Hi, I'm Isabel Kanaan, co-creator
and lead actor of OMNI Television's
"Abroad". And you're watching Speed
Date with Xtra Magazine.
In three words.
How would you describe your comedy.
[Laughing] In three words? I would
describe my comedy as
determination.
Heartbreaking.
Family.
You have appeared on shows including
"Royal Canadian Air Farce" and
"This Hour Has 22 Minutes."
What did you want to do differently
when creating your own sketch comedy
show?
I wanted to create a sketch comedy
show that had a different point
of view.
A lot of times when we hear of the
Canadian audience, we
often think just rural
Canada or
just the audience that they have
built for years and years.
"Are you saying that Newfoundlanders
wore rain slickers in the year
1000?"
"It rains there.
It always has.
That's a fact."
And that's great, but I
like to challenge that there is
another audience out there that
you are not tapping into
or you're trying, and if
it's not working because
the point of view is just lost.
And so I wanted that
especially for my
immigrants out there like
me, because I
— going into those shows, doing
those shows, I was lost
at times.
They would laugh at a joke and I'm
like, okay, 'cool, cool'.
I don't know what they're talking
about. So I wanted
that accessibility
across all audiences
in Canada.
So you're part of the
Filipinx diaspora.
How does that experience shape or
inform your unique comedic
voice?
Filipinos are very animated
and they are characters in
themselves.
And so a lot of the times when
people ask me, 'Oh, you're a
comedian, so you think you're
funny?' And I'm like, 'No, I don't
think I'm funny. I think I'm a good
storyteller.
I think I impersonate really
well and I impersonate my family
and my friends really well.
And they are characters and I find
them funny.' And so
that's what I bring to
the comedy, that familiarity
and that that that's what
I do.
Which LGBTQ2S+
comedians are making you laugh these
days?
First off, I got to give it up to
my friend Brandon Ash-Mohammed,
who has been killing it!
So funny,
oh my gosh!
"Even though my last name is Mohammed,
my family is not Muslim.
I've actually only been to a mosque
once and it was in the video game,
'Prince of Persia'."
Another one is Kirsten
Rasmussen.
"Not too much head."
And I gotta, gotta
give props to my fellow
Filipino roots,
Kevin Vidal.
"What's so wrong with being the first
openly gay superhero?"
"Because you're terrible at it."
So you are at an alum of the
Filipino sketch group Cheetah
Collective, who has collaborated
with Queer, Filipino Expand and
Teo.
What role does collaborating with
other Filipinx artists play
in your work?
Iq feel like it elevates
the project completely.
I think, you know, we
we tend to kind of live
in our own bubble sometimes.
And by my own bubble sometimes
I just mean in my room what I'm
creating.
And so it's nice to get another
perspective on it.
And not only that, but if
I lack a certain skill
that they have and
then it's it's just like
[mouth noises] and that's what
collaboration is to me.
I thrive with collaboration.
If you could collaborate with anyone
in the world, who would it be?
I mean, I think this is just fun.
But the Filipino Tik-Tok
crew Bretman Rock.
"Smooth talking.
So rocking.".
With Bella Poarch.
They've collaborated.
"We met when we were kids.
We're actually cousins."
"Ya.". "You guys".
And me! Eh!
Just a bunch of Filipinos hanging
out.
I love it.
What, do you have, like, a
like a favorite type of TikTok to do
it? That's the thing, I do sketches.
Yeah.
They don't.
They usually do the dances.
"In a minute. I'm a need a
sentimental man, or woman to pump
me up.".
That's why I think it'll be funny.
It's that thing, again, of
this is my skill.
I'm helping you out.
And what are your skills?
Help me out.
So your show is bilingual,
where characters switch back and
forth from speaking Tagalog to
English.
How did you land on this style?
Honestly, at first that
wasn't the idea.
But then OMNI
suggested it to us and we're
like, 'We can do
that?' I didn't think it was
possible.
And they're like, 'Yeah, that's what
our network is about.' And I'm like,
okay, let's do
it.
And I feel like, again, it just
elevated the show that
much more because I came
in as an immigrant, I would
always think, 'Oh, I have to
speak English, I'd have to
assimilate to Canada.' The fact
that they gave the idea
of Taglish, as we call
it there, it
it's amazing and makes
me feel seen because that's how
I talk.
So it's it's
it's again, just that much
more relatable.
Half Pinoy, half Canadian.
100%
masarap.
Your tiktoks are very funny.
How do you come up with those ideas.
"Reading your comments as an acting
exercise? What would I
do without you?
What would I do without you?".
Sometimes I
look at the popular trends and
think, 'Oh, this is fun.
What's my take on it?' So
I put my from my
lens and that's either going to
be a Filipino woman
of color, queer or
an actor point of view.
And that's how I make it my own
within this trend.
Or the ones where there's an
original audio, that's just me.
I just kind of
come up with some — I meditate
a lot and sometimes it just
comes to me and
I need to write it down.
And sometimes it's
not enough to just write it down.
I want to see it.
So I treat TikTok as
my sketch diary.
"That's when she said,
I like that
your broken, broken like me."
What was the funnest part of working
on "Abroad"?
One of the best parts about
it was the cast and
crew!
"It's no big deal.
This is no big
deal.".
I didn't know it was possible to not
have a toxic
film environment because
growing up in this industry,
it's not, surprisingly,
it's not that common
for everyone to be having fun.
So this was this was a
really great opportunity for
everybody to just
let everything go.
"I ain't
Romeo and now hold, hold. Bake in the party."
Thanks for watching Speed Date with
Xtra Magazine.
You can find me at Instagram
and TikTok @IsabelKanaan
and please don't forget to watch
on OMNI Television every Sunday at
8:30 p.m.
"Abroad."