Here are which other movies and TV shows you’ve seen season 5 episode “Ben’s Parents” centered around the party Leslie Knope and Ben Wyatt threw to celebrate their engagement. The party was very nearly ruined by Ben’s divorced parents who still hate each other despite separating over 30 years ago. Matters were made worse by the fact Ben’s dad showed up with his much younger, sour-faced girlfriend Ulani (Kulap Vilaysack) who revealed she was pregnant.
If Ulani looked familiar to Parks & Rec fans, that’s because Laotian-American actress-comedian Kulap Vilaysack had had roles in plenty of other major TV shows and a few movies too. Early on in her career, Vilaysack had bit parts in shows including Comedy Bang! Bang! which is hosted by her comedian husband Scott Aukerman.
Following her appearance in Parks & Rec season 5, Kulap Vilaysack had small roles in the likes of comedy star Jason Mantzoukas. While Bajillion Dollar Propertie$ was in production, Vilaysack also had a role as Danielle in a few episodes of sitcom Take My Wife.
While the bulk of Vilaysack’s work has been in television, she’s had a few film roles too. She played a friend of Rashida Jones’ character Zooey in 2009 buddy comedy I Love You, Man and took the role of Lily in comedy-drama Peep World the following year. She also had a role as Grace Dao in the Kristen Wiig-fronted comedy-drama Welcome To Me and was the subject of Origin Story – a feature-length documentary she directed that follows her journey to Laos to meet her biological father.
More recently, Kulap Vilaysick played Corinne – a friend of main character Andrea (Andrea Savage) – in the sitcom I’m Sorry and had a recurring role as a flight attendant named Angela in Quibi’s revival of the mockumentary comedy series Reno 911!.