“Look, I know you guys haven’t seen my show,” Ramy Youssef joked while accepting the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series. Youssef’s own surprise at the win may have had something to do with his veteran competitors. He beat out big names like Michael Douglass and Paul Rudd.
Perhaps not everyone in the crowd at the Golden Globes had seen it, but the show in question – Hulu’s Ramy – has certainly made waves with fans and critics alike. It boasts a 97% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes. And it does so while offering a comic and nuanced portrait of a young cultural Muslim navigating his way through American society.
Ramy Youssef’s Unexpected Golden Globe Win
The show focuses on “Youssef’s alter ego, a more aimless version of himself” and the exploration of life for a young Muslim second-generation American. “Meeting at our fault lines is much more interesting to me than meeting at shared values,” says Youssef. “There is nothing to hide.”
The Golden Globe award was somewhat unexpected. Asked how he felt being among familiar stars such as Tom Hanks and Jennifer Aniston, Youssef quipped, “I was just happy [the announcers] pronounced it right.” To add a layer of comic irony to Youssef’s win, he was flagged for search at Los Angeles International Airport with his Golden Globe trophy in hand.
By tackling heavy questions of faith and identity with humor, Ramy reflects both Youssef’s love of comedy and his commitment to honest, nuanced portrayals in his work. He acknowledges that “it’s a really specific story. It’s one Egyptian family in North Jersey… I think getting something like this shows that you can really relate to people with something that feels really granular.”
Finding Nuanced Roles in Hollywood
Prior to Ramy, Youssef split his time between minor acting gigs and stand-up comedy. On “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” he recalls the first time he mentioned his faith onstage in public at a standup bar in Brooklyn just after Ramadan.
“I could just feel this energy from the crowd of like, ‘Why are you here?’… And it kind of felt like that a few years ago. Now it’s kind of changing. I feel people have kind of caught on. And also Islam and LA dieting trends have kind of caught up with intermittent fasting,” he jokes.
When Youssef first moved to LA, he saw very few roles for “nuanced” Muslim characters. “You hear it: ‘Was everything you auditioned for a terrorist role?’ and it was,” Youssef told Seth Meyers. “And the sad part was – it wasn’t like I got them,” he laughs. “I would go to the audition and they just wouldn’t believe me when I say ‘death to America’.”
Ramy Youssef on Telling the Whole, “Risky” Story
After many failed attempts to – in Youssef’s joking words – “sell out his people,” he turned his attention to creating a different kind of role for Muslim actors like himself.
Ramy draws heavily from Youssef’s real experiences as the child of immigrants. He actively embraces his parents’ culture, but growing up without completely assimilating creates its own set of problems. “I want to hold on to where I came from, and also I want to be at this bar in Brooklyn, even if I’m not drinking at all,” he explains.
Youssef admits that he did not know what kind of reception it might get. “Honestly, so much of it felt risky,” he recalls. With occasionally offensive humor and a direct approach to prickly issues, Ramy brings to life a larger-than-life version of its creator that at the same time feels charmingly honest.
No official date has been released for Season 2 of Ramy yet, but fans should keep a look out for more news in the spring. In the meantime, catch up on Season 1 on Hulu.
