In Kevin Yee’s New Audible Original, Asian Aunties are Superheroes

The setting of the new Audible Original series Aunties could be any Chinatown in North America: a once-vibrant immigrant community under threat from developers, crime and corruption. But in this story, three unassuming shopkeepers are transforming into the neighborhood’s unlikely guardians. By day they run businesses, practice tai chi, and feed their relatives and community, but by night they defend Chinatown with combat skills and sharp tongues.

Aunties creator Kevin Yee has been wanting to tell this story since 2018. The actor and writer spent a lot of time as a kid in Vancouver’s Chinatown, where his grandmother lived, but over time he saw the healthy, bustling neighborhood deteriorate. “I go to Chinatown now, and it's empty,” he says. “It’s a subject that a lot of people aren’t talking about: how these immigrant communities are disappearing."

Yee also conceived the idea for Aunties as a way to “elevate and give a platform to older Asian actresses.” Originally, he wanted to pitch it as a television series, “but unless you’re already famous, it's very hard to pitch Asian stories to Hollywood, so it was kind of on the back burner,” he says. Then someone suggested Yee pitch it to Audible. Kate Navin, Audible’s Head of Creative Development, North America, loved it right away.

Navin says, “Kevin was very funny and passionate about the story and had an incredibly clear vision for it. I wanted to learn more about these neighborhoods and the politics at play. What's better than being entertained while gaining a better understanding of a community different from your own?”

Working with Audible as a creator, Yee experienced a certainty and follow through that’s “very rare in Hollywood,” says Yee. “Kate shepherded Aunties all the way to the finish line.” Yee speaks from experience, having spent 20 years in the industry, bringing his comedic acting chops to Broadway (Mary Poppins and Wicked) and Hollywood (Apple TV’s Dickinson) and writing for a Disney+ animated series, Hailey’s On It, which won a GLAAD Award in 2024. In spite of these successes, Yee found himself struggling as Hollywood offered fewer roles and bought fewer projects — “especially stories for marginalized communities,” he points out.

That’s when Yee decided to move back to Canada and find a hobby that had nothing to do with film and TV. But he didn’t land far from it. His social media posts about his impressive crochet projects (think rainbow overalls) have gained a following, proving people are hungry for Yee’s wit and whimsy as the self-proclaimed “grumpy gay uncle” who comments on public displays of affection, business meetings, and insomnia. “I don’t monetize my crochet hobby,” he says. “I wanted something that was just for me. I love that I can create my own fashion and make things colorful.”

While working with Audible on Aunties, Yee found more creative freedom than he’d ever experienced in film and TV. “This script is my most authentic work, because I didn't have producers and executives micromanaging me,” he says.

For Yee, the biggest thrill came when he saw who would be voicing his heroes. The aunties are played by Rosalind Chao (The Joy Luck Club, 3 Body Problem), Lauren Tom (The Joy Luck Club, King of the Hill), and Wai Ching Ho (the Marvel’s Cinematic Universe’s criminal mastermind, Madame Gao). “It was meaningful because we had three iconic Asian American female leads, and that really was the point of me pitching this project,” he says.

Chao, Tom and Ho lead a cast that includes Modern Family’s Jesse Tyler Ferguson (who also co-produced the title) as they take the law into their own hands (and feet), leaving a trail of badly beaten criminals —some hired by developers to intimidate Chinatown’s longtime residents into moving. The series shines a light on something Yee thinks isn’t getting talking about enough: “The displacement of older Chinese people as we lose these buildings and raise the rent,” Yee says. “They may not speak English and can't take care of themselves without their community around them.”

In episode one of the series, a protest leader with a megaphone gives a brief history of Chinatowns, which is Yee’s way of letting the listener know right away the significance of the loss. “When people came from China” to help build Canadian and U.S. railroads, Yee explains, “we needed a place where we could be safe, and we had to build it ourselves and support each other.” Yee also wanted to include Chinese Americans’ dissenting opinions in Aunties, too. “We are not a monolith,” he says, “and as you listen further in the series, you get a sense that not every Chinese American believes that Chinatowns need to exist.”

Yee even contributed his voice to Aunties, but you have to really listen for it. “You can hear me grunting in the fight scenes,” he says. Having never done voice acting professionally, he says it was a strange experience. “I was in a recording studio where the engineers are used to doing music, and I was in there just… grunting. They didn’t make eye contact with me because they were so embarrassed,” he laughs.

More than anything, Yee sees Aunties as his attempt to document a way of life that may not be around much longer. As a writer, he’s always tried to anchor his work in lived experience, but this project especially felt like “capturing a moment that is fading.”

"These characters, they're my family, and they're me,” he says. “I'm glad to have been given the permission to write this."