There is a fine line between faith and confidence. Confidence has a self-reliance. Faith is really about giving in.
Ramy Youssef
We're not all Jon Stewart. I know I'm not. I dropped out of college. Why would you come to me for anything that may influence your fact-based perspective? I think that the job of a comic is to be emotionally true.
We talk a lot about our identities, and we talk a lot about working to clear misconceptions about those identities. But it'd be really cool to see someone like myself not even have to talk about being Muslim or Egyptian, because it's just understood. We can all just be weird and not have to explain everything.
I actually 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. What does that tension look like? It's less an attack on the parents and more an interrogation of personal guilt, personal responsibility. That's my internal dialogue.
Ramy' is based on a lot of personal things, and it's interesting to see how many people feel like it's their story. And how many people view it as this democratic thing that should represent them.
I mean, the title of my show is my name. That's not because I was an established voice. It's because of a rising number of outlets, and an increased willingness to take risks. All the sudden, people like me are finding themselves in the position to make things.
I think showing people being messy and showing them being wrong and showing them in their humanity is something that we can do, but it becomes difficult because there's this weight put on comedy to be part of change and I'm like, 'I don't think it changes anything.'
The only thing I would tell my younger self is, 'Don't pay a lot of money for head shots.' There's always some dude in Brooklyn that's like, 'Dude, this is gonna get you the job.' And he convinces you you've got to pay $700. You don't! Your head shot doesn't matter!
In general, the Arab world is an artistic hub that has such a variety, whether it be music, film, poetry.
I just feel like the most important conversations I've had in my life have been at a diner counter.
My mom spent like a decade of her life living in Paris, and I grew up listening to a lot of French music as well as Arabic music.
I love Narcy, he's such a good artist. I know him personally, he's a friend. He's of my generation - he puts out a lot of stuff through music that are themes I like to hit on in my writing and comedy.
And so I remember moving to LA, going to the Islamic center in Hollywood and feeling like the cultural element wasn't what we were operating from as much as the spiritual one, and that was really cool. That was really good for, you know, my growth and my development.
I grew up with so much of the identity of being Muslim and being Arab tied around politics.
If you want a show to talk about politics or the Muslim ban or whatever - someone should make that show. That's not what I'm interested in.
I got a camera at a very young age, but I always kind of thought of it as a hobby.
My generation grew up on 'The Daily Show.' Jon Stewart gave me solace. He was the only person who I felt defended Muslims when crazy things were happening; the only place you could find a nuanced take on Iraq was Jon Stewart's show.
I feel very much rooted in being Egyptian, and I also feel very rooted in being a guy from New Jersey.
I was in school for a little bit at Rutgers for political science, but it was very loose.
I would get a lot of roles for the ethnic friend and then I would go in for that and not be ethnic enough. They wanted an Indian accent. They wanted something more very visually, clearly specific.
Meeting at our fault lines is much more interesting to me than meeting at shared values. I'm not trying to sell you something. If anything, I'm trying to show you where we are. There is nothing to hide.
Stand-up is cool. In stand-up, you get to learn about yourself if you do it from a thoughtful place.
I got to a point where I wanted to have some dignity in what I'm saying onstage. I want people to hear what I'm saying, regardless of whether or not it gets a laugh. That became a lot more rewarding than straight acting could ever be for me.
I've always been really turned off by a show where you're kind of just rooting for someone regardless of the stupid things that they do, or regardless of how their ego is clearly driving what they're doing.
And for me, I reached the point where I know the way I live my life is not conventional, and so I feel like whatever relationship I do end up in is also not going to be conventional. So I don't operate from feeling like I have to be with someone who is Muslim, or the other way around.
A lot of people want what I would call sci-fi; people want television to be what they think the world should look like. That is different than what I do.
I'm a clown. I'm a comedian. Comedy, by design, is a place to explore the subconscious.
I think so much of real life is this avoidance of getting into the not knowing. So much of my life, I've been running from just admitting that I don't know.
I think if you make a show where you try to make a character look good, not only is it kind of weird, but it's sociopathic.
Being in this industry is so crazy that I don't even know if I could be in it if I didn't have faith. You have to have some level of it to want to keep doing this. Everyone who's been in this long enough has some sort of practice.
We're built to need a thing. I do think everyone has god. It's just, who's god for you? Is it god in the sky? Is it Shantel who teaches hot yoga Thursday mornings? Is it the person you're in a relationship with? I hope not.
You could probably convince me that North Jersey and South Jersey should be two separate states. They're just so different.
North Jersey is one of the best places on earth. I love living there. I want to raise my kids there. It's my favorite state in the country.
I've never had a particularly good experience in the Hollywood Hills. I love Hollywood, but there's something about the Hills where I'm just like, 'I'm going to just stay at ground level.'
What I would love for my 30s is to just not have expectations. I don't want to assume anything about my 30s based on my 20s other than just keeping the lessons I've learned, but in terms of what I think should happen with those lessons, I don't know.
What I really like about stand-up is there's 100 people in a room, and you can just feel the pulse. It's very human.
There's always going to be a gap between what you believe and what you actually do, regardless of what your background is.
I always felt like the only messaging I was hearing around faith was, you need to be perfect or you can leave.
In a gray area, you don't have to provide an answer. And I don't want to. I don't want to make a comedy that's like, well, here's the answer. I don't want to make a comedy that's like, this is how to be a Muslim.
I think that religious culture and the industry of religion pretty much deserves most of the heat that it gets.
Representation is actually when the character doesn't have lines, but the camera is lingering on them in their thoughts after something happened, and then we get to see them walk to their car. You really need to follow a character in order to understand what they're going through.
I just want people to see Muslims as human. That's it.
This is my point of view, and that's why I call the show 'Ramy'. I made the show that I would want to see. So it's only going to hit on certain things.
I try to be as specific as possible when saying 'Arab Muslims' because there are a lot of different Muslims. I've never really seen stories about us in America, at least where you had versions of our characters that weren't framed by violence.
I think that a lot of the stories I would see was kids who are first-generation immigrants, watching them try to rip themselves from their family and their faith and kind of erase. I hadn't really seen anything where someone's trying to reconcile the two.
I don't really like comedy that gives you answers.
That's what you do if you're from Jersey. You make a big decision at a diner at 3 in the morning.
There's who you think you are and who you want to be, and then who you actually are.
I don't want to protect my characters. I don't do it with Muslims, either. My job is not to make us look perfect. My job is to make us look messy.
I'm getting in front of real, diverse audiences every night that I can, and I'm trying to make things from an angle where it's not the only thing I'm hanging my hat on.
