Koy to the world

Jo Koy can’t help but get a little misty eyed sometimes when he watches his old routines.

The Filipino-American comedian and actor likes to tell stories about his family — including his son, Joe — so his specials, of which he’s recorded five for Netflix since 2017, serve as a scrapbook of sorts.

“I can literally see my son grow before my eyes with each joke, with each routine and now we’re at that phase where my son’s a man now, and it’s just, it’s crazy,” says Koy, 54.

“Sometimes I can’t watch it. One time, I was looking for a clip to post and I was going over his first-day-of-school jokes and I was just like, ‘Ahhh, I remember that day like it was yesterday,’ and now I’m describing it, and I’m watching and I’m tearing up.”

These days, Joe, now 22, goes out on the road with his pops, working merch on his dad’s Just Being Koy arena tour, the fall leg of which kicks off at Winnipeg’s Canada Life Centre on Friday.

Winnipeg occupies a special corner of Koy’s career. In 2017, he performed four sold-out shows at Club Regent Event Centre, breaking the venue’s attendance record. And at this week’s show, he’ll be doing new material that will be included on his forthcoming sixth Netflix special, which he’s taping at the end of the year.

“Y’all get to see it before I shoot it,” he says.

Koy tours for months at a time, and the life of a standup comedian can be quite lonely. Having his son with him on the road has been game-changing.

“It’s been the best three years ever, seeing the world together.”– Jo Koy on having his son with him on the road.

“It’s been the best three years ever, seeing the world together,” Koy says, adding that they’ve been everywhere from Dubai to Singapore to New Zealand. They even saw Ozzy Osbourne’s final show in Birmingham together in July.

Joe is big into vinyl, Koy says, so they make a point to visit a record shop in every city they stop in.

In some ways, Koy is also making up for lost time. When he was a younger comedian grinding it out on the road, he inevitably had to miss moments of Joe’s childhood. And there was a time when Joe wasn’t so into his dad’s career.

“When he was in, like, the third grade, and he was just like ‘What’s a comedian?’ He didn’t understand why people would be walking up to me, repeating jokes. He just wasn’t into it, and it made me sad — like, man, this is for him. I’m chasing my dream. Believe me, you’ll see one day,” Koy says.

That one day came when Koy sold out the Forum in Los Angeles for the first time in 2019 when Joe was 16. (Last year Koy became the first comedian to sell out six shows at the venue and has a plaque to prove it.)

“I brought him onstage and he had all his classmates in the audience, and it was one of those moments where it was like, my son understands what I do and he got to see what chasing a dream looks like from start to finish.

“It was such a huge moment for me. One of those ‘I can retire now’ moments.”

“I was always in love with storytellers.”– Joy Koy

Koy has always been a risk taker in pursuit of his dream. He dropped out of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to pursue comedy. He self-produced and funded his special Jo Koy: Live from Seattle, which was bought by Netflix.

Those risks paid off; now he’s chasing other dreams, such as helping to get more Filipino stories told.

Last year Koy was an executive producer on Nurse Unseen, a documentary from Emmy-winning director Michele Josue that shines a light on the Filipino nurses who risked their lives on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic at a time when anti-Asian hate was ratcheting up.

In 2023, he also came on as a producer for the Tony-nominated David Byrne-Fatboy Slim musical Here Lies Love, about former Philippines first lady Imelda Marcos. It was the first musical to feature an all-Filipino cast on Broadway during its run that year.

In 2022, he also starred in the comedy Easter Sunday as a Filipino-American comedian and struggling actor trying to balance his career with being a single dad.

Standup, however, remains his first love, and working on a new hour is always a fun challenge for him.

“Any time I drop a special, those are done — every single one of those jokes are done. And it’s kind of bittersweet because it’s like, man, those were my go-tos. Those were my crowd-pleasers.

“I just love hearing your story and identifying: oh, yeah, I have that aunt in my family, or I was that kid in class. That’s always my goal, to tell a story and see other people that aren’t Filipino identify with it. ‘Oh, we do that, too.’”– Jo Koy

“Now I can’t do any of those damn jokes,” he says with a laugh. “I literally have to start with an empty canvas.”

Luckily, his family continues to provide plenty of inspiration for Koy, whose comedy follows a rich tradition of narrative performers.

“I was always in love with storytellers,” he says, naming Louie Anderson and Richard Pryor among his favourites.

“I loved Eddie Murphy talking about his Aunt Bunny. I loved Dennis Wolfberg talking about being a teacher in class. I just love hearing your story and identifying: oh, yeah, I have that aunt in my family, or I was that kid in class. That’s always my goal, to tell a story and see other people that aren’t Filipino identify with it. ‘Oh, we do that, too.’”

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.ca