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Jimmy O. Yang Plays Reptile Kingpin in VICE Mockumentary 'Pablo Escobar of Lizard'
The actor and comedian has released a mockumentary short in which he plays a Malaysian-based lizard trader, with VICE hosting the full film.
Jimmy O. Yang has stepped into a scraggly, eccentric persona for a new mockumentary short, trading his usual comedic register for deadpan delivery and a grimy, heavily saturated look modelled on true-crime documentaries.
The project carries the title "Pablo Escobar of Lizard," with "Lizard Hunter" also used as an apparent alternative name. In it, Yang portrays an underground lizard kingpin based in Malaysia, a character built around the same outsized energy that powered the big-cat world of Tiger King.
The rollout came as a surprise, with Yang teasing the film across social media and tagging A24, HBO and VICE. While the first two tags read as a nod to the prestige mockumentary era, VICE is the outlet officially hosting the finished short.
For Yang, whose best-known roles include Crazy Rich Asians, Silicon Valley and Arrested Development, the reptile-dealing character marks a departure from the affable parts that made his name.
It is not yet clear whether the short is a one-off skit or a backdoor pilot for a larger series.