Jo Koy stars in and executive produces the film Easter Sunday, which will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on Oct. 18. The Blu-ray and DVD versions of the film will include bonus features for fans to enjoy. PopCulture.com obtained an exclusive clip of a featurette of Easter Sunday, which features interviews from Koy, director Jay Chandrasekhar and Tia Carrere, who also stars in the movie. Koy talks about how important it was for him to show moviegoers a glimpse into Filipino culture.
Easter Sunday also stars Jimmy O. Yang, Bandon Wardell, Eva Nobelzada, Lou Diamond Phillips and Tiffany Haddish. The film was released in theatres on Aug. 5 and grossed $13 million worldwide. When speaking to GQ in August, Koy talked about cultivating the feeling of Filipino excellence.
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“As an immigrant, as a product of an immigrant parent…my mom came to this country in like 1968, ’69, I was growing up in the seventies and eighties, and already I was struggling with my identity,” Koy said. “Like, no one knows what my mom is. I was always having to explain who she was. There’s nothing for her to watch on TV that looks like her, sounds like her, or even gives a great depiction of what an Asian is like. It’s so offensive, and to see my mom deal with that type of racism and then for me to latch on to Black movies and Black comedy because for some reason, that was relatable to me. If I heard the struggle of a Black family, I was relating to it, like, yeah, “the strong Black woman in this movie is my mom, this strong Filipino woman.” So I’m identifying with that.”
Koy also talked about working with Chandrasekhar who is known for starring in and directing Super Troopers and Super Troopers 2. “When I agreed I wanted Jay to sign on and direct this, the conversation I had with him was like, ‘It has to be beautiful. It has to be cinematic. We’re not going to laugh at Filipinos. We’re not going to make jokes about Filipinos. That’s not what we’re doing here. We’re going to tell a family story and we’re going to laugh with them,’” Koy said. “It was really important to me to really shine a beautiful light on this. We’re not going to do hokey joke jokes. It’s going to be a beautiful movie.”
