Regina Hall and Sterling K. Brown Talk Uncovering the Truth About Megachurches in ‘Honk for Jesus'
Complex caught up with the 'Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.' stars to talk all about their characters, megachurches, and working with the Ebo twins.
Image via Focus Features
Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. is not trying to make fun of the church or its people. Instead, the satirical comedy aims to peel back the layers of the usually revered church leaders. The film was written and directed by Adamma Ebo in her feature directorial debut and produced by her twin sister Adanne Ebo.
The feature-length film is an adaptation of the director’s 2018 short film of the same name and stars the always brilliant Regina Hall as Trinitie Childs and Sterling K. Brown as Pastor Lee-Curtis Childs. Trinitie is the proud first lady of a respected Southern Baptist megachurch, who together with her husband used to serve a congregation in the tens of thousands. The couple is now forced to rebuild after the pastor found himself in a scandal that led to their church being temporarily closed. The Childs bring in a film crew to document their comeback as they attempt to repair their image in order to reopen their church and reconnect with their congregation.
As they are preparing to relaunch, the pair also have to face the realities of their marriage behind the scenes. They present a united front when the documentary cameras are on, but the turmoil and the deep brokenness in their marriage are also captured when they’re not looking. Although the movie doesn’t outright say what the scandal was, it does allude to the pastor having inappropriate relationships and making advances on younger men. Both Trinitie and her husband have to carry on as if that’s not a big issue in their relationship, and they have to power through, cracks and all, in order to keep their church in business.
Image via Focus Features
The story got Issa Rae’s attention and she featured the short as part of her Short Film Sundays on her company Hoorae’s YouTube channel in 2019. Jordan Peele and Daniel Kaluuya are also among the feature film’s producers with their Monkeypaw and 59% production companies. Even after those co-signs, Honk for Jesus is still considered a smaller project, but Hall and Brown—who both have extensive and admirable careers—were eager to work alongside the Ebo twins just based on the uniqueness of the story they were telling. “Working with them both was such a dream, besides them being phenomenal actors, which I knew,” the director tells Complex about the film’s stars. “They were just so passionate and so determined to help us succeed...This is a small, independent film, and they were completely invested in our vision but also personally invested in us, particularly as young, Black women who were shooting their first feature. Both of them at one point said they had never been directed by a Black woman before.”
Both actors delivered incredible performances as the Childs. Hall is known for her hilarious, over-the-top performances, but as Trinitie, she is funny but also reflective, sorrowful, and composed. Brown also has a long list of projects on his résumé, but for the last six years, he’s been mostly known and beloved for his role as the kindhearted Randall Pearson in the NBC drama series This Is Us. This role as Pastor Childs is tricky for Brown since some viewers might find him to be dislikable and pompous, but that’s an actor’s job—to be able to play a wide range of roles and do so well.
Complex caught up with Hall and Brown to chat all about Honk for Jesus, their relationships with the church, working with the Ebo twins, and more. Check out the interview below and catch the movie in theaters or on Peacock starting Friday (Sept. 2).
Once you’ve read the script and once you’ve watched the short film, how do you make these characters, Trinitie and Lee-Curtis, your own?
Regina Hall: I think we both did the same thing. Sterling has a deep history with the church. For me, I didn’t know much about [it]. I knew a lot from visually seeing pastors. I didn’t know a lot about the role of a first lady. So I just watched a lot of interviews, any YouTube programming, anything I could find where there were first ladies really talking about what they did, what their role was, which was really helpful for me for Trinitie.
Sterling K. Brown: Yeah. I grew up in the church. It’s a deep, deep part of my life, and also having family members who were queer, but also struggling with their queerness in terms of how it aligned with their own Christianity. It was something that was important for me to represent on screen. So it had that personal connection to it. I think also being married for 16 years and knowing everything that goes into making a partnership work and then even more so with the added elements of Lee-Curtis and Trinitie was something fun to explore. So a lot of life sort of seeped in there.
Sterling, you played such a beloved character for six years on This Is Us. Were there any nerves for you to play someone that perhaps people weren’t going to find so likable?
SB: Nah, I mean, my wife will tell you, she doesn’t like me all the time. You know what I’m saying? She’s like, “You’ve been too nice for too long. You need to go ahead and slip into your real skin.” And that’s not Lee-Curtis at all either. Brown lives somewhere between Randall and Lee-Curtis, but it’s fun. I love doing different things that the craft asks of you, because I think all of humanity is important. If I played a character that people like all the time, there would be a part of me that would be a little saddened by that.
Regina, your character is so poised and composed, regardless of what’s going on externally. How was it for you to play not only the first lady but to also represent women who are often criticized for staying in marriages that perhaps aren’t the healthiest or perhaps there’s some sort of a transgression that happened within the marriage and then people judge them for staying?
RH: That was really important and it was real. There’s so much judgment even in the movie. Trinitie is so criticized and she bears a huge burden for her husband’s transgressions. When we watch the news and programs, we don’t have access to what’s going on behind the scenes. We don’t know why a wife chooses to stay and stand—not just stay but publicly stand beside her husband. I thought to look into a woman who plays that position, the toll that that takes on who she is as a woman, on her marriage, on her identity as an individual, on how that makes her feel about herself, but then to have that so that people can see compassion toward her. She almost becomes an object like a prop for the husband after a while.
Women are just like, “She’s dumb,” or people are like, “She’s dumb,” but it’s so much more complex than that. When you add in the ingredient of faith and then you have to show what faith means to that woman and what the covenant of marriage means to that woman, then maybe you can begin, at least, whether you agree or disagree, you can have understanding and maybe the understanding can lead just to compassion for the decisions that people make that you may not make. I wanted people to have that for Trinitie because I had that when I read [the script] and I know the filmmakers wanted to show a glimpse into the emotional world of the first lady and the emotional role that she plays in her husband’s life or for him because he relies on her a lot more than people on the outside would know.
I talked to the Ebo twins yesterday, and they praised you both for being the superstars that you are as actors but also being so down to join them on this smaller project. Why was it important for you to work with these up-and-coming filmmakers, especially two Black women that are so great at what they do?
SB: I like Black women. I like them a lot. I married one.
RH: I don’t!
SB: I sensed that about you, but you overcame it. [Laughs.]
RH: Not really! [Laughs.] We met those young women, and I just have so much respect for their work and outside of loving them, loving that they’re Black, loving all that stuff, I really responded to what they were doing, what they wrote. Their short [film]. I responded to everything about them, their work ethic, their passion and their knowledge emotionally of this subject, their vision, just everything they put forward. So if you have all that together and then you have an opportunity to support that and if you’re going to take a big swing, then you’re like, “Let’s do it with this group. Let’s hit it out the park together or miss,” right?
SB: I would say, and maybe you’ve echoed this, Regina: The size and scope of the production isn’t necessarily the driving force behind picking the project. I mean, it can play a part, but the story. What is the story that we’re going to be putting out into the world? And is it a story that I can stand behind? This is a story that I can stand behind, and they told it in a way that was funny because there’s a lot of medicine in the film, but you need that spoonful of sugar for the medicine to go down. We’re not trying to preach at people. We want them to be entertained. I think Adamma wrote a script that is thoroughly entertaining but also has a real, strong perspective behind it as well.
Do you hope that Honk for Jesus also helps show people that pastors and the first lady and the people who built these megachurches are also human and they make mistakes and they’re not the flawless entertainers that we see Sunday after Sunday?
SB: They’re definitely just people. And I think our watching men and women of the cloth has a tendency to want to elevate them as if they have a closer relationship with God than us. We depend upon them to interpret the word forward. Those people are important. Those people can help lead you to a path. But I also think that I hope that the film engenders this idea that you can take personal responsibility for your own walk, right? And that you can look for guidance and suggestions from people or whatnot, but be careful not to make them too high because they’re just people.
Are you nervous at all about how churchgoers are going to react to the film, or maybe it adds fuel to the misconceptions that non-churchgoers already have about churches?
SB: I’m nervous about my momma, if I’m being perfectly honest. I feel like mom will be like, “All right, bro, you’ve been out in Hollywood long enough and now you’re finally going to hell.” [Laughs.]
RH: Next stop!
SB: You know what I’m saying? I’m like Anakin out this piece, I’m a Sith now. No, I’m curious about what she says. I’m not nervous. I know there will be some folks who will bristle.
RH: I think once we said “yes,” the response was going to be the response, right? But I do think people will see there’s love for the church. This was not to make fun of religion, the institution of religion, the church, or pastors. It really is this couple’s journey, but there are things that echo and that’s OK because it’s time that we have these kinds of conversations about the church.
SB: Not to make fun of but to have some level of introspection to question the institutions that are near and dear to us.