Jo Koy: If you’re scared of failure, then you might not want to do show biz
Jo Koy
Jo Koy is no stranger to rejections. He has been told “no” more times than he can count in his 33 years in the business. Some of them were disheartening, yes, but never did they make him feel like a “failure.”
“If you feel like that’s going to happen — and I say this to everyone trying to make it in this field — if you’re scared of failure, then you might not want to do show business. Because you will fail every day — and they will tell it to your face,” he told “Headstart” in an interview to promote the Manila stop of his “Funny is Funny” world tour on Aug. 31 at the SM Mall of Asia Arena.
If there’s one thing Jo has learned in entertainment, it’s that it can take multiple tries just to get a “maybe,” and even more to get a “yes.” And that still doesn’t guarantee anything.
Keep moving
“Whether you’re auditioning, producing something you want to create or pitching to direct a film or a project, they will say, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ That can make you feel like a failure. But the moment you feel that way, then you might as well just quit,” he added. “I was like, ‘Fine, you said, no, but I will keep moving till I get that yes.’”
Case in point: Jo Koy’s first Netflix special “Live from Seattle” (2017). The streaming platform didn’t want it. “They said no eight times,” Jo recalled. He dug money out of his own pockets. He hired his own camera crew, a director and editor. And just as he was about to film his special, he received a call from Netflix saying, “We heard you’re shooting your special. We don’t want it.”
He had no money left after producing the special. And there were two things that could happen afterward: either Netflix changes its mind and buys it, or upload it to YouTube for free and pray it goes viral. He was disheartened, but he dug deep. Thankfully, the risk he took paid off. “That’s what they said to me before I went up onstage … Just because I was filming, it doesn’t mean they’re going to buy it,” he told reporters in a separate online interview. “But I knew that routine was good. And I had to kill it, and it had to be undeniable.”
The Filipino-American comedian, whose real name is Joseph Glenn Herbert, has since released two more Netflix specials (“Comin’ In Hot” and “In His Elements”), which made him a household name in the Philippines.
Universal comedy
Jo’s material is inspired by his experiences growing up in the United States with his Filipino mother whose hilarious quirks, quips and affectations remind fans of their own moms. He also has a sense of finding humor in the most seemingly mundane aspects of Filipino and Filipino-American culture. But while his jokes and punchlines are influenced by his Filipino experience, the essence remains universal. “You don’t have to be a Filipino to get a mom joke. My mom’s a mom. She just happens to be Filipino. That’s the beauty of comedy. We can laugh and we can cry. And at the end, you realize that they’re all relatable,” he pointed out.
Doing stand-up is a cathartic exercise for Jo. “Some people pay someone to listen to their problems; I get paid to tell you about my problems,” the 51-year-old stand-up comic jested. “But we have to talk about our stories and be more vulnerable. We shouldn’t be afraid to shine the light on things that we think are negative. Because later on, you realize that it happens to others, too.”
Mounted by Live Nation Live, Jo Koy’s “Funny Is Funny” Manila show is his first since the pandemic hit. How will this new routine differ from the one he did for his “Just Kidding” show in January 2020? “It’s about my stories of struggles in the business,” he said of his upcoming show—a version of which will be available on Netflix on Sept. 13.
“This is really special for me because I get to go to the Philippines and do the show live, before everyone else sees it on Netflix,” he said, adding that one thing he observed from his last visit to “the motherland” is how Filipinos embrace entertainment—singing, acting, dancing.
“It’s in our blood, the gift of entertainment,” he said. “It’s amazing how talented Filipinos are.”
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