Phil Wang: "There's an outdated perception that video games are childish"

"When I was a kid, I dreamt of a job where I could play video games for work, and once a year, for about a month, I get to do that," he tells RT.

He's sure to be cracking his witty jokes at the ceremony, but here he talks about why gaming, and its influence on TV and film, is no laughing matter…

What first attracted you to gaming?

I was an escapist. People who grew up in boring places tend to be gamers. I grew up in Borneo, which is very beautiful and exotic, but boring. Video games were a window into all these exciting worlds where you could be powerful, impactful and agile.

You were born in Stoke-on-Trent, spent your childhood in Borneo and then moved to Bath in your teens. Where feels like home?

I feel like I fit in in London the most. London and the UK has a very welcoming society compared with other places. I feel very British now. Growing up, I didn't feel very Malaysian because I was half-white and I stood out… literally – I was very tall. Maybe that also played into my desire for escapism.

Where do you get your sense of humour from?

My two younger sisters are both very funny, so I joked with them a lot. We watched British classics on satellite TV, including Blackadder and French and Saunders. I was a huge Leslie Nielsen fan. In acting, I try to emulate him – he's the greatest comedic actor of all time.

When did you realise you wanted to pursue comedy full-time?

When I was at a boarding school in Brunei, people shared videos of Russell Peters, an Indian-Canadian stand-up who does jokes about people from different cultures. Since I was at an international school, it hit hard with everyone. Watching an ethnically Asian person in a Western country do stand-up successfully was thrilling. It looked like an interesting challenge. When I moved to the UK, I did a couple of gigs at school, then I went to Cambridge and I just kept at it. It was an obsession that never went away.

At Cambridge, you were president of Footlights [the student sketch comedy troupe]. What did that teach you about comedy?

That it involves a lot of emails and scheduling! In Cambridge, you were encouraged to keep doing new stuff all the time. When comedians lose that spark, it's because they get stuck doing material they're bored of. It's happened to me – it happens quite late on in the process, thankfully, but the words stop making sense, or the laughs don't even count any more. The most addictive part of comedy is going on stage with a new idea and getting big laughs.

What did you learn from your first time presenting the BAFTA Games Awards?

Awards shows are a unique gig from a comedian's standpoint, because you need to be funny, but you also need to balance it with the sense of occasion and celebration. I work with a couple of other writers on it, all of whom play games. We sit down together and try to think of universal experiences as gamers. People want to laugh, but they also want to have their work recognised and appreciated, especially by people who make vide games. It's such a huge industry, but I don't think the artistry behind them and all the hard work that goes into them are as openly appreciated in our culture as film, TV and music.

Why do you think that is?

There's an outdated perception that video games are childish and flippant – that they play on tropes created by other media and are a secondary cultural experience, as opposed to being creative. I think that notion will die off. People of my age and younger don't think that way about games. When TV was first introduced, people thought it was rotting everyone's brains.

What do you think about video games being turned into TV series and films?

It's very good for the industry. The TV series seem more successful than the films, because it's hard to distil these long stories into two hours. The Last of Us was amazing, but it was based on a game that already felt like a prestige drama. In their most accomplished forms, games encompass everything – they're art, they're drama, they're full of music, and you get to experience it in the most immersive way possible, by actually being in it.

You've also been in films like Wonka and 3 Body Problem. Would you like to do more acting?

Yeah! I also had a small part in a British romcom that's coming out this year. Acting is a completely different challenge from stand-up. I've really grown to appreciate what makes a good actor. I love Ryan Gosling. He's so good. I don't know how he can be an A-list Hollywood star, yet be so calm.

You sang and tap-danced in Wonka. Were those new skills?

I actually wanted to be a singer before I did stand-up! But in stand-up, you don't have to do scales, and I thought that was more fitting with my lifestyle, which is lazy. For the tap dancing, I had to do a lot of practice and training for a 30-second routine. I think it came out well. When I watched it in the cinema, I was like, "Is that me?" I thought it was computer-generated.

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