He has worn nearly every hat the industry has to offer: improv artist, actor, comedian, host, producer, and creator. From hosting the 2026 Canadian Screen Awards to acting in ‘Hate the Player: The Ben Johnson Story’ and signing his first-look development deal with Blink49, Andrew Phung is having the kind of year most people only dream about. But talk to him for five minutes, and what comes through is not only his résumé, but also his genuine warmth. REELway’s Editor Shwayta Sharma’s July cover story is a conversation with the eight-time Canadian Screen Award winner about hosting, improv, staying loyal to the people who got him here, and why he is so determined to throw the ladder down for everyone coming up behind him.
Shwayta Sharma: Let’s start with the CSAs. You’ve won eight CSAs in your career, and this time you were standing on stage as a host, representing the entire industry. What was going through your mind, and did it change how you view the industry?
Andrew Phung: I’ve wanted to host the Canadian Screen Awards gala night for, like, a decade, and I’ve hosted two non-televised nights, which I really enjoyed. In 2016, I won my first Canadian Screen Award, and in 2017, I hosted the non-televised scripted television night, where I also won my second CSA, which was very exciting. I’ve been hosting for a long time, and hosting is a big chunk of my work. Now I do a lot of corporate hosting with Speaker Spotlight. They’re my booking agency, so I go around North America hosting events, conferences, and award shows.
I always said that if I had gotten this award show in 2017, the televised gala, I wouldn’t have been ready. But in 2026, I was absolutely ready. I got asked a lot, “Are you nervous? Are you nervous?” And I was just like, no. Not in a cocky way, but in a way that I feel like I’ve done so much work to earn the opportunity and to be here. If I had done this five or six years earlier, I would have been a nervous wreck. But this year especially, I was so ready.
“I feel like I’ve done so much work to earn the opportunity and to be here.”
Photo Credit: Kristina Ruddick
I took a bunch of awards and conferences to just warm up for the CSAs. I hosted the SOCAN Awards in the Fall last year. That’s the Music Writers Union. I hosted the Convenience Store Association Awards, the Optometry Association Awards, and the Ontario Trucking Association, which is honestly a pretty incredible award show. If we’re talking about South Asian culture and communities, they’re highly represented in the Ontario Trucking Association, and it was actually really cool to see the diversity in that industry.
The really cool thing was that I’ve worked with this team before at the Academy – Jocelyn Flanagan at e=mc² Events, and Jessica Capobianco, who is the showrunner and producer of the CSAs. By working with them before, I was better prepared to make this show and to host it. So literally from the beginning, I was like, I want to do a musical number. That’s all I want. I know how it works, I know the game, I know the show needs to get cut down, there are network notes, so let me do a musical number. I worked on it with my good friend John Caruana, who’s so fantastic, and we were able to bring on a Composer, Marco DiFelice, and pianist Alexandra Petkovski, and it all kind of came together.
I was so excited. I felt like this was my year to be able to do it. I felt like I had really good insight into the industry, and I knew what the award show needed. I’m a really positive person. I don’t like making fun of people, though I love making jokes. I love joking with my pals, and that was something I was really happy I was able to bring to the show. I wanted to toast, not roast. I wanted to elevate. I wanted to bring charm and energy to the night. I’m so happy I was able to do it, and the reception’s been incredible.
“I wanted to toast, not roast. I wanted to elevate.”
Photo Credit: Kristina Ruddick
Shwayta Sharma: You mentioned wanting it to be a celebration and not a roast, which lends to your improv background, where you’ve talked about wanting the people around you, your stage partners, to look good. Award shows chase so many viral moments these days, but you wanted to celebrate and make it a more wholesome experience. Why did you decide to do that?
Andrew Phung: I think it was from seeing a lot of award shows and seeing the Canadian Screen Awards from past years, where previous years were a representation of that host’s voice. My voice has always been very positive. I’m your buddy. You see me out on the street, and it’s like, “Yo, that’s my boy Kimchee.” That’s been my vibe in a lot of cultural communities. When people of colour, the BIPOC community, see me, they’re like, “Oh, that’s our guy.” So I wanted to carry that vibe into this show. It wasn’t a discussion at all. They kind of knew that with me, they were going to get a really fun and gentle host. It was organic. That is the decision when you are hiring Andrew Phung.
If I had gotten this 10 years earlier, I wouldn’t have been as confident in my full voice. Now, in 2026, I know who I am, I know what I do, I know what my strengths are, so it’s really playing to that. I also know that making anything in this country, making any creative endeavour, is a miracle. So for one night, one week out of the year, can we put aside our humility and just celebrate? I didn’t want to turn that into making fun of our industry or making fun of how hard it is. What I wanted was to highlight, yeah, we did this, we made this happen. You’re all so talented. I tried to watch every show. There’s one called ‘Cows Come Home’, about life on a farm and competitive cow showing, and I wrote the creators and said, “This one bit in the pilot broke me. It was so funny. I just wanted one week out of the year where we tell each other, ‘Your work is really good.'” And they said, “[y]ou watched it?” and I said, “[o]f course I did!” And low-key, having an Asian host on the last day of Asian Heritage Month was not lost on me.
“Making anything in this country, making any creative endeavour, is a miracle.”
I was also aware that this year especially, there were projects, ‘Heated Rivalry’, ‘Blue Heron’, ‘North of North’, that already had their viral moments. These projects are so loved by audiences that I don’t have to make viral moments. I just have to elevate those moments. I have to make sure the spotlight that’s put on those shows and films is given to them and not taken away. Even with ‘North of North’, we were working on jokes, and I had written a couple. But I felt it did a disservice to the show, so I scrapped them. My line literally was, “Six out of eight nominees in lead performer comedy are women.” That’s a fact. That’s a number. And then instead of a joke, I just went with talking about trailblazers like Anna Lambe from ‘North of North’, because I didn’t think it needed a joke. I was worried a joke would diminish how incredible that show is.
Photo Credit: Kristina Ruddick
The reason I do this is because I put so much thought into every joke. I was trying to give love to a show called ‘The Trades’, which is about the welding community, and my dad was a welder, so I love shows about blue-collar industries because they don’t always get the love and prestige. I was like, what’s the joke there? With welding, they always say, “Just the flare tip, just the tip.” And “just the tip” sounded dirty, so I was like, oh, that’s the joke. I’m not making fun of welders. I’m not making fun of the show, but I’m talking about just the tip.
I did a bit with Hudson Williams, where they’re like, you have to introduce Hudson. Hudson has become such a star this past year that I was like, the joke isn’t him. The joke is that we, as a society, have no chill. If we saw Hudson on the street, we would lose our cool. So what if I just play a fan who has no cool and is so excited to introduce Hudson, and he has an inner monologue, hyping himself up? The joke eventually was that I’m Asian, and he’s Asian. I just wanted every joke and every line to have intention and to fit my style.
Shwayta Sharma: You’ve often credited the Calgary Loose Moose Theatre and your early improv days with shaping your comedy and your outlook on life. What lessons from those days are still guiding you when you step on stage as a host?
Andrew Phung: I started doing improv when I was 15 years old, and I didn’t tell my parents about it because Asian parents were going to be like, “Wait, what? You’re making things up?” So I kept it from them for a while because it was just my journey. I didn’t introduce it to them until a little bit later, when I was a bit stronger as a performer, and then they were like, “Oh, you’re really good.” They couldn’t discourage me because they saw how much I loved it.
I learned a lot of lessons from improv. Make your partner look good. Be average. You’re not trying to be the best, you’re trying to be average and obvious and simple. Less is more. I’m always looking at the things around me to find my pieces of inspiration. That was the approach to a lot of hosting the show. We had to give out the Cogeco Fan Audience Choice Award, and there were a bunch of pitches that didn’t feel right. I was like, well, fans voted, right? How many fans voted? They said about five million. And I’m like, five million people voted. That’s like ‘American Idol’. We should do this like an American Idol finale, with the lights and the music. Harb (Harbinder Singh), who’s the director and also directs ‘Canada’s Got Talent’, was like, “Andrew, I got you”, and you could see his eyes light up. So I took from improv – being obvious and collaborating with your team. I didn’t hire a lot of people from outside because they’ve got a really great internal team already. Be very collaborative. You don’t have a lot of resources, so use what you’ve got.
“I learned a lot of lessons from improv. Make your partner look good. Be average. You’re not trying to be the best.”
I host every award show like it’s an improv show for 20 people, whether there are 500 people or, in February, 10,000 people. All people really want is someone who’s excited to be there and wants to give them that energy. I learned so early on that having positive energy and being happy and excited to be there goes such a long way. It gives people the vibe of, “Oh, this guy wants to be here, he’s excited, I’m gonna watch.” That’s my superpower, just being happy to be there. And that’s enough for people.
Shwayta Sharma: In the last year, you took part in ‘Hate the Player: The Ben Johnson Story’, you executive produced ‘18 to 35’, and you signed your first-look deal with Blink49. Is this a turning point, going from one of Canada’s favourite actors to shaping where Canadian entertainment is headed? And what responsibility do you feel comes with that?
Andrew Phung: I’ll go one step at a time. With ‘Hate the Player’, I star in it, but I’m not the star of it. That’s Shamier Anderson and King Bach, and they’re incredible. After coming off ‘Run the Burbs’, it was a chance to go to a set and not be the lead. That’s really nice because I get to come in and do some wild characters and big, silly, dumb things, and just have fun with it. Anthony Farrell worked on Season 2 of ‘Run the Burbs’. He was our showrunner, so sometimes he’d be dealing with stuff, and I’m like, oh man, so glad that’s you, not me this time. I got to play with a bunch of my best friends and new friends. That was a joy.
‘18 to 35’ literally came from Rahul Chaturvedi, who was a script coordinator on ‘Run the Burbs’. He was like, “Can I send you my script?” I said, “Send me your script.” “Can you give me some notes?” “Sure.” Then, “Can I put your name on as executive producer, and can I try to get some money for it?” “Sure, try to get some money.” He comes back, “Andrew, got some money for it. Can you executive produce it?” “Sure.” Then, “Do you want to do a small role?” So I did a small role at the beginning and end of the series, and it was also an excuse to be on set with him for a day, just to help him get his nerves right. We helped him get Jean Yoon, who won a CSA for her work on the show.
Photo Credit: Kuddick
To answer your question, yes. When I was on ‘Kim’s Convenience’, I recognized that in order for me to keep having a career, I needed to empower myself and make my own work. Developing, creating, and executive producing ‘Run the Burbs’ was the next step. After that, it was twofold. I want to keep making my things, but I want to help other people make their things. I’ve always remembered this idea that when you level up in life, you have to look down and throw the ladder down to bring people with you. I want to bring people up with me. I want to collaborate with really talented people. This first-look deal was an extension of that. Blink49 reached out and said, “We want to have you and Scott Townend as our collaborators. We want you making stuff for us.” It stems from being on ‘Kim’s Convenience’ and being like, “Oh, I love this. If I want to keep doing it, I need to level myself up.”
“When you level up in life, you have to look down and throw the ladder down to bring people with you.”
Shwayta Sharma: Not a lot of people bring others up the way you do. It’s absolutely wonderful!
Andrew Phung: I don’t know if not a lot of people do it, but I know that I do because I’m hyper-loyal. That’s something I learned from improv, and I’m reminded of it a lot as my career has grown. When the ‘Kim’s Convenience’ cast first blew up, the first two shows that were really nice to us were ‘Baroness Von Sketch’ and ‘Mohawk Girls’. What ties us all together? We’re these underrepresented voices in an industry where we have to fight for our position. So it’s always a reminder to be humble and kind to others. That’s why I always try to show love to BIPOC creators. I’m always like, I’m available to you; always reach out. My reply time is poor. I’m always late, but I always reply.
So much of the crew on ‘Run the Burbs’ was from ‘Kim’s Convenience’, and a lot of my directors from Season 1 to Season 3 of ‘Run the Burbs’ were the same directors who came over from ‘Kim’s Convenience’. I’m always keeping a Rolodex of performers. If I work with someone and they’re really funny, I keep them in mind for a role. Improv isn’t a solo thing the way stand-up is. I was always surrounded by people, so I’m at my best when I’m surrounded by people who are really great and inspire me. With Rahul Chaturvedi, the only thing that bonded us was that we’re Asian, and he worked on my show and was a really good script coordinator. It’s not that we have a lot in common; it’s that we vibe. Some of my best collaborators are people I don’t necessarily have things in common with, but we vibe.
Going back to the CSAs, I surrounded myself with people I trusted, my stylist, my videographer, my photographer Christina Rudick, whom I’d never worked with, but everyone else around me had. And I’m like, if you’re good enough for them, you’re good enough for me. Always surround yourself with good people!
Shwayta Sharma: ‘Hate the Player’ reframes one of Canada’s most infamous sports scandals through absurdist comedy. You’ve talked about using humour to uncover truth. Why do you feel comedy is sometimes better equipped than drama to challenge the way we remember history? And what was it like playing multiple characters?
Andrew Phung: I think drama and comedy both work. For me, comedy is really helpful because it eases the mood and the tension, and it helps heal wounds. We’ve seen it with family. You might have family who haven’t spoken in 10 years, but if you come together and laugh for a little bit, that heals wounds. With the ‘Ben Johnson’ story, there were a lot of wounds, a lot of hurt on him, among Canadians, and among the racing industry. So comedy was a really nice way of easing the tension, so we could laugh and just look at what actually happened. Once you use comedy as the tool, it highlights how ridiculous that time was. Anthony would tell me, “Andrew, the stories are bonkers. They’re unreal.” And comedy’s perfect because if the stories feel unreal, comedy allows you to make that jump to, oh, this is believable now because it’s being done comedically.
They gave me these characters and said, “[j]ust play.” I remember coming to set and trying them, and the directors, RT Thorne and Corey Bowles, never gave me notes, so I’m like, all right, this is what they’re going with. Anthony Farrell is really great because he doesn’t shy away from the hard topics or the difficult conversations, but because he’s always so willing to listen and then find the comedy, it helps tell the story. If he had interviewed Ben in a very dramatic way, I don’t know if Ben would have opened up the same. But if Ben is sharing these stories and saying, “Now that you say it, this sounds ridiculous, but it’s the truth,” then Anthony can be like, “Yeah, it’s so ridiculous that it’s true. That’s the story.” What’s wild is that the show Anthony made is really, really close to the show he wanted to make, which is a rare thing in TV.
Photo Credit: George Pimental
Shwayta Sharma: The Blink49 deal is about creating scripted and unscripted stories for a global audience. Do you feel it’s difficult to think globally without losing your Canadian voice? And what stories do you think Canada is uniquely positioned to tell right now?
Andrew Phung: If you’d asked me 10 years ago, I would have said yes, but now I don’t think so. If we look at the shows that have blown up internationally, ‘Kim’s Convenience’, ‘Letterkenny’, ‘Shoresy’, ‘Heated Rivalry’, ‘North of North’, and ‘Schitt’s Creek’, those are all inherently very Canadian shows. Very different shows, but Canadian shows. I’ve always stuck to the words CBC instilled in me: “Sell Canada to the world, don’t change us.” Just sell us as is because people around the world are like, “What’s in the water in Canada that makes these shows?” When ‘Run the Burbs’ dropped, people were like, whoa, what are you guys doing up there that lets you have a family of colour, an Asian man, an Indian woman with a queer daughter, in this diverse neighbourhood, and the stories aren’t about their trauma, they’re about their life? That was our angle. We didn’t want the show to be about our trauma. We wanted it to be about us thriving, and us failing to thrive. That’s the comedy.
“Sell Canada to the world, don’t change us.”
So just sell Canada to the world. Sell your point of view to the world. Come up with your unique point of view because if you’re Canadian and you have a point of view, that is a Canadian point of view. Whether that’s appealing to a small audience or a large audience is up to you. There’s a difference in finding ways of making a Canadian story more relatable to a larger audience while still being Canadian. ‘Letterkenny’ is a really good example. It’s a small-town Ontario thing that now appeals to a larger audience. ‘Kim’s Convenience’ is about a Toronto convenience store, and it’s sold around the world now. That’s pretty cool.
I recognize it’s rare for creators to sign first-look deals or overall deals in the industry, and then to be an Asian person, a person of colour, doing that, I’m very aware. I got messages from American creators and writers like, “Andrew, this is rare.” And I’m like, yeah, I know, I’m aware of this. So I just embrace every moment of it and keep pushing forward and doing cool things because trusting myself and empowering the people around me has gotten me here. Let’s see where else I can take this.
“Trusting myself and empowering the people around me has gotten me here.”
Photo Credit: George Pimental
Shwayta Sharma: You’ve said that once you became confident in your own voice, everything in your career became that much easier. Was there a defining moment when you started believing your perspective deserved to lead the conversation?
Andrew Phung: That’s a really good question. I don’t know if there was one moment. I think for me it was a series of moments. In 2009, I was doing a reality show for The Score Television Network called ‘Drafted’, to be Canada’s next sportscaster. I was shooting it in Toronto, but I lived in Calgary, and at night I would go to Second City and to Comedy Bar on Bloor, and I’d watch those shows and think, damn, they’re really good, and I’m not that far off. I’m there, or I’m not that far off. Seeing that was a real indicator of, okay, you could be here. When I didn’t win the show, which was a relief, I hustled really hard in Calgary to build my own late-night show, develop my own troupe, and tour my own improv shows. That literally led to being in Edmonton for the Edmonton Fringe, and Ins Choi seeing me at the Fringe Festival, and then six months later I was making ‘Kim’s Convenience’.
There are these moments along the way. Winning my first CSA was like, “Oh, you deserve to be here, you belong here.” Hosting the CSAs the next year, the non-televised night, was like, “Oh, you’re good at this; you can host.” I don’t think it was any one moment. It was a lot of little successes that manifested themselves. I’ve been like that my whole life. It’s funny, I’m going to the Calgary Stampede next week, and in 2012, I hosted the Calgary Stampede for about three or four years. That was a really cool moment of, now you deserve to host; you belong as a host. So I always go back to – celebrate your little wins. Celebrate all your wins, no matter how small or big; celebrate them all, because they’re going to help you become a better version of yourself.
“Celebrate all your wins, no matter how small or big, because they’re going to help you become a better version of yourself.”
Shwayta Sharma: With everything that’s happened, with all the growth in your career, there would have been a point where there was no looking back. What do you feel was the biggest turning point that brought you to where you are today?
Andrew Phung: I think it’s small moments. It was being on ‘Kim’s Convenience’ and watching the directors work and thinking, “Oh, this is really cool, I want to do this.” Then it was starting to work with collaborators like Scott Townend, my best buddy and creative partner. We had a show in development that didn’t go anywhere. It was unscripted, and from that we said, let’s make something scripted, and we went and made what would become ‘Run the Burbs’. When I was 15 and started doing improv, I didn’t know it would lead me here, but it was about chasing things that make me happy and things I was really curious about. Everything I’m doing now, I’m just chasing new things that bring me genuine interest or curiosity. Hosting was something I was curious about. Honestly, I started hosting because I wasn’t getting stage time as a performer, so I figured, at least if I host the show, I get to be in the show.
You said there’s no looking back, but sometimes I might look back. I used to be the director of Youth Central, a non-profit, and I loved that job. I joke all the time with my wife that if I don’t like this anymore, I’ll just go back to running a non-profit. So it’s not even looking back. I’m just always aware of where I am, where I’ve been, and where I want to go. This week, for example, I’m guest hosting ‘Because News’, a CBC Radio show. It wasn’t on my radar. They asked me, and I really enjoyed it. Sometimes that’s a bit of my stress, that I do too many things, as a host, as a producer, but I think that’s the thing that keeps me warm. No moments in time, just one decision after the other to chase the thing that inspired me or made me a bit curious.
Photo Credit: Kristina Ruddick
Shwayta Sharma: Onto my final question. After taking a look at the incredible things you have done throughout your career, if we project five years from now, what do you hope people will say Andrew Phung contributed to Canadian film and television, beyond your performances?
Andrew Phung: I just want people to, one, not get sick of me, and two, if I continue to bring joy to people, whether it’s a new show where they’re like, “Oh, Andrew’s got a new show, we gotta watch it,” or “Andrew’s hosting this, let’s go check it out,” I just want to keep bringing people joy. I want to work with really good people. I want to elevate people. I want to keep doing what I’m doing, just more of it. I don’t know if there’s going to be any one thing, because I’ve made my own show, and I’ve been on a show, ‘Kim’s Convenience’, that really shaped the media landscape in North America. It’s groundbreaking, and I’m aware of that. I just want to do cool things, and I want people to be like, “Oh, Andrew’s doing this. He’s our guy.” The way people see me on the street is what I want to keep happening: people just seeing me and being like, “That’s our guy, Andrew.” I want to be your best bud, whether it’s making you laugh, making things that make you laugh, or entertaining you as a host. That’s all I want to do.
“ I just want to keep bringing people joy. I want to work with really good people. I want to elevate people. I want to keep doing what I’m doing, just more of it.”
And hopefully, along the way, I can introduce you to some other people you’ll also love. I was at the Banff World Media Festival, at the Netflix party, and I walked in and saw Rohan Campbell. He’s a young actor. He’s in a new untitled East Coast series, and he was in the most recent ‘Halloween’. I gave him a big hug because I taught that kid improv in high school. I said, “I’m so proud of you,” and he said, “Thank you for all the help you gave me.” That’s been my mantra from the beginning: just help people along the way while you’re doing your thing. So while I’m chasing my dream, help other people chase their dreams. Really, that’s it.
“While I’m chasing my dream, help other people chase their dreams.”
