Honk for Jesus. Save Our Soul: Ebo Sisters Talk Evangelical Comedy

Focus Features’ Honk for Jesus. Save Our Soul is a satirical comedy about a couple of Trinitie (Regina Hall) and Lee-Curtis Childs (Sterling K. Brown), in charge of a Southern Baptist megachurch that once served a congregation in the tens of thousands. But after a scandal forces their church to temporarily close, Trinitie and Lee-Curtis must reopen their church and rebuild their congregation to make the biggest comeback that commodified religion has ever seen. Based on a short by writer, director, and producer Adamma Ebo of the same name, it was expanded to a film in part from producers Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions and Daniel Kaluuya’s 59% Productions. Adamma, along with twin sibling and producer Adanne Ebo spoke to Bleeding Cool about the personal inspiration behind the film, Hall and Brown’s chemistry, and if there was anything taboo.

What was the inspiration behind ‘Honk for Jesus. Save Our Soul?’
Adanne Ebo: It was our real-life lived experiences growing up in Southern Baptist megachurch culture.

As kind of developing the characters ourselves of Trinitie and Lee-Curtis, were there any other external figures that you took directly from aside from your personal experience?
Adanne: I don’t think there was any one person. Trinitie and Lee-Curtis are an amalgamation of different people that we knew personally growing up. People we’ve seen just out in the cultural Christian zeitgeist growing up, but not based on any one person.
Adamma Ebo: Definitely an amalgamation.

What made Regina and Sterling work so well on camera?
Adamma: They like each other. Their chemistry in real life is like they’re buddies for real, making them excellent scene partners and really into getting into the nitty gritty and working through all the character stuff that I throw at them.

Was there anything given the content you left on the cutting room floor that might be off-limits?
Adanne: There was nothing off limits.
Adamma: No, don’t think so. Not on production. Obviously, there are things that get left on the cutting room floor, but nothing as far as like production content. We what we wanted, we shot.

Honk for Jesus. Save Our Soul, which also stars Nicole Beharie, Conphidance, Austin Crute, and Devere Rogers, comes to theaters and streams on Peacock on September 2nd.