\n<\/p>\n
In the week after he appeared as a presenter at the Oscars, the comic Ramy Youssef, a creator and director of the Hulu series \u201cRamy\u201d<\/a> and Emma Stone\u2019s co-star in \u201cPoor Things,\u201d was taking meetings in Hollywood on what\u2019s known as a water-bottle tour \u2014 \u201cexcept without the water bottle,\u201d he said. He is fasting for Ramadan.<\/p>\n Youssef, who will turn 33 this month, has been a rapidly rising star<\/a> since the 2019 debut of \u201cRamy,\u201d a semi-autobiographical award-winning show in which he plays the son of Egyptian immigrants in suburban New Jersey \u2014 as he is in real life \u2014 struggling to define himself amid the sometimes conflicting pull of Muslim faith and young adult, Tinder-era life. When Youssef won a Golden Globe<\/a> for best actor in a comedy in 2020, he accepted the trophy by saying, \u201cAllahu akbar. This is thanks to God \u2014 and Hulu.\u201d<\/p>\n Now his ascent is even sharper. He is following his surprising turn in the Oscar-winning \u201cPoor Things\u201d \u2014 as a thoughtful scientist and cast-aside love \u2014 with a standup special, his second for HBO. The program, \u201cMore Feelings,\u201d<\/a> due Saturday, mines personal territory, religious and cultural stereotypes, and his budding friendship with Taylor Swift (a pal of Stone\u2019s), who went to see his set. He will also host \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d on March 30.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Those are only a few of the many projects he has going, he said in a video interview from Los Angeles, before he taped \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!\u201d<\/a> He and his buddies \u201calways joke that we make TV like immigrants,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re always working. We\u2019re not going to outsource too much. We\u2019re just figuring out how to do what we can, small budgets. So that\u2019s my expectation for my career. I\u2019ll just, you know, figure that out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But he is also mulling the advice he got from Yorgos Lanthimos, the \u201cPoor Things\u201d director, to get out of TV and start making movies. Then again, an invitation to direct an episode of \u201cThe Bear\u201d<\/a> led Youssef to Copenhagen and a daylong stint staging at the fabled restaurant Noma. \u201cIt\u2019s such a hard table to get,\u201d he said. \u201cI felt bad for whoever had waited a year to eat there and then I made their plate.\u201d (The episode garnered him a nomination for a Directors Guild of America Award.) A fourth season of \u201cRamy,\u201d delayed by the Hollywood strikes, will happen, he promised. \u201cThe question is, when?\u201d<\/p>\n Youssef\u2019s childhood \u2014 he grew up in an Arabic-speaking household and got into shooting video and doing sketch comedy in high school \u2014 is a source of inspiration for another show due this year, an animated satire for Amazon, \u201c#1 Happy Family USA,\u201d<\/a> about a code-switching Muslim family in the early 2000s (they rearrange not just their personalities, but also their faces). <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s so cool to just get to be dumb,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cIt is definitely not for kids. It\u2019s barely for adults.\u201d He is also a creator of the Netflix series \u201cMo,\u201d<\/a> with Mo Amer<\/a> as a hustling Palestinian refugee in Houston.<\/p>\n Youssef, who lives in Brooklyn, got married not long ago. He met his wife, a visual artist from Saudi Arabia, through May Calamawy<\/a>, who plays his sister on \u201cRamy.\u201d The HBO special has references to his wife, but he does not name her, and they avoid being photographed together publicly. \u201cI kind of give her privacy,\u201d he said. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Our conversation touched on the pitfalls and responsibility of representation, squaring his faith with his comedy, and his support of relief efforts in Gaza. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n What was it like having the Oscars festivities coincide with the first night of Ramadan?<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s this funny tension of, like, are we going to have enough time if we go to the Madonna party, then eat and pray before the sun rises? And the answer is no. We\u2019re not going to make it to the Madonna party, because the sun will rise while we\u2019re there.<\/p>\n We went home, had some eggs and water, and prayed. It was actually really cool, to just shift into a whole different thing. Sometimes it\u2019s hard to decompress after these events.<\/p>\n When did you have a sense that you were funny?<\/strong><\/p>\n I was always saying things out of a specific anxiety that I had or something that I was observing. Then people would laugh and I would be confused. I wasn\u2019t really going for the joke, unless I was flirting. So I basically knew how to observe, or I knew how to flirt. I guess my comedy became some combination of those things.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n As someone who also grew up in a first-generation immigrant family, I have to ask, were your parents supportive when you dropped out of college to study and pursue acting?<\/strong><\/p>\n There was always this specter of, like, \u201cYou\u2019re going to have to go back.\u201d I was really fortunate because I booked an acting job probably within two months of dropping out. Every time I had a job, they wouldn\u2019t say anything, but when the job ended, it would be: \u201cSo, are you going to finish the degree? Are you going to go to law school?\u201d They\u2019re like, \u201cI know you can\u2019t do medicine, but you can talk \u2014 go to that school where they take people who talk and then they make money for talking.\u201d<\/p>\n The thing that changed it for them was when I did \u201cThe Late Show<\/a>\u201d with [Stephen] Colbert, because they knew Colbert. They said, oh my God, you know Colbert, now you\u2019ll be good. I kind of let them believe that Colbert will help me, like if I\u2019m ever in a bind, I can give him a call.<\/p>\n Making the show [\u201cRamy\u201d] has only made my relationship with my family stronger because in asking for permission to do certain things or explaining to them why I\u2019m doing them, we ended up having all these conversations. My creative work transitioned our relationship \u2014 they started to see my adult self in a different way.<\/p>\n They disagree with certain things. But for the most part they really like the show. The reviews that really nailed it for my parents was friends in Egypt being like, we saw the show, we love it. That was the real thumbs up.<\/p>\n A theme you come back to often onstage is rejecting being representative of the Muslim world. You\u2019ve also called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, and <\/strong>donated money from your standup shows<\/a><\/strong> to a relief organization there. How do you think about your responsibility as an artist in this moment?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n There is this scarcity [of visible Muslim artists]. And then there\u2019s the idea of wanting representation. On one hand, I realize that\u2019s part of what I\u2019m in. And on another hand, I don\u2019t really believe in being representation. I don\u2019t know how qualified I am for that. You know, I will fail you.<\/p>\n The responsibility is probably going to just feel different for everyone. For me, I care about the communities I\u2019m involved with, and it\u2019s why I do things that are outside of art. But it\u2019s also why I\u2019ll do comedic critiques. It all comes from: I\u2019m part of this, and it\u2019s why I\u2019m making fun of it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n How did you not have to audition or screen-test for Yorgos to get \u201cPoor Things\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n We talked for, like, an hour and a half, a lot about tone. I told him I understood his films as comedy. And he had seen my stand-up. I was in awe of even getting to talk to him.<\/p>\n I had impostor syndrome [before] getting the script. I got off the call with him and I was like, whoa, did this guy make a mistake? Has he lost it? After I read it, I actually felt like it was written for me. I don\u2019t think it was, but it just felt like something I could do, even though it would be way different than anything I\u2019d done. I felt like, oh, yeah, this character could come off really creepy \u2014 or sincere. He\u2019s funny, but he\u2019s also serious.<\/p>\n You started standup after you already had some success as an actor. What appealed to you about it?<\/strong><\/p>\n In a weird way, standup felt like the stability that school gives. There\u2019s no guarantees, but if you actually do it, you will be learning. I\u2019ve learned so much about life by doing standup. I have learned way more about myself, about the patience that you need to have for anything to work.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n I find standup to be really expansive, really consistent, because you can always get up [onstage], and it can be faith-building. It could also be the opposite of all those things \u2014 I bombed all the time, still do. But I was always getting something out of it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Your wife is a big part of this special. Does she see the material before?<\/strong><\/p>\n I don\u2019t run anything by anyone before I go onstage. I\u2019ll build a set and get it to a certain place, and then I\u2019ll say, hey, why don\u2019t you come out? What do you think of this? Stylistically, I\u2019m always the butt of whatever joke I\u2019m telling.<\/p>\n This special, I have stuff about my dad. And the more the special goes on, you realize it\u2019s really about me \u2014 anything that\u2019s a critique of my father is a critique of myself. That is what is actually kind of beautiful about family; it is a self-reflective relationship. So there\u2019s a lot of mercy, actually.<\/p>\n