Andrew Phung is about to take on a role he’s been dreaming of: hosting the 2026 Canadian Screen Awards.
You may know him as Kimchee from Kim’s Convenience, or as the creator and star of Run the Burbs. It’s not the Calgarian actor and comedian’s first rodeo as an award show host either, having hosted previous untelevised Canadian Screen Awards events. He says all of his past work has been good training for the big night.
“I feel like getting this award show now, after all these years, after everything I’ve hosted and learned on stages, has prepared me for this moment,” he told host Antonio Michael Downing on The Next Chapter.
To prepare us for his moment, Phung Downing about the books that have shaped his life — from how he views his past, to how he raises his kids, and how he tells stories.
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Descent by Diane Carey
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Descent is a Star Trek novel by Diane Carey. (Simon and Schuster, dianecareyauthor.com)
Reading wasn’t much of a part of Phung’s early childhood. As the son of Vietnamese immigrants who worked nights, Phung wasn’t read to before bedtime, unlike his own kids today.
“I don’t fault my parents for that,” Phung said. “My parents were just trying to give me life. They were trying to give me food.”
Reading made its way into his life in a roundabout way in Grade 6, when he and his friends became big fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Before PVRs and the streaming era, they couldn’t rewatch a favourite episode for a long time after it first aired. But they found a way to fill the void between premieres and reruns: novelisations.
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Descent is an adaptation of the cliffhanger finale episode of the sixth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
“My friends and I got this I believe at either a Scholastic book sale or a Coles Books,” Phung recalled. “I remember seeing this and begging my dad to get it for me … And this is what we would pass around, all my friends and I.”
“I’m trying to reclaim them as an adult,” Phung said. After some rereads, he thinks they still hold up decades after middle school.
“I bought six of them last week at the Calgary Expo. I saw a bunch of them. I’m like, ‘I can’t leave you here, you must be mine! You must be in the collection.’”
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Outsiders is a classic young adult novel by S.E. Hinton. (Viking Press/Associated Press)
Phung credits his love for The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton to his Grade 8 teacher, Miss Moody. It was the first book Phung analyzed in a classroom. It helped him learn about literary themes, and what a book can say about the time period it came from.
Phung related to the scrappy teenage main cast and their care for one another. He and his school friends came from working immigrant families, and often had to meet their own needs when their parents were at work. Friends supplied essential rides, clothes and much more.
“We were all so busy taking care of each other. We raised each other essentially,” Phung said. “That’s what I connected to. I connected to these kids raising each other. It’s darker in the book, but we felt that way.”
Though not an exact parallel, he says, Phung connected to the story’s exploration of class through the class dynamics he experienced growing up in northeast Calgary. “The northeast was always looked at as the ghetto of Calgary. But I wear that as a badge of honor, because for me, I just see dreamers and hustlers who did everything. I see my parents and I see my friends’ parents, all they ever wanted was the best for their kids … What I connected to [in the novel] were these kids trying to find themselves.”
The Elephant & Piggie series by Mo Willems
Today I Will Fly! is the first book in the Elephant & Piggie series by Mo Willems. (Penguin Random House Canada, AP Photo/Gary Gerard Hamilton)
Phung says Mo Willems’ Elephant & Piggie series taught his kids to understand his job as a comedian.
The bestselling children’s series follows a cheery pig named Piggie and an anxious elephant named Gerald. The stories teach kids about emotions as the duo navigate a wide array of scenarios.
Phung says they have also taught his kids the basics of improv.
“It’s been a joy, now that they’re nine and 12, because they come see my improv shows, they come watch stand up with me. They’re understanding what’s happening because these books were like a foundation in understanding the game in improv.”
For Phung, it’s important that his kids see and understand what he does for work. Having witnessed his parents running their businesses, he feels it’s important to show his kids both his successes and his struggles. He discusses global issues with his kids too, wanting them to be prepared for the world as it is.
“My sons have such a great awareness of the world because I think I’ve included them and I haven’t hidden things from them,” Phung said.
“And so these books, in an odd way, help me teach them the game in improv, but open up a gateway to a larger relationship with my children.”
Sunshine Nails by Mai Nguyen
Sunshine Nails is a novel by Mai Nguyen. (Simon & Schuster, Lucy Doan)
“This book resonates with me so much because I feel like I lived it,” Phung said about Mai Nguyen’s debut novel.
Sunshine Nails follows a Vietnamese family who run a nail salon in Toronto’s Junction neighbourhood. When their business is threatened by a chain nail salon moving in close by, the family explores the lengths they will go to to keep their business alive.
“My parents ran a metal shop. My mom ran a flower shop. To see the struggle they had running those businesses … this book really reflects that,” Phung said.
Phung says one particular moment in the novel moved him and felt familiar. At a pivotal moment for the family business, patriarch Phil relents and heads to the casino.
“I remember listening the audiobook in the car and I said, ‘Phil, don’t do it, don’t do it!’” said Phung. “It broke me because I’ve seen my uncle’s struggle with gambling addiction. The amount of gambling addiction in Asian families is the real deal, and we don’t talk about it.”
“I think it’s such a beautiful story,” Phung said. “It’s funny, but also dark.”
The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse by Vinh Nguyen
The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse is a memoir by Vinh Nguyen (Nam Phi Dang, Harper Collins Canada)
Vinh Nguyen’s critically acclaimed memoir The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse “wraps up my journey in books,” said Phung. “I see and I saw Vinh.”
Phung means this literally. “Vinh Nguyen is my cousin.”
He even remembers specific moments in the book from his own memories. “When he mentions his birthday, I’m like, ‘Yo, dude, I was there!’”
Nguyen’s memoir, nominated for both a Governor General’s Literary Award and the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction, traces his family’s escape from Vietnam by boat as war refugees. Decades later, Nguyen goes looking for his father, who left Vietnam separately and mysteriously vanished. Nguyen blends memoir and fiction, imagining an alternate scenario in which his father had been around.
“It is written in a way that is unlike anything I’ve ever read,” said Phung. “It is difficult to read in that Vinh’s thoughts are not linear. They go all over the place. One moment you’re here, one moment you’re five years earlier. One minute you’re in a world that doesn’t exist.”
Reading his cousin’s memoir, it’s the intimate personal moments that stick with Phung the most. “Vinh has these beautiful moments of dealing with his sexuality that I wish I could have been there for and I could have just given him a hug.”
Nguyen imagining his father also hits Phung hard. “When he writes about that, I think about the life I would have had if my parents didn’t meet.”
