Tia Carrere excited to ‘finally play Filipino’ in Jo Koy’s ‘Easter Sunday’

Tia Carrere, known for her role in “Wayne’s World,” plays a feisty, glammed-up auntie in “Easter Sunday.” Photo: Tommaso Boddi / WireImage

Tia Carrere, best known for her rockin’ role in the 1992 film “Wayne’s World,” has been acting for nearly 40 years — and yet, when “Easter Sunday” hits theaters nationwide Friday, Aug. 5, she’ll finally be celebrating her Filipina American heritage.

Carrere, born Althea Rae Duhinio Janairo in Hawaii, is of both Filipino and Chinese descent. After her breakthrough appearance as the Cantonese-speaking love interest of Mike Myers’ Wayne, the real-life Grammy Award-winning singer landed her first record deal and went on to act in TV and film.

In “Easter Sunday,” a comedy based on Filipino American comedian Jo Koy’s real life and stand-up, Carrere plays Tita Theresa, a feisty, glammed-up auntie who is in a fight with her sister, Susan (Lydia Gaston). Both refuse to attend each other’s food-centric gathering on the holiday, and somehow her nephew Joe Valencia (Koy) is supposed to bring the family together as the peacemaker.

“We are sisters, but we are also archrivals and at times mortal enemies,” Carrere explained. “But it’s a fun, loving relationship. … You know, as in any family dynamic, there’s rivalries, there’s petty jealousies, there’s posturing. It’s a great, funny, light through line throughout the film.”

Jo Koy’s ‘Easter Sunday’ brings Filipino American family life to the big screen

“Easter Sunday,” directed by Jay Chandrasekhar, follows two sisters who refuse to attend each other’s food-centric gathering on the holiday. Photo: Ed Araquel / Universal Pictures

The Chronicle chatted with Carrere by phone from her home in Los Angeles about her career as an actress and singer as well as her role in the first major mainstream Filipino American film.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: You’ve played a lot of different roles, but I think what’s significant — especially here in the Bay Area where the film takes place in Daly City, known as the “Pinoy Capital of the world” — is the fact that the director Jay Chandrasekhar is South Asian American and most of the cast is Filipino American. Is that significant to you as an actress?

A: Absolutely. When I came up, maybe I’d be the only Asian person in a film — me or like maybe one other villain. And I would lose parts because they said, “Well, we weren’t thinking about going ethnic with that role,” and I remember that clearly early stuck in my craw. So to see a film of all these diverse faces that really more accurately reflects our nation, our state, certainly, is extremely gratifying for me.

Particularly for me as a Filipino American, I love that I got to finally play Filipino, because I’ve played Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, all these different ethnic backgrounds. I finally get to play Filipino and call upon people in my family and my neighbors growing up and just celebrate everything that has to do with that — the food, the culture, the accent, the funny little idiosyncrasies about our people. It was a blast! I just loved everybody I worked with. And we really felt like a family, I think, due in no small part to the fact that we were in lockdown for a year and a half prior (because of the COVID pandemic).

Q: It must have been difficult to shoot during the height of the pandemic.

A: I was semi-terrified to get on a plane to go and shoot this film, but the first people that we saw after being in strict quarantine in our apartments for two weeks was each other, and that was our bubble. My cast members were the first hugs and contact with the outside world. It made it really special for all of us.

Tia Carrere, a Grammy Award-winning singer, has a new song written with her musical partner Daniel Ho. Photo: Peter DaSilva / Special to The Chronicle

Q: Everyone knows you as Cassandra Wong, the wailing singer in “Wayne’s World,” which sort of made you an icon. But fans might not know you are a super-accomplished singer.

A: I have two Grammys in my office. I just pinch myself every time I look at them. I kind of hid them in my closet under my desk for a long time because I was like, “Oh my gosh, I can’t. No. I’m not worthy! I’m not worthy!” Until my musical partner said, “Tia, take them out of the box, put it on a shelf and look at them and work and strive for the rest of your life to say, ‘I wanna live up to these in every way.’ ” And I was like, “Wow, you just flipped the script on my negative internal dialogue.”

Daniel Ho, he’s amazing. I’ve been friends with Daniel since I was 14. We played the Waikiki Shell when we were teenagers. But now, subsequently we’ve done four albums and got four nominations and won two Grammys. We have a new song (“Colors in Harmony”) that we’ve submitted for a Grammy.

Q: What’s the song about?

A: “Colors in Harmony” is all about cultural unity. There are all these different languages in the song — there’s Hawaiian, Tagalog, Japanese, Mandarin. It was done for the Los Angeles (County) Holiday Celebration. …

It’s just funny it coincides that I’m singing (in) Tagalog and I’m in this film speaking Tagalog and celebrating everything there is to be Filipino in theaters across America. I just think it’s so amazing the timing and how important that is in this day and age to celebrate that and to accept all our different cultures.

Tita Theresa (Tia Carrere, left) and sister Susan (Lydia Gaston) in “Easter Sunday.” Photo: DreamWorks / Universal

Q: What are your hopes for “Easter Sunday”?

A: I hope that multiple generations of households can go out and see this film. I just have this image of teenagers, their parents and their grandparents going and seeing this film and just laughing and celebrating their families. That’s what I would love to see in all of our theaters where it’s rolling out.

“Easter Sunday” (PG-13) is in theaters Friday, Aug. 5.

  • Momo Chang
    Momo Chang Momo Chang is a freelance journalist based in the East Bay and is the Oakland Voices co-director at the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. She writes about food, culture, immigration and health care. Twitter: @_Momo_Chang