka started the viral Drop Challenge with her grandmother. [27] She taught Chelsea Handler and Guillermo Rodriguez how to do her Drop Challenge as a guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2022. [28] She made Stephen Colbert laugh with a Bible pun when she was on The Late Show in January 2023. She talks about how she discovered standup comedy through a Margaret Cho DVD, given to her by a friend during a boring sermon at church. [29]
On December 10, 2022, Okatsuka's debut stand-up special The Intruder premiered on HBO and HBO Max, which The New York Times named Best Debut of 2022, [30] and Vulture listed as one of the Best Comedy Specials of 2022. [31] The show won best comedy special at the Gracie Awards and Variety listed her in their 2023 Comedy Impact Report. [32] [33]
Okatsuka's life story of being kidnapped by her grandmother and brought to the U.S. was told on This American Life in September 2023 in an episode titled "The One Place I Can't Go". [34] She was featured in Vanity Fair in the November 2023 issue, photographed by Mark Seliger, playing the quarterback of a made-up football team while wearing couture. [35] She was profiled in PBS Newshour where she called the interviewer Amna Nawaz a "fellow weirdo" and said that performing for people means finding community. [36] She was on the cover of New York Times Magazine with Margaret Cho where Margaret crowned Okatsuka as her heir to comedy. [37] She appeared in Mike Birbiglia's documentary Good One: A Show About Jokes. [38]
On June 13, 2025, Okatsuka released her second comedy special Father on Hulu, which Vulture ranked #6 on its list of the best stand-up comedy specials of 2025. [39] [40] [41] She will appear in the Apple TV+ comedy film Outcome , alongside Keanu Reeves and Jonah Hill, scheduled for release in 2025. [42]
Okatsuka married American actor and painter Ryan Harper Gray in 2023. [1] They had a wedding ceremony in 2017, but discovered in 2023 that they had not filed the paperwork and were not legally married. [1]
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