Sherry Cola with hair by Preston Wada and makeup by Tiffany Lee
“One more time for the kids!” Sherry Cola says as she gets the women of Fifth Harmony to sing the Popeye’s Chicken and Biscuits theme song. “This is unfair, me sitting next to them. They are goddesses,” she says straight into camera. The interview onset for the BAE show for 97.1 AMP radio is funnier than most music journalism because of Cola’s comic timing. From radio to standup to acting, Cola brings joy and comedic twist to her work.
The 29-year-old is an actress and comedian who has appeared in Claws, I Love Dick, Safeword, Transparent, and Life in Pieces. She is currently on the Freeform show Good Trouble. She has provided her voice for the video game NBA 2K18. A frequent voice on 97.1 AMP, she also hosted The BAE show.
“Entertaining was kind of in my blood from an early age,” Cola says. Cola started making funny videos in high school as well as hosting events like the school talent show. While she was passionate about entertaining, she never thought about the possibility of it becoming a career. “I'm not really sure if it was maybe the lack of representation for Asian Americans [on screen] but I felt like, ‘oh, that's not my role.’ I'm also an immigrant, so I always had this foreigner feeling sometimes. I remember watching TV and movies and growing up I would think ‘that’s for Americans.’”
Leaving high school with a low GPA, Cola just hoped to make it to college; she wasn’t planning for much else. Fortunately, she made it to Cal State Fullerton, majoring in communications with an emphasis on entertainment studies. It was at Fullerton that Cola fell in love with radio. She joined the college radio station and found a passion as a broadcaster.
After college, Cola landed a job at 97.1 FM, also known as AMP in Los Angeles. While Cola was born in Shanghai, she often speaks like a Southern California native. She describes starting at 97.1 AMP by saying, “I busted my ass, you know what I mean? I legit did.” She started on a promotional street team, she did social media, and worked on the weekends. She spent a couple of years working her way up in the organization; at the same time, she started dabbling in standup.
A coworker from the radio was putting together a standup comedy show and Cola’s other coworkers thought she was funny and pushed her to try it. “I did it and kind of fell in love and that was in March of 2016 the first time I officially did standup,” she says. The next couple of months became a comedy whirlwind for Cola. In the same month, Cola premiered her character, Lil’ Tasty, an Asian female rapper who always wore an oversized Laker jersey. Cola debuted the character on her friends’ Facebook hosted web series. The web series, called Drive Luber, was a parody of popular ride-sharing apps. The episode where she played the character went instantly viral garnering millions of views. Having the video blow up at the same moment she had first tried standup was an epiphany for Cola.
An old friend from her college radio days saw Cola was doing comedy and came to a show. Cola recalls talking with him after, “I asked what he did and he said, ‘I'm a manager.’ And I literally thought he meant of like a Cheesecake Factory, but he was a talent manager and basically, he and I agreed, ‘let’s make this happen.’” Cola quickly graduated from the UCB improv program to help hone her skills before auditioning, with help from her new manager and some connections at ICM, for the Amazon show I Love Dick. From I Love Dick, Cola landed roles on Claws, Safeword, and Good Trouble. That isn’t to say that it was a smooth road. Especially between I Love Dick and Claws, Cola faced a lot of rejection. “A hundred, 200, 300 no's, just rejection. It is hard when pilot season comes around and you're not booking anything, but of course it's a blessing to even get auditions,” she says. “It might be annoying to say, but I will always stay in this humble energy for life.”
Good Trouble is currently filming its second season, in which Cola’s character will be given an arch about trying standup, a case of art imitating life that Cola couldn’t be more excited about. She talks about her recent string of successes by saying, “I'm very aware of the opportunities that I’ve been given but that's not to say that I didn't work my hard. The hustle has always been so real. I always think about even when I was working in radio, that was a minimum wage job and I would show up in a way that was so extra. People would say, ‘why are you taking this so seriously?’ But yo, I had a goal.”
When Cola was starting to blow up, even her radio dreams came true. Her Lil’ Tasty character caught the attention of AMP 97’s morning show host Carson Daly; when he caught wind that this comedian already worked for the station and they weren’t utilizing her, he set up a meeting with Cola. She ended up doing comedic on-air news segments and talking to people on the street. She later got her own show on the station. “That was the dream. I finally got my voice on air,” she says. The show didn’t last long because CBS Radio switched to Entercom, but Cola wasn’t discouraged. “Totally fine. Life happens,” she continues, “but the point is I had a goal from day one and I achieved it.”
For Cola, success isn’t just about her, it’s about visibility. “The impact that we are making right now as an Asian American community, specifically in entertainment, extremely inspires me.” She explains, “I always talk about how we are at a point where competition is behind us and all we're doing is empowering and it's so beautiful because the community has never been stronger. The world is finally realizing that we can do anything and we are getting more opportunity now.” She continues, “But we still have so much work to do. Seeing more than two Asian Americans on the screen at the same time in a non-stereotypical way, when broken English is not being used as the punchline, still shocks me. Seeing that inspired me to do more, to create my own projects, to push even more.”
