When it comes to comedic actors, Ken Jeong is often at the top. The Masked Singer panelist continues to show up in unusual ways, and he did so on the Tuesday, Jan. 6 episode of The Daily Show.
After Jon Stewart’s usual Monday night appearance, the rest of the week for The Daily Show is being hosted by Ronny Chieng. On Tuesday night’s show, he had director Park Chan-wook to talk about his filmmaking experience, but as Park doesn’t speak English, he has to have a translator.
That’s okay; he brought his own. However, Chieng shared that he had his own translator, with some amusing results.
Ken Jeong acts as ‘translator’ for Park Chan-wook on The Daily Show
In a surprise appearance, Jeong walked onto the stage to be Chieng’s translator. Of course, that led to a lot of people wondering whether Jeong could speak Korean and had just not told any of us about it. Well, we got the answer pretty quickly.
At first, Chieng asked Jeong to share how great Park’s work is and how much he admires it. With a serious look, Jeong got to work on the “translation,” quickly shouting the message in English. It got some chuckles from the audience, especially as Chieng made it clear that Park isn’t deaf. He just doesn’t speak English.
So, Jeong decided to whisper to the official translator to find out how to say the words in Korean. Throughout all of this, the translator chuckled while also relaying everything to her client, and that did put a smile on Park’s face. It was all for a bit of fun, as Jeong admitted that he “lied” about being able to speak Korean just because he wanted to meet Park.
Where you know Park Chan-wook
The former film critic was on The Daily Show to chat about his current movie, No Other Choice, which came out in 2025 and offers a satirical look at capitalism. However, people will know him for his work on a particular dystopian TV series, Snowpiercer. He was EP on all four seasons of the series, which saw the story of the train with the only survivors left on Earth after a deep freeze, and it was based on the movie of the same name, which he also produced.
Another recent release is The Sympathizer, the miniseries where he was showrunner and where he directed three episodes. He has also been involved in The Handmaiden, The Little Drummer Girl, and Decision to Leave.
I think we can all empathize with Jeong wanting to meet the man. He really is the GOAT.
The Daily Show airs Monday-Thursday at 11/10c on Comedy Central.