Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Choe Show’ On FX, Where Artist David Choe Talks To Celebrities While Painting Their Portraits

You may or may not know the story of how artist David Choe got rich via Facebook. He was commissioned to paint Facebook’s headquarters back during the site’s mid-’00s infancy. In lieu of cash, he was paid in Facebook stock. After the IPO, he cashed in his stock to the tune of over $200 million (it would be worth over $1.3 billion today). He has gotten into his share of trouble, especially pre-fortune, and has been accused of sexual assault in the past. But he felt the need to fund his own talk show where he can practice painting portraits while talking to his celebrity friends. This is how The Choe Show came into being.

THE CHOE SHOW: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: The outside of David Choe’s house. In the background, news of Facebook’s IPO plays. Then we see his studio space, and he slowly walks in and sits in a painted wheelchair.

The Gist: In each episode of The Choe Show, Choe talks to two different guests in two different sessions, while trying to paint a portrait of each guest. In the first of the four-episode season (all the episodes debut at the same time), he talks to old friend Asa Akira, a leading porn star that he dated long ago and used to do a podcast with. She’s now married and pregnant, and proud of her profession. Choe talks to her about how she parents feel about bringing a child into this environment, and role plays with her about how her teenage child might feel if some of his classmates find her videos (he also informs her that he role-played this with Rainn Wilson when he interviewed The Office star).

He also talks to Kat Von D and her husband, artist Rafael Reyes. Kat was also pregnant at the time, and they all talk about family, how much pain their relationships with them were, and how they want to break the cycle with their children. Reyes recounts a particularly painful story about how he was caring for his father for four years and, after a particularly bad fight with him, left to smoke and drink, only to find out that tragedy struck while he was gone.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Choe Show is a more surreal take on Painting With John. In both, the viewer goes inside the mind of a famous artist, but Choe’s mind is more all over the place, whereas John Lurie goes more stream-of-consciousness on his show.

Our Take: The Choe Show is unconventional, to say the least, but despite the fact that there are scenes of surrealism mixed in with interview/painting scenes, it does seem like Choe gets to the heart of what he wants to discuss with some relative ease.

These interviews, which were likely recorded back in 2018 (Von D’s baby was born in November 2018, Akira gave birth in March 2019), are more full of heart and depth than you’d expect, and Choe’s ability to make his interviewee’s comfortable as both an artist and an interviewer is fascinating to watch.

Whether he’s in his studio or visiting the person being interviewed, he just eases into things, and while these conversations are likely hours-long rambles through different subjects, the segments that come out the best look casual but focused.

It’s that level of relaxation that gets someone like Reyes, whose myriad tattoos make him seem impenetrable, to open up. It also helps that he’s friends with all of his interviewees (Wilson, Will Arnett, Steve-O and Maya Erskine are among the people he talks and paints in the other three episodes). There are genuinely funny moments during the interviews as well; when he role plays as Asa Akira’s teenage son mortified by pictures of his mother in one of her movies, he gets so involved that it turns from poignant to funny. And the asides with Wilson donning a long black wig generated a lot of laughs.

Sex and Skin: None, despite the fact that Choe claims that he can’t get into a talk with Akira without right away talking about anal sex.

Parting Shot: When he tells Asa and her husband that he and his girlfriend are having a girl, Asa yells in reference to the son they’re going to have, “Oh my god, they can totally have sex!” That statement echoes as we see Choe sitting on a bench in a wooded area, staring into middle distance.

Sleeper Star: For a guy who says he needs more practice with portraiture, Choe’s portraits are pretty damned good.

Most Pilot-y Line: None.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Choe Show is full of artsy weirdness, but the interviews are genuine, as are the responses David Choe gets from the friends he talks to.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

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