Speaker 1: Pushkin. This is Talk Easy. I'm San Fragoso.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Today.
Speaker 1: I'm joined by comedian, actor and director Rommy Yusef. He's
Speaker 1: the creator and star of the titular Emmy nominated series Rommy.
Speaker 1: If you haven't seen the show, it's based on Rommy's
Speaker 1: experiences as a first generation Egyptian American Muslim on a
Speaker 1: spiritual journey through a politically divided New Jersey neighborhood. I
Speaker 1: should also add, in case it wasn't clear by my
Speaker 1: overly serious description, the show is really really funny. You'll
Speaker 1: hear why in this conversation that I had but Rami,
Speaker 1: which covers the Israel Palestine episode in season three, his
Speaker 1: Jersey upbringing in early fories into film, the politics of
Speaker 1: his stand up comedy, and how as a first generation
Speaker 1: Egyptian American he's redefining what the American dream looks like.
Speaker 1: I should also note at the top that we tape
Speaker 1: this talk a little before the Writer's strike began on
Speaker 1: May second. We do allude to the strike in passing,
Speaker 1: but since the WGA went on the offensive, many of
Speaker 1: its members, of which Rami is one, have suspended all
Speaker 1: press appearances out of solidarity. Later this summer, we will
Speaker 1: be doing an episode on the strike and all that's
Speaker 1: at stake as right fight for a fair equitable deal
Speaker 1: with the AMPTP, which includes places like Netflix, Amazon, Disney,
Speaker 1: and just about every other major studio in town. But
Speaker 1: until then, if you'd like to learn more about the
Speaker 1: working conditions that writers like Robbie are fighting for, we've
Speaker 1: included resources in our show notes at talk easypod dot com.
Speaker 1: As for today, I want to recommend season three of
Speaker 1: romy It's now available to stream on Hulu. It's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite shows of the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: and it was an absolute joy and thrill to sit
Speaker 1: with the one and only Rommy yusef, Ramy, yusef. A
Speaker 1: pleasure to meet you, so good to meet you. How
Speaker 1: are you feeling.
Speaker 4: I'm really happy to be here. A lot of stuff
Speaker 4: happened already off pod. There's a lot of good snacks
Speaker 4: outside and great coffee. Do you have any idea how
Speaker 4: many things I go to that are completely snackless. There's
Speaker 4: just not a single offering of anything. Maybe water and
Speaker 4: you can tell it's tap, but here, I mean, this
Speaker 4: shit is filtered. Thank you?
Speaker 1: Is this material for your new stand up special.
Speaker 4: I express myself in sometimes things that sound like they
Speaker 4: could be bits, But I'm not a tester. I don't
Speaker 4: test my material and conversation. If I think something's a bit,
Speaker 4: I keep it to myself. I'll try it on stage.
Speaker 1: Because you don't want to give ideas away for free.
Speaker 4: It feels cheap. It feels like I'm using a lunch
Speaker 4: to further my career when I'm just trying to have
Speaker 4: lunch with my friend.
Speaker 1: Well, you're on a podcast, so if you want to
Speaker 1: try stuff out, you're more than welcome to this.
Speaker 4: This is a gray area, but I will say it
Speaker 4: falls a bit into the lunch category because of the
Speaker 4: snack quality that you offered.
Speaker 1: Do pop tarts constitute a lunch for you?
Speaker 4: So there's bad here of mini pop tarts that is
Speaker 4: blowing my mind because I never want to commit to
Speaker 4: a whole pop tart, of course, and I feel bad
Speaker 4: that they figured out the product outside of my prime
Speaker 4: of eating it thirty two thirty two years old. It
Speaker 4: starts to get weird.
Speaker 1: You know what's unbelievable. People always say about our show
Speaker 1: that we really talk about these big, weighty subjects, But
Speaker 1: really we can talk pop tarts.
Speaker 4: Get me going on gushers and it'll get deep.
Speaker 1: I am kind of afraid to get you going on gushers.
Speaker 1: I feel like we'll never get anywhere. I do want
Speaker 1: to start with something that's just happened, though. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: recently observe Ramadan, right, Yeah, it's been a week. I
Speaker 1: want to start here because you've said, this holiday, more
Speaker 1: than birthdays, has always been a marker of time for me.
Speaker 1: What did this marker denote this year? Around?
Speaker 4: Great question?
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: This year was I was traveling a lot, so I
Speaker 4: spent some of it in the Middle East. I was
Speaker 4: in Saudi, and I was in Egypt, and then I
Speaker 4: also was in Chicago, so it was cool to be
Speaker 4: in three different places. And one of my favorite things is,
Speaker 4: no matter where you are during Ramadan, there's night prayers
Speaker 4: going on. So you can just go to a mosque
Speaker 4: almost anywhere and there's people there doing the same exact thing,
Speaker 4: breaking fast at the same exact time. So it's incredibly grounding,
Speaker 4: you know, and especially as someone who travels a bunch
Speaker 4: for stand up or for whatever filming stuff, you show
Speaker 4: up to a new city and you feel a little
Speaker 4: weird at first, and so to kind of travel that
Speaker 4: way where knowing no matter where I was going to be,
Speaker 4: there was going to be something I was going to
Speaker 4: be doing every single night was really cool. And it
Speaker 4: felt this year on paper should have been harder than
Speaker 4: other years. You know a lot of times I like
Speaker 4: to stay in the same place because you're not eating
Speaker 4: or drinking from sunrise to sunset. But it didn't present
Speaker 4: itself that way, which was really cool. It didn't feel difficult.
Speaker 1: What were the takeaways, if there were any from this reflection.
Speaker 4: Coming to la right now? And I spent so many
Speaker 4: of my twenties here and it was really emotionally turbulent,
Speaker 4: and you know, it's just like anyone's twenties. You're trying
Speaker 4: to figure out who you are. And so there were
Speaker 4: times where I would just feel all over the place.
Speaker 4: And I think this year was probably the first year
Speaker 4: that I thought, oh wow, I'm feeling less scattered. I'm
Speaker 4: not letting as many things get under my skin as
Speaker 4: I would have this time last year. And I think
Speaker 4: sometimes the threshold is really low. When you're not eating
Speaker 4: and you don't have coffee and you don't have water.
Speaker 4: You see how quickly you can get frustrated, and it
Speaker 4: really shows you where you're at. You feel really naked.
Speaker 4: No caffeine will really show you where you are. And
Speaker 4: I was like, Okay, I haven't had my coffee and
Speaker 4: I'm still still good. You mentioned last year, why don't
Speaker 4: we talk about some of what happened? Because you released
Speaker 4: season three of this show romy and since the show
Speaker 4: came out, I believe it's of twenty twenty two, the
Speaker 4: tensions between Israel and Palestine, they have only escalated. Having
Speaker 4: filmed in Jerusalem, how are you thinking about both the
Speaker 4: conflict over there, but also the context that people now
Speaker 4: have in approaching something like episode two of season three? Yeah,
Speaker 4: you know it was end of September, was the third
Speaker 4: season of Rami, and then in August we released the
Speaker 4: first season of MO, where he's you know, proudly an
Speaker 4: undocumented Palestinian guy in Texas. And then in Rami, we
Speaker 4: have a totally different take where Rami is, you know,
Speaker 4: American born, and the episode we did is almost completely
Speaker 4: around his own privilege as being kind of American born
Speaker 4: and going over So what's been a culture shift? When
Speaker 4: I think about when we started writing both those projects,
Speaker 4: it felt risky at the time to even you know,
Speaker 4: and this was before or there was like what I
Speaker 4: would call a big kind of viral Instagram moment that
Speaker 4: the summer of twenty twenty one when people really started
Speaker 4: talking about what was happening with the occupation of Schef's
Speaker 4: genre and also even people really being open and saying,
Speaker 4: you know, this isn't a conflict, this is an occupation.
Speaker 4: You know, this is a completely inhumane thing that is happening.
Speaker 4: And I think even in the time, like you're pointing out,
Speaker 4: from writing the projects to releasing the project's big change,
Speaker 4: because by the time they came out, it was like,
Speaker 4: oh wow, people were more open to having this conversation.
Speaker 4: It doesn't feel as WHOA is when we wrote it, right,
Speaker 4: And that's in an American context, because I think in
Speaker 4: Europe and throughout other parts of the world, people understand
Speaker 4: what's happening in a more clear way. And so I
Speaker 4: think the approach that we've taken with both shows, to
Speaker 4: me was always kind of a timeless approach because we're
Speaker 4: focusing on character, so we're not getting into the nitty
Speaker 4: gritty of political debate as much as we are kind
Speaker 4: of saying, you know, what is the you know blind
Speaker 4: eye that an American Muslim like Romy turns to when
Speaker 4: you know he's living in a country that also has
Speaker 4: colonial tendencies, and then he's visiting a country that is
Speaker 4: being affected by colonialism, and so watching that all play
Speaker 4: out again from a personal place, right, Like, I'm not
Speaker 4: trying to use the show to sit and go back
Speaker 4: and forth. There's people who are way more qualified than
Speaker 4: me to talk about this, but we're trying to just
Speaker 4: put human characters in the middle of it.
Speaker 1: Well, why don't we take a look at a scene
Speaker 1: from that episode where your character is in Jerusalem on
Speaker 1: a kind of Tinder like date. Yeah, this is from
Speaker 1: season three, episode two of Romy, now available on Hulu.
Speaker 5: I can't but if you actually came, yeah, sorry, I
Speaker 5: was late to fucking checkpoints took forever.
Speaker 6: Yeah, with checkpoints times, they're never accurate.
Speaker 7: No, I know, it's so frustrating.
Speaker 5: Like, I'm from New Jersey and we have if you
Speaker 5: hear the Lincoln Tunnel is basically a fucking checkpoint, Like
Speaker 5: it takes hours to get into New York, but sometimes
Speaker 5: it takes minutes. So everyone's always just confused, like, and
Speaker 5: is it going to take a long time? Is it
Speaker 5: not and then it costs like twenty bucks now to
Speaker 5: get in. At least you guys you don't have to pay, right, Yeah.
Speaker 7: Sorry, it's okay.
Speaker 6: We don't need to keep talking about this ship the store.
Speaker 7: I work in jewelry, it's it's it's why I came.
Speaker 7: What about you?
Speaker 6: I work in a restaurant in Romola, but I'm starting
Speaker 6: my launderer company. Really yeah, super affordable Lungeri. And the
Speaker 6: tag is everyone has the right to be sexy.
Speaker 7: Wow, your family's it's okay with that?
Speaker 6: Like religiously, Muslims in the West are so fucking updight
Speaker 6: you act like no one ever kissed before.
Speaker 7: It's lungerer. Everyone wears it. I'm not comment to Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 7: of course you know I'm not. I'm not up tight
Speaker 7: like I've kissed before.
Speaker 1: My favorite part is him complaining about the commute, like
Speaker 1: it's going from Santa Monica to Los Flies. It's like,
Speaker 1: it's ease, I know, stuff happen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, She's like they built the wall that wasn't there before.
Speaker 4: He's like, I get it, stuff happened, but you know,
Speaker 4: you really could have told me before I got And yeah,
Speaker 4: but you know.
Speaker 1: He had told me there was an active on the
Speaker 1: one on one.
Speaker 4: So you know that that's really where, you know, we
Speaker 4: talk about a character with privilege and a character who
Speaker 4: is clearly you know, we get into his addict like
Speaker 4: tendencies and I think it says everything too though about
Speaker 4: the perception. Right she starts talking about lingerie and he's like,
Speaker 4: what you guys are that open about, you know, and
Speaker 4: not realizing that the American Muslim bubble is really that
Speaker 4: it's a bubble, and it's oddly disconnected at times from
Speaker 4: what's actually happening in the Middle East, because you have
Speaker 4: all these kids who are you know, their parents were
Speaker 4: immigrants and haven't been back for a while, and they're
Speaker 4: really working hard to maintain the image they have of
Speaker 4: where they were, but it's from the eighties. It's missing
Speaker 4: the last forty years and we grew up with it.
Speaker 4: And then you kind of go over and you realize, whoa,
Speaker 4: they're moving at a really different pace than what we've
Speaker 4: been trying to uphold.
Speaker 1: There's not a whole lot in the middle of the
Speaker 1: Israel Palestine Ben diagram. Did you create Rommy in that
Speaker 1: scene so that they could both agree on something which
Speaker 1: is that you know, you're not a great guy.
Speaker 4: The design of the episode from the writer's room was
Speaker 4: purely Rommy's gonna sit with the Palestinian woman, He's gonna
Speaker 4: sit with the Israeli woman. In both situations. Is gonna
Speaker 4: be like, what the fuck's going on with this guy?
Speaker 4: You know that that was one hundred percent straight up
Speaker 4: character assassination on the level. It felt like the only
Speaker 4: way again to keep it, you know, to keep it character.
Speaker 4: But this woman that he goes on this field date with,
Speaker 4: I think the actress herself, I think got the script
Speaker 4: and said, whoa, I could say this, you know, And
Speaker 4: that's what's fun about making something with a crew in
Speaker 4: the actual place. I mean, you know, here you're on set.
Speaker 4: Only producers or writers talk over there. The guy you
Speaker 4: know who's doing craft service and bringing food will say, hey, man,
Speaker 4: you know, it would be better if you said in
Speaker 4: this part and you know, and I'll say that to me,
Speaker 4: you know, between takes, and I'll go, oh, okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: you live here. I'll take the note, you know, I'll
Speaker 4: take notes from anybody, you know, the transpo guy, whoever,
Speaker 4: whoever's got a thought and same thing. You know, we
Speaker 4: obviously had a Palstinian director on the episode, but being
Speaker 4: with that crew, going through the script with them and
Speaker 4: really getting it to a place where they felt, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 4: we're proud to shoot this, it was a really cool experience.
Speaker 1: You recently said that this new season was mostly about
Speaker 1: a crisis of faith. Well, what did you mean by that?
Speaker 4: I think, you know, for the Romi character, we kind
Speaker 4: of built the show. The premise of the show was
Speaker 4: always what does it look like for someone to not
Speaker 4: try to erase not just lineage, but their faith practice,
Speaker 4: Because I think what I was seeing a lot of
Speaker 4: was this attitude of oh, I grew up religious, I
Speaker 4: grew up this way, but thank God now free of
Speaker 4: that and I get to update. And I said, well,
Speaker 4: that's not really how I feel. You know, there's a
Speaker 4: lot of my tradition, a lot of my faith that
Speaker 4: I want to adhere to, but I'm kind of trying
Speaker 4: to figure out what it means to do that right
Speaker 4: now in this current moment in time. And I thought
Speaker 4: that tension was different. You know, the guy actually wants
Speaker 4: his faith. This season is the first time in the
Speaker 4: show where he's disillusioned by it, and we're kind of
Speaker 4: watching him, I think arc from performing faith to kind
Speaker 4: of stripping it down and putting it back together again.
Speaker 4: You know, that's the journey that I wanted to put
Speaker 4: him through this season.
Speaker 1: There's also in this season more of an emphasis on
Speaker 1: the crisis of faith in the American dream when it
Speaker 1: comes to your parents. Yeah, in particular, was that on mind.
Speaker 4: Very very I mean, I think it was also looking
Speaker 4: at you know, we're coming out of COVID and we're
Speaker 4: coming out of a big reimagining and also a big
Speaker 4: dent to a lot of the systems that you know,
Speaker 4: we've all been trying to invest in, you know, to work,
Speaker 4: and then we kind of watched a lot of them
Speaker 4: really shake. And that's still playing out now. You know,
Speaker 4: the rebounds of that are really happening today. And I
Speaker 4: think part of the pressure that Arami type has, or
Speaker 4: any kid of an immigrant has, is knowing that their
Speaker 4: parents made a really tough move that was a gamble,
Speaker 4: and you know, you're the dice and you got to
Speaker 4: roll the right way in order for them to feel
Speaker 4: good about what they did. And so when you spend
Speaker 4: a lot of your life feeling like I got to
Speaker 4: be the thing that makes my parents' existence worth it.
Speaker 4: It's a very odd pressure to have. But then you know,
Speaker 4: really also wanting to step back from the parents who
Speaker 4: are like, well, was it really worth it for us
Speaker 4: to even come here and make this gamble too? You know?
Speaker 4: Are we getting what we thought we would get? Is
Speaker 4: this the dream we signed up for? A lot of
Speaker 4: these things that they put a lot of stock in
Speaker 4: are falling apart for them, And I think that's also
Speaker 4: part of them realizing, Okay, you know, we've been living
Speaker 4: culturally in a certain way, but we need to be
Speaker 4: more spiritual because we're trying to invest in land, We're
Speaker 4: trying to invest in the idea of a country. We're
Speaker 4: trying to invest in this idea of a job and
Speaker 4: what a job means and to have a job that
Speaker 4: informs my identity, and then realizing, no, there's probably something
Speaker 4: more spiritual to really be digging into. And so yeah,
Speaker 4: that awakening is happening for all the characters. To understand
Speaker 4: the context of the dream your parents had, then we
Speaker 4: have to go back a little bit because you grew
Speaker 4: up in New Jersey with Egyptian parents, and you said,
Speaker 4: as practicing Muslims, there was a performative element that felt
Speaker 4: like you were living in your own Truman show. We've
Speaker 4: been talking a whole lot about performance. What did that
Speaker 4: look like? I'm trying to remember the context in which
Speaker 4: I said that. That does sound like something I said.
Speaker 4: You're pulling great stuff. I like that, you like your words.
Speaker 4: I'm like, dude, past me was Wow. You ever worry
Speaker 4: that you're regressing?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I do? I do?
Speaker 4: Is that regress easy?
Speaker 1: We do fifty two a year, so I have a
Speaker 1: shot at redemption every week.
Speaker 4: This one's a progress episode.
Speaker 1: We're finding it.
Speaker 4: I feel it. Yeah, your progress is in how I
Speaker 4: answer these questions.
Speaker 1: And your progress.
Speaker 4: This podcast bears nothing on my progress. Oh really, Yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm just I've already had a good time, like coming in.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, this is in the wind column.
Speaker 1: Yeah, most of the do with the pop tarts.
Speaker 4: The pop tarts. I liked the lighting in here. It's nice,
Speaker 4: you're nice, the ac is good. I'm good. Yeah, I won.
Speaker 1: Sounds like Trump.
Speaker 4: Honestly, if you didn't look at what he did and
Speaker 4: just you know, some of what he said an optimist.
Speaker 1: I mean, I could see how someone who grew up
Speaker 1: with a photo of Donald Trump in their living room
Speaker 1: as you did, would say something like that, you want
Speaker 1: to offer contacts with that for people.
Speaker 4: My father, Yeah, he worked at the Plaza hotel for
Speaker 4: over ten years. When he came to the country, he
Speaker 4: just started, you know, he was a busboy at some
Speaker 4: of he started at the Waldorf Astoria and it was
Speaker 4: because he spoke Arabic and there were a lot of
Speaker 4: high spending Arab clientele that would come in from the Gulf.
Speaker 1: He was previously travel agent in Cairo.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I forget, yeah, you know my dad, I mean
Speaker 4: he was last week's guests. So but yeah, so he
Speaker 4: he started bussing and then he kind of went over
Speaker 4: to the Plaza and he was doing that too, and
Speaker 4: then eventually became a manager of all the food and
Speaker 4: beverage and all their like banquet halls and all that stuff.
Speaker 4: And so he do the Trump Kid's birthdays or I'm
Speaker 4: working late tonight, it's you know, Eric's birthday, you know,
Speaker 4: like that, you know, And at the time wasn't bad
Speaker 4: or anything. It was just this is just, you know,
Speaker 4: a guy my dad works with. But I think part
Speaker 4: of what we got to explore in the first season,
Speaker 4: which was something that was very true in my life,
Speaker 4: just that fear of being a kid and being so
Speaker 4: close and at the time my dad worked in the
Speaker 4: city when nine to eleven happened, And I think part
Speaker 4: of what we got to do as a show, and
Speaker 4: part of what even other things that I continue to explore,
Speaker 4: is just the impact of that time for the psyche
Speaker 4: of a kid, especially a kid who felt implicated.
Speaker 1: Is that how you felt?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I did, because you're looking at a screen on TV
Speaker 4: and you're seeing these people who've done horrible things, and
Speaker 4: you know, one of them's Egyptian, the other ones this,
Speaker 4: the other one's that, and they have names that tell
Speaker 4: only people in my family and look like people that
Speaker 4: are in my you know, so, and that's the only
Speaker 4: reference point in any media. Was that right? And then
Speaker 4: you start to have this self doubt trickle in where
Speaker 4: I always felt like I had something to hide even
Speaker 4: though there wasn't anything to hide. And then I also
Speaker 4: didn't get to fully digest my own background from you know,
Speaker 4: like a pure context or even an inquisitive, curious context.
Speaker 4: It's all in the defensive, you know, so everything that
Speaker 4: I know is just about defending myself at that time.
Speaker 4: It's not a curious exploration and an understanding, And I
Speaker 4: see this in a lot of people of my generation,
Speaker 4: where it's like now we're in our thirties and only
Speaker 4: just now we're really getting into our faith in our
Speaker 4: background and from like a more curious place.
Speaker 1: Specifically, do you remember a moment where you can kind
Speaker 1: of acutely remember playing the as a kid?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean some of it is in the episode
Speaker 4: we made in the show, just like I remember really
Speaker 4: being in a history class as a middle schooler and
Speaker 4: pointing to a map and really trying to put Egypt
Speaker 4: in Africa, you know, and just say, wholeheartedly, straight faced
Speaker 4: saying I'm African, you know, like like and then leaving
Speaker 4: and knowing I'm not really African. I know, I'm not African,
Speaker 4: you know, and being in that place. But for me,
Speaker 4: the whole thing is I'm never gonna be someone who
Speaker 4: sits in and pretends like horrible things happened to me,
Speaker 4: you know, or we experienced hate crimes on a big level,
Speaker 4: or something like that. And it's why in making the show,
Speaker 4: I never try to paint the family or the Romi
Speaker 4: character as victims because I'm not in a position to
Speaker 4: say I'm a victim. But i am in a place
Speaker 4: to say, oh, you know, there are things that really
Speaker 4: happened here that, oh, maybe I can make an offering
Speaker 4: to unpack comedically. But it was a mind fuck the
Speaker 4: whole time. It took me a long time to even
Speaker 4: admit that.
Speaker 1: So if it was difficult to explore or even examine
Speaker 1: parts of yourself at home, I wonder when high school
Speaker 1: rolls around, you take this TV production class. Was making
Speaker 1: videos in that class a way of examining and exploring
Speaker 1: parts of yourself that you previously weren't able to do.
Speaker 4: You know, I felt this when I was a kid,
Speaker 4: even before I went to high school. The first thing
Speaker 4: I ever saved up for with my aid post Ramadan
Speaker 4: aid money was a video camera, and I loved that.
Speaker 4: I remember being a kid and just going around the
Speaker 4: whole town and my street and I would film things,
Speaker 4: and then we'd go visit my grandparents and Queen's and
Speaker 4: they had a computer that had a Windows Movie Maker.
Speaker 4: It'd be a whole day, we'd be there, a whole weekend,
Speaker 4: and I would just be in there on that computer
Speaker 4: editing things that I shot. And then by the time
Speaker 4: I got to high school, there were more tools to
Speaker 4: do that then that became short films and that kind
Speaker 4: of thing, and then I started to write I was
Speaker 4: right news, and then I started to be in them,
Speaker 4: and so it was a big incubator. And my buddy
Speaker 4: Jonathan Braylock, who I still work with a lot, but
Speaker 4: then my buddy Steve Way who's on our show, we
Speaker 4: did a lot together in that period, and I think
Speaker 4: we kind of started to find a lot of things
Speaker 4: that we were just making each other laugh, and then
Speaker 4: years later we got to make the show together.
Speaker 1: Well, we are going to watch one of those films
Speaker 1: that appeared on a YouTube comedy channel called Inside Joe Films.
Speaker 1: Now for the context around this period, you're a freshman
Speaker 1: in college at Rutgers, nineteen years old, working part time
Speaker 1: at an apple store in the meatpacking district, Yes, attending
Speaker 1: acting classes at Williams Prestudio. Once those classes ended, you
Speaker 1: would run to the train station, hop on, get home
Speaker 1: by twelve thirty one o'clock, and fall asleep. That process
Speaker 1: is like wash rints and repeat. And it's in that
Speaker 1: wash rints process that you wake up one morning, brush
Speaker 1: your teeth and notice a minty saliva dribble running down
Speaker 1: your chin, which I think happened to me this morning,
Speaker 1: by the way, but what happened there?
Speaker 4: I got Bell's palsy. The level of research is unbelievable.
Speaker 4: I'm starting to think you knew to bring these mini
Speaker 4: pop tarts just based on something I had said at
Speaker 4: some point. Yeah, that was a big life changer for
Speaker 4: me because I was doing everything, you know, and I
Speaker 4: was going to college in the morning, then i'd go
Speaker 4: work at the ebble store, and then i'd go to
Speaker 4: acting class, and then i'd do an improv set at
Speaker 4: night or a sketch or whatever, and then i'd get
Speaker 4: home really late. I was truly bringing myself out at
Speaker 4: a pretty young age. Then this thing stopped me and
Speaker 4: I said, Okay, you know, I can't move my face.
Speaker 4: It's weird. Sometimes it goes away after a few days.
Speaker 4: They'll go, oh, it'll be a few days, or be
Speaker 4: a few weeks, or it'll be a few months, or it'll
Speaker 4: be a year. And if it's more than a year,
Speaker 4: it just might be how your face is where half
Speaker 4: your face just doesn't work. You can't even blink. I
Speaker 4: had to wear an eyepatch at night because my eye
Speaker 4: would otherwise dry out, and I had it for six months.
Speaker 4: This was my biggest at the time bargain with God,
Speaker 4: which was, Okay, if this gets better, I'm going to
Speaker 4: drop out of school. All I'm gonna do is I'm
Speaker 4: gonna work on acting. If it doesn't get better, I
Speaker 4: will accept it, and I will continue school, and I'll
Speaker 4: drop out of acting school and I'm just become a lawyer,
Speaker 4: you know. So I was really dramatic about it, and
Speaker 4: it made it a real inflection point for me to say, Okay,
Speaker 4: if I heal from this, I'm actually going to free
Speaker 4: myself from trying to do everything and trying to please everybody.
Speaker 4: And I was in that place where I was enjoying performing,
Speaker 4: but I really wanted, you know, to do right by again.
Speaker 4: You know, my parents made this gamble. I didn't know
Speaker 4: anyone who's exceeded in comedy.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: How do I go home and tell my dad, like,
Speaker 4: thank you for not seeing your parents for a majority
Speaker 4: of your life, and I'm going to perform at a theater.
Speaker 4: But then this thing happened and I said, life's too short.
Speaker 4: I got to just do this for me. So it
Speaker 4: created that well, why.
Speaker 1: Don't we take a look at you in that fork
Speaker 1: in the road moment where you turned Belle's Paulsy into
Speaker 1: a short film aptly titled Bell's Paulsy Hilarious.
Speaker 3: Why we got it to Chicago Sketch Fest?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 4: No, No?
Speaker 3: What what's wrong with your face? John? I told you
Speaker 3: on the phone, I have Bell's palsy. We got to
Speaker 3: come up with a plan. No, there's no plan, we
Speaker 3: just need.
Speaker 1: I got it.
Speaker 7: This is great, man. You can't even tell.
Speaker 3: But you know Halloween's over tonight.
Speaker 4: Right, It's okay, man, I've got a plan. Really?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Three?
Speaker 3: Two?
Speaker 1: What happened in your.
Speaker 3: Oh? Come on? What you still have Bell's palusy?
Speaker 6: John?
Speaker 4: I told you that Changing of the Year wouldn't magically
Speaker 4: heal it.
Speaker 7: It was my Christmas resolution. That's sweet.
Speaker 1: I know I have not watched that for ten years.
Speaker 1: How does that feel watching that a decade later.
Speaker 7: It's cool that we did it.
Speaker 1: It's not that bad. I was like, this should be
Speaker 1: a lot worse.
Speaker 4: Right, I watched one of the sketches we did. I
Speaker 4: was getting ready to be like this is gonna really suck,
Speaker 4: and then I went back and I was like it
Speaker 4: doesn't really suck.
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, no, they're all tightly edited.
Speaker 4: It actually means a lot, because that's when you work
Speaker 4: with a network, they always edit you down, you know,
Speaker 4: But we had no network. Man, we edited ourselves down here.
Speaker 4: I take pride in that. You know, wow, we had
Speaker 4: that down.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: Maybe the writing wasn't always there, maybe we were figuring
Speaker 4: it out, figuring out our voice, but we edited.
Speaker 1: Your commitment to editing, to acting, to making these it
Speaker 1: is what propelled you forward and brought you to Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Did you make that call all to come here at
Speaker 1: like three in the morning at a place called the
Speaker 1: Candlewick Diner? Because it seems like you love making big
Speaker 1: decisions and diners. And I love diners. I think you
Speaker 1: love them more than me and Michael Mann, who I
Speaker 1: thought loved them the most based on every film he's made.
Speaker 4: I love diners. Sometimes I feel like my whole life's
Speaker 4: happened in a diner.
Speaker 1: What happens to you in there? Is it just like
Speaker 1: the prices? Is it the good attitude?
Speaker 4: In a Jersey diner? They are encouraging you to loiter
Speaker 4: And I think that was really nice to have. I
Speaker 4: definitely edited some of those sketches. I would I would
Speaker 4: go plug in at a diner for sure.
Speaker 1: Did you make your decision to come to LA at
Speaker 1: one of those?
Speaker 4: It was kind of made for me because I booked
Speaker 4: this you know show on Nick at Night, And I
Speaker 4: actually was reminiscing about this the other day because it
Speaker 4: was funny. I got, you know, a call from my
Speaker 4: manager at the time, and he said, listen, if you
Speaker 4: can fly yourself out to LA they want you to
Speaker 4: meet do this producer session. Right for anyone who doesn't know,
Speaker 4: it's you meet producers and then if producers like you,
Speaker 4: you test with the network. And if you test with
Speaker 4: the network, they pay for your flight. But the producer session,
Speaker 4: you don't get that. And so I remember looking at
Speaker 4: my bank account I got this call. I was at Apple,
Speaker 4: I had just dropped out of school. I looked up
Speaker 4: ticket prices, I looked at how much money I had.
Speaker 4: I went, I logged into my like Wacovia bank app
Speaker 4: at the time, and Wacovia famously got acquired by Wells Fargo.
Speaker 4: So this is just for anyone who's like really into
Speaker 4: the economy. That's most of our listeners, I think a
Speaker 4: lot of people, right, yea, so Wakovia. So I go
Speaker 4: to my Wacovia. I type in my username, my password.
Speaker 4: I look at the amount of money.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a virus.
Speaker 4: It honestly really does have, like coronavirus. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 4: picked you know, she didn't She didn't. Of course we are.
Speaker 4: She didn't tell me. This is staying it, you do.
Speaker 4: Like I love editing, and I'm telling you the Wakovia
Speaker 4: a bit has to in. I log into my Wakovia,
Speaker 4: I look how much money I have. I look how
Speaker 4: much a plane ticket is. The disparity between what it
Speaker 4: will cost to get me there.
Speaker 1: And what I have is one hundred fifty dollars.
Speaker 4: It's under three hundred. It's tight. But at the time
Speaker 4: three hundred you know you're eating, you know, for a
Speaker 4: couple of days. But at the time, I go, okay,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna do this. My goal was not to get
Speaker 4: the show. It was to test because I thought if
Speaker 4: I could test for the network, at least I know
Speaker 4: they'll get me a hotel and they'll get me the
Speaker 4: flight back. I couldn't fathom that I'd actually book it
Speaker 4: because it just felt so insane. But yeah, so I
Speaker 4: end up going and I test, and I was like, great,
Speaker 4: they got my flight back. They put me in a hotel.
Speaker 4: I literally go from my friend Lina's couch to getting
Speaker 4: a hotel over on the Hollywood and Vine. I'm like,
Speaker 4: this is big. I'm by the Chinese Theater, I'm hanging out,
Speaker 4: I'm going to the Wax Museum. I'm living life.
Speaker 1: And then I booked the role and we're like a
Speaker 1: couple of blocks from there.
Speaker 4: Dude, every time I drive by, and I lived here
Speaker 4: for ten years, every time I drive by, I go, man,
Speaker 4: remember that trip. It's a big shift.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: It's across the country, which is almost like going to
Speaker 4: a different country. I was living at home and then
Speaker 4: suddenly I'm living by myself. It's actually still the biggest
Speaker 4: thing that's ever happened to me in my entire life.
Speaker 1: After the break more from Robbie Yusuf. So you move
Speaker 1: here for this show called See Dad Run. You're living
Speaker 1: in an apartment in Korea Town on sixth and Saint
Speaker 1: Andrew Place. When you get this show. I was thinking,
Speaker 1: because like you know, this writer, strike is upon us
Speaker 1: right now. Will you be able to stay afloat through sea?
Speaker 1: Dad Run residuals.
Speaker 4: That? And that's the question. Whatever deal we made on.
Speaker 4: That was part of an issue that the WGA had
Speaker 4: because it was like such a bad type of deal.
Speaker 4: It was a residualist deal actually, and it's the kind
Speaker 4: of thing that they're trying to get to the bottom of.
Speaker 4: So I would say the lineage of c Dad Run
Speaker 4: is very directly tied to what the guild is fighting
Speaker 4: for now, you know, over ten years later, and so
Speaker 4: you could see that run to the current strike that
Speaker 4: is upon us. So that that's a really clear line
Speaker 4: that not a lot of people are drawing. I think
Speaker 4: if you had a yarnboard, it's a big one.
Speaker 1: And it's like, it's kind of good that we're finally
Speaker 1: drawing it, that we're finally making the connection that's always
Speaker 1: been there.
Speaker 4: It's always been there. It's been unsaid, it's been awkward,
Speaker 4: it's been kind of one of those Hollywood things no
Speaker 4: one wants me to talk about. Yeah, yeah, should we
Speaker 4: And we're dre to Wow, you know, this is it.
Speaker 4: This is ce Sam Run. You know this is big.
Speaker 4: I stand by that joke and let's keep it in
Speaker 4: the cut. I stand by it. It is It's not
Speaker 4: quite Wakovia level, but it's good. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 4: don't feel sick after it, unlike Wakova. One of your
Speaker 4: co stars on se Dad Run is an Oakland comedian
Speaker 4: named Mark Curry. Yes, he decides to take you on
Speaker 4: the road where you open for him.
Speaker 1: Is that right?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Now there's one night in particular, you're at a hotel
Speaker 1: and you're by yourself in your room and it sounds like,
Speaker 1: I think, because you just bombed that you kind of
Speaker 1: lean into and start to discover your comedic voice as
Speaker 1: a stand up. Is that right?
Speaker 4: I bombed so bad that the Miami Improv booked another
Speaker 4: comedian for the next night because I did so poorly
Speaker 4: the night before. You know, I was supposed to do
Speaker 4: fifteen minutes and then I did it. But then the
Speaker 4: next night they said, hey, you only need to do
Speaker 4: five tonight. You know, we got someone else to do.
Speaker 4: In between the nights, I had this thing. I didn't
Speaker 4: know anyone in the city. I was so in baars.
Speaker 4: I was so ashamed. And then I go into the
Speaker 4: hotel and I completely just forced myself to say, Okay,
Speaker 4: I don't want to feel that again. And I wrote
Speaker 4: a lot that night, and then the next night I
Speaker 4: came in and even though they had cut my time,
Speaker 4: like my five was really on it. But I remember
Speaker 4: the club owner really being like, where was that last night?
Speaker 4: And I just said jet lag and then I walked
Speaker 4: away kind of confidently.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you made a kind of pivot in
Speaker 1: the work. What do you think you were moving towards?
Speaker 4: It was just digging deeper. It was playing a different
Speaker 4: kind of room, you know I was doing. I started
Speaker 4: doing stand up on I moved to La you know,
Speaker 4: I'm doing like silver Lake rooms, Burbank, these kind of
Speaker 4: different kind of demographics as opposed to when you go
Speaker 4: to a Mark Curry show, and it's like I could
Speaker 4: feel this thing of what's your essence? As opposed to
Speaker 4: some of these smaller rooms I was starting to stand
Speaker 4: up in It was just do you have a witty idea?
Speaker 4: These rooms they were like, dude, are you funny? Are
Speaker 4: you not funny? Because you're not funny, We'll just talk
Speaker 4: until Mark comes out. It wouldn't even be like I
Speaker 4: bombed and it was silent. They would just watch me
Speaker 4: for two minutes and then go anyway. So and then
Speaker 4: just conversations start. Full full conversations are happening while are
Speaker 4: doing stand up and so immediately I had to put
Speaker 4: myself in a position of how do you hold attention
Speaker 4: and also realizing the value of having people's attention, don't
Speaker 4: waste it, really offer them something.
Speaker 3: So I just.
Speaker 4: Dug much deeper, and I had to move through a
Speaker 4: lot of fear, and it was really nice to not
Speaker 4: be in a city where I knew anyone. Those early
Speaker 4: road dates were just really good for that. You know,
Speaker 4: you don't know anyone, so just go to the hotel
Speaker 4: room and write and get better.
Speaker 1: But it essentially all came back to essence.
Speaker 4: Yeah, any useful diversion from someone's attention to say watch this,
Speaker 4: listen to this, do whatever. I take very seriously, and
Speaker 4: I say, well, I better be providing a unique essence
Speaker 4: of something for them. If I'm gonna ask them to
Speaker 4: take an hour to watch my special thirty minutes to
Speaker 4: watch an episode like why why am I asking you
Speaker 4: to not talk to your family for thirty minutes? This
Speaker 4: better be worth it.
Speaker 1: Well, then I think we should problem take a look
Speaker 1: at what may be the earliest televised example of you
Speaker 1: stepping into and finding your essence, which comes in twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen when you made your Late night debut on The
Speaker 1: Colbert Show. Yeah, the performance did come on the heels
Speaker 1: of Trump's Muslim band.
Speaker 3: I still think we're gonna be okay.
Speaker 4: I really do, because I believe in God, like God, God,
Speaker 4: not yoga.
Speaker 3: But and I know that's a weird thing to say.
Speaker 3: I get it.
Speaker 4: You know, religious culture can be crazy. I don't agree
Speaker 4: with all of it. I grew up in a town
Speaker 4: where I watched my gay friends struggle to come out
Speaker 4: to the religious community, and now I live in la
Speaker 4: where I'm a religious person struggling to come out to
Speaker 4: the gay community and tell them what I think. They're
Speaker 4: just like, you believe in God, Dude, that's so gay.
Speaker 4: I just for me, God is hope that there's more
Speaker 4: to life than what's in front of us. You know
Speaker 4: that even if things seem impossible, there's still a chance
Speaker 4: that it could be okay.
Speaker 3: And I'm not trying to be preachy. I'm really not.
Speaker 4: Like.
Speaker 3: All I'm trying to say is just just submit.
Speaker 4: To Islam because it's the truth, and that's the only
Speaker 4: way you'll be saved.
Speaker 3: Seriously, that's the only way.
Speaker 1: That was six years ago.
Speaker 4: Now I feel like I'm so much younger there. Six Yeah,
Speaker 4: I still can't believe that they let me say that
Speaker 4: on TV too, because that was one where the producers
Speaker 4: were like, I remember just getting this call because they
Speaker 4: saw the transcript of the set and like, so, yeah,
Speaker 4: so you're trying to say, you're trying to end the
Speaker 4: clip with submit to Islam, and I remember I had
Speaker 4: to like bring them out to a show to say no, no,
Speaker 4: it's a bit. It ties to you know, what's happening.
Speaker 4: And it's one of my favorite kind of bits because
Speaker 4: it's the kind of bit where if you are kind
Speaker 4: of just an open minded i'll say comedy fan that
Speaker 4: skews liberal on a certain level, you watch that and
Speaker 4: you go, that's really funny, Like he's playing on this
Speaker 4: fear that everyone has. If you're conservative, you're like, oh
Speaker 4: my god, look at this. It's the Muslim agenda. And
Speaker 4: if you're Muslim, you're like, nice, it's the Muslim agenda.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: Like so it kind of hit all three buckets, which
Speaker 4: is what I you know, is kind of my favorite
Speaker 4: you know, lane to be in.
Speaker 1: You're always thinking about those three buckets.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I want them all to be happy, which sounds
Speaker 4: like an insane way to live. It does sometimes I feel,
Speaker 4: you know, insane, insane, and I know you feel it too.
Speaker 4: Don't drag me in of yourself, dude, come on, you do.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, have me at Wacovia.
Speaker 4: This is such a good bit. That bit comes from
Speaker 4: pain and shame. You know, you know I like that.
Speaker 1: You know that's good.
Speaker 4: I know, dude. You can hear what ivoic. Yes, man,
Speaker 4: stuff people can't even see on the podcast. It's a
Speaker 4: body language thing. Yeah, but oh wow, seeing that's crazy.
Speaker 4: I haven't watched that.
Speaker 1: And looking back at that clip, it feels like a
Speaker 1: clear bridge between your early comedy and the comedy that
Speaker 1: would inform the pilot of romy Yeah.
Speaker 4: I did that Nick show, and then I was doing
Speaker 4: the Road with Mark, and I remember that show ending
Speaker 4: and thinking, okay, cool, I was on a show, and
Speaker 4: now that I've been on a show, I'm going to
Speaker 4: be on other shows. I'm going to act. And it
Speaker 4: never happened. I was so bad at auditioning or I
Speaker 4: would get really anxious, but then I would also feel
Speaker 4: like nothing quite fit me.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I would go in and they'd be like, you're not
Speaker 4: the leading guy, You're not exactly the nerd well I
Speaker 4: want you to play the brown guy, but they didn't
Speaker 4: understand the reference in which they were writing it. They
Speaker 4: would write something that was for someone who was Indian
Speaker 4: or Pakistani and then they'd say, oh, you're kind of
Speaker 4: you know, there was no real So there was this
Speaker 4: thing where the acting thing just wasn't hitting. And I
Speaker 4: almost forgot for a period that I knew how to
Speaker 4: make my own things because I just got so into
Speaker 4: the acting world. And then I said, hold up, I got,
Speaker 4: you know, this gift of an acting job, but that's
Speaker 4: over and now I got to go back to digging
Speaker 4: into what it is I really want to say and
Speaker 4: what I want to do. And so there was this
Speaker 4: period of just doing stand up for the first time
Speaker 4: in a serious way. It was like three years straight
Speaker 4: where it's just I'm doing stand up every night. I'm
Speaker 4: figuring out what the next chapter of my life is
Speaker 4: going to be. My first ever open mic in LA
Speaker 4: was with my buddy Ari Kcher. He'd been working on
Speaker 4: Drad Carmichael's show, and I had been opening for Drowd.
Speaker 4: I'd also been opening for Mo who you know wed
Speaker 4: you know his show together now, and so in that
Speaker 4: time I was just doing a bunch of sets with them,
Speaker 4: But then Ari and I kind of started talking about Okay.
Speaker 1: Cool, let's do the show. It was a really productive
Speaker 1: time from there. You make the show at premieres in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, you win a Golden Globe in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: But throughout the show's run it's been four years now,
Speaker 1: a whole lot of people have compared Ramy to programs
Speaker 1: like Louis Master of None, Fleabag. But I want to
Speaker 1: talk about the the influence of Larry David and Curb
Speaker 1: your Enthusiasm, because he said once there's a twin ship
Speaker 1: between Jewish humor and Muslim humor. What is that?
Speaker 4: It's like an inherent sarcasm, an inherent self deprecation. You know,
Speaker 4: it really hit me just how not celebrating Christmas really
Speaker 4: put me so closely intertwined with my Jewish friends. It's
Speaker 4: you're really missing out on this massive human event. You
Speaker 4: feel like a five year old adult because everyone believes
Speaker 4: in magic, and you're like, dude, this is just a
Speaker 4: ploy for Macy's to sell stuff in December, you know,
Speaker 4: And you're looking at your Jewish friends and they're the
Speaker 4: only other ones who know. And so there's something about
Speaker 4: that in America where I feel, oh man, we're the
Speaker 4: only ones who really get each other here because we
Speaker 4: missed out this childhood window of daydreaming about Santa. We're like, yeah,
Speaker 4: that dude wouldn't fit down the chimney, and you got
Speaker 4: a bunch of kids who are like, of course he
Speaker 4: fits because of the you know what, and you're just like,
Speaker 4: you guys are brainwashed. It creates something very early on
Speaker 4: that I've found to be at the heart of our humor,
Speaker 4: you know. I mean, yeah, look, Larry's just, I think
Speaker 4: the funniest and he's so honest to what he thinks
Speaker 4: in his perspective, and it's why I always think Muslims
Speaker 4: and Arabs are some of the funniest people because they're
Speaker 4: so steadfast, whether in what they believe or what they think.
Speaker 4: They're not going to move off it. And that's comedy
Speaker 4: to me. And when you have four people in a
Speaker 4: room who all think that way, it's just so much certainty.
Speaker 4: It's just hilarious. It's just so funny. I feel that's
Speaker 4: what's really funny about Larry. He's so certain despite being
Speaker 4: completely wrong, and that's wrong.
Speaker 1: And a whole lot of situations, like thinking back to
Speaker 1: that scene we started with at the beginning of this conversation.
Speaker 1: You're on a tender like date, but he's so and
Speaker 1: that he's the best she can do under the.
Speaker 4: Under the occupation, under the occupation. That is definitely something
Speaker 4: that is his own kind of probably Larry david Ish moment.
Speaker 1: It is reminiscent of Curb Your Enthusiasm, because there are
Speaker 1: so many moments in that show, like in Rommy, where
Speaker 1: you're sitting there going, oh my god, dude, will he
Speaker 1: just shop talking? Okay, but hold on, we're talking about
Speaker 1: the comedy side of this show. But so much of
Speaker 1: the writing and the dialogue around Rommy is about representation,
Speaker 1: what this show means in this moment and what it
Speaker 1: tells us about ex people, which I've always found to
Speaker 1: be sort of reductive and not terribly interesting. So I
Speaker 1: want to ask about something more specific, which is this
Speaker 1: quote you have. You said, my work is not about
Speaker 1: showing that we're all the same. It's actually about highlighting
Speaker 1: the difference is because we're not all the same, but
Speaker 1: we're all trying in a similar way and we're all
Speaker 1: feeling in a similar way regardless of those differences.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's yeah, I stand by it even more so
Speaker 4: because I think the level of specificity that we aim
Speaker 4: for is not with the intention of creating a flag
Speaker 4: to represent It's just the thing that me and the
Speaker 4: people who make the show want to do with this
Speaker 4: specific set of characters, and it's not really meant to
Speaker 4: be wholly representative of almost anyone, even if you get
Speaker 4: really subsecty, you know what I mean. I've always felt
Speaker 4: like the show has a right to exist outside of
Speaker 4: that framing, because then it allows it to be something
Speaker 4: that is an exploration in its own tone, in its
Speaker 4: own thing, and not have to fit into Hey, Muslims,
Speaker 4: we've got a show for you, because that puts us
Speaker 4: in an impossible position that is also an inaccurate one.
Speaker 4: And so yeah, I'm not interest saying we're all the same,
Speaker 4: Like I'm more in favor of saying no, no, we're different.
Speaker 4: But we have the same debts, we have the same stresses,
Speaker 4: we have the same desires, even though the way we
Speaker 4: approach them or the tools we have or the belief
Speaker 4: systems we have look different, you know. And so it's like, yes,
Speaker 4: on a level here, I'm saying something has been done
Speaker 4: to say that people who live in the Middle East
Speaker 4: are not human, you know, so on a level that
Speaker 4: has been done through a lot of the media that's
Speaker 4: happened over the last thirty years, there's been a dehumanization.
Speaker 4: So in terms of where Ramy falls into the realm
Speaker 4: of representation, it probably mainly checks the box of if
Speaker 4: you thought we weren't human beings, we are. But if
Speaker 4: I'm trying to tell you anything other than that, it's
Speaker 4: going to fall short. I'm not trying to say this
Speaker 4: is what Muslims are like all over. I'm not trying
Speaker 4: to say that I'm just like you. I'm not trying
Speaker 4: to say whatever. But I'm trying to say the process
Speaker 4: of surviving, in the process of living and being, all
Speaker 4: of that is really similar. And so the monoculture of
Speaker 4: just us, we're all the same. It's well intentioned, but
Speaker 4: it really falls short. And then sometimes the goal of
Speaker 4: what that does. That's where I see the effects of
Speaker 4: colonialism still happening. And you know those countries in the
Speaker 4: Middle East where you know, you'll go into a restaurant
Speaker 4: and they only have a menu in English. If you
Speaker 4: don't read English, don't even be here. These are the
Speaker 4: kinds of things we've been kind of led to believe
Speaker 4: in our own culture because the storytelling and the narrative
Speaker 4: of what American culture is so strong. And I'm not
Speaker 4: saying it's all bad. I mean I love that I
Speaker 4: grew up here, and part of loving growing up here
Speaker 4: is getting to talk about all the baggage that comes
Speaker 4: with that and how that influences everyone everywhere, and what's
Speaker 4: fun about making these shows? And you know, now we're
Speaker 4: you know, we're making more shows and we're doing other
Speaker 4: things that I've been able to do with my production
Speaker 4: company as it's own out of making Rami and making
Speaker 4: other things. Is like, we just get to show so
Speaker 4: many different slices of that. And I think representation is
Speaker 4: not one show. It's like thirty you know, it's movies.
Speaker 4: It's a lot of artists getting to try and getting
Speaker 4: to fail and getting to mess up and getting to
Speaker 4: be imperfect and getting to succeed. That is more so
Speaker 4: what I think that means as opposed to you know,
Speaker 4: anything one season of television or even three could do
Speaker 4: that basically.
Speaker 1: Squares away the macro conversation. As we leave, I want
Speaker 1: to bring it back to you as a person, because again,
Speaker 1: that episode that we've been interrogating and circling over and
Speaker 1: over again. Episode two. What happens in the last ten
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes involves you trying to get past the border,
Speaker 1: having your coat stolen. Inside the coat was your passport.
Speaker 1: These preteens took it in part because you stole their bike,
Speaker 1: and you have this quote said, I think what happens
Speaker 1: with this kid, the kid who stole your coat boomerangs
Speaker 1: for Rami and becomes this ever present haunting of what
Speaker 1: happened and is for me very symbolic of the manifestation
Speaker 1: of guilt that I just feel as a person all
Speaker 1: the time. I guess I want to sit with that
Speaker 1: because at thirty two, Yeah, having just finished Ramadan and
Speaker 1: where you've been thinking about where you stand and where
Speaker 1: you are and where you want to go. That guilt
Speaker 1: that you feel, are you still working through that? Is
Speaker 1: that still fueling a lot of the work and who
Speaker 1: you are at this moment?
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think about the cost of living all the time,
Speaker 4: just what it costs for us to have everything we
Speaker 4: want all the time. Right, there are people in the
Speaker 4: margins of this country that are deeply suffering in ways
Speaker 4: that people in other parts of the world aren't. Then
Speaker 4: we've you know, lived between New York and LA where
Speaker 4: you can walk into a supermarket and get whatever you
Speaker 4: want all the time, you walk into a clothing store
Speaker 4: and get whatever you want all the time. I'm willing
Speaker 4: to bet a lot of the people who listen to
Speaker 4: Talk Easy are able to afford some of those things,
Speaker 4: and that comes at a cost that's way beyond that.
Speaker 4: You know, when I look at the way the episode ends,
Speaker 4: haunts him the whole season because this character, for sure,
Speaker 4: is talking about his American passport and he's being very
Speaker 4: ignorant in how he's doing it. And then in order
Speaker 4: to fight for his privilege, someone in that episode directly
Speaker 4: suffers and they continue to and he kind of goes
Speaker 4: off and he's trying to live his own life and
Speaker 4: he's spiraling in this way and then realizing, oh man,
Speaker 4: you know, and then it kind of comes to a
Speaker 4: moment at the end of the season where he tries
Speaker 4: to do something towards that debt. Even if it's you know,
Speaker 4: successful or not, isn't even the point is he addresses it,
Speaker 4: and you know, I think there were a lot of
Speaker 4: people who saw only that episode and didn't finish the
Speaker 4: season and we're really upset by it. You know, they're
Speaker 4: really upset by what happened. I think part of that too,
Speaker 4: even going back to the representation conversation, when there's so
Speaker 4: little that even touches something like Palestine, I understand those sensitivities,
Speaker 4: and you know, it's our stab, it's our try, and
Speaker 4: it's something that we made with like a palstinging crew
Speaker 4: and pulsing director who really they understood the vision for
Speaker 4: the whole season because we're asking people to watch ten episodes,
Speaker 4: not just the first two. We're asking people to be
Speaker 4: invested in what this means for a character. And so
Speaker 4: what it was trying to get at for me is
Speaker 4: that feeling of sometimes merely the way that you're living
Speaker 4: has a cost that you never have to look at.
Speaker 4: And if that is inspiring for me to like figure
Speaker 4: out anything I could do in my own, at times
Speaker 4: very minimal position in the scheme of the world, or
Speaker 4: if at any times I have windows or shots to
Speaker 4: talk about things in a bigger way, then I can't
Speaker 4: feel good about that because I need to continue to
Speaker 4: try and be at least somewhat part of making that
Speaker 4: a little bit better. And it's funny. You guys say
Speaker 4: it out loud and yeah, you sound it sounds crazy,
Speaker 4: or it sounds just incredibly I don't know. I don't
Speaker 4: know what it sounds like, but it.
Speaker 1: Sounds like you listen to what your uncle told you
Speaker 1: as a kid. He said, it's the humans job to
Speaker 1: give back more than what they take.
Speaker 4: That's one of his good quotes. That's a great quote.
Speaker 4: I think about that a lot.
Speaker 1: It's funny we keep circling around this idea of what
Speaker 1: it means to have a voice in this moment while
Speaker 1: not being overly delusional about its power. But I do
Speaker 1: want to know if you think your work in some
Speaker 1: ways is in line with the generations that came before you,
Speaker 1: because it seems to me that it feels like an
Speaker 1: amalgamation of the work your family has done, which includes
Speaker 1: your grandfather who was an interpreter for the Arab League
Speaker 1: and the United Nations. Then your father, as we mentioned
Speaker 1: last week's guests, the travel agent in Cairo, who would
Speaker 1: show a marriage can the Paramids, and so in thinking
Speaker 1: about being an actor, a writer or director, the creator
Speaker 1: of this production company, Cairo Cowboy, do you feel like
Speaker 1: your work is a kind of amalgamation of both interpreter
Speaker 1: and travel guide.
Speaker 4: Well, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: The funniest answer just be like no.
Speaker 4: You know it's a soft no, but no, it's it's
Speaker 4: beautiful to hear it in that context. I think for me,
Speaker 4: I really respect people's time. You know, you only have
Speaker 4: a half an hour to watch them. You know, you
Speaker 4: have such a busy life when you watch anything that
Speaker 4: I say, I'm not in a position to give you
Speaker 4: hard facts about anything. It's truly, it's just comedy, you know.
Speaker 4: But what I hope I'm able to do is just
Speaker 4: bring people closer to some of their own human questions.
Speaker 4: So a lot of what I'm doing in anything I'm
Speaker 4: doing is openly offering and workshopping the stuff that is
Speaker 4: going on in my head or in my heart, or
Speaker 4: that I wonder about. I'm open to do that in
Speaker 4: as nakeative a way as I know how to, and
Speaker 4: the hope is maybe that inspires a conversation you weren't
Speaker 4: going to have with someone in your family. And I
Speaker 4: think especially growing up in a few different communities, not
Speaker 4: even just you know, the air of a Muslim community,
Speaker 4: but a few different communities where it was hard to
Speaker 4: talk about certain vulnerable things. My hope is that you know,
Speaker 4: me asking my questions, me doing my workshopping, me finding
Speaker 4: the funny patterns, and me also failing sometimes in how
Speaker 4: I do that and other times succeeding in how I
Speaker 4: do that? Is an offering that helps digest some things
Speaker 4: that are not digestible. Then I feel, in my own
Speaker 4: little corner of what we're all kind of chipping in
Speaker 4: to try to do, I'm doing something.
Speaker 1: You know. Well, Then my last question here, if we
Speaker 1: ever like listen back to those or do this again.
Speaker 4: I'll be back.
Speaker 1: Okay, So when we do this again, yes, let's have
Speaker 1: this as a time capsule for us at thirty two,
Speaker 1: recently married. What are those questions that you're asking yourself
Speaker 1: at this moment. We don't have to have the answer
Speaker 1: for them. What are those that you want to put
Speaker 1: on record?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: You know that I want to put on record is
Speaker 4: just we're really siloed right now. I think a lot
Speaker 4: of people are really siloed into their experience, into their phone,
Speaker 4: into things they're doing. What I've been thinking a lot
Speaker 4: about is what is community going to look like? And
Speaker 4: how do we bring back being connected in as many
Speaker 4: real life ways as possible, And a lot of what
Speaker 4: I've been thinking about right now is how do these
Speaker 4: stupid jokes and how do these shows you know where
Speaker 4: we're just giving again workshopping, giving our best stab and
Speaker 4: like trying to get at that you know ethereal it?
Speaker 4: What does that turn into? Just in terms of people
Speaker 4: getting to feel less lonely? But a lot of what
Speaker 4: I've been thinking about is just, yeah, well, what does
Speaker 4: that actually mean? Offscreen? What does that actually mean beyond
Speaker 4: asking for people's attention? What happens once you have it?
Speaker 4: And where does that go? I don't think I'm the
Speaker 4: person to lead anyone once I have their attention, But
Speaker 4: it's more like, yeah, how do you what does it
Speaker 4: look like to just turn that into a way where
Speaker 4: people just get to genuinely feel closer together in real life?
Speaker 4: And I think, you know, we've been talking a lot
Speaker 4: about I'm sure you've been talking about in your circles
Speaker 4: a lot about AI and how what we're going to
Speaker 4: see over the next few years is just going to
Speaker 4: be so rapid, and I think that need for real
Speaker 4: life togetherness is going to be at an all time high,
Speaker 4: And so just been trying to figure out you know,
Speaker 4: what do I need on a personal level. But that's
Speaker 4: a big question.
Speaker 1: You still want to make the show.
Speaker 4: There's a lot I want to make. When we finished
Speaker 4: the first season, I realized what it took to make
Speaker 4: a season of television, and I remember thinking, I would
Speaker 4: love to do this for three or four seasons and
Speaker 4: then put it down for a bit and live some life.
Speaker 4: There's nothing about the story that says you can't take
Speaker 4: off for a while and then come back. I can say,
Speaker 4: you know, here's where this is at. So I think
Speaker 4: a lot of the decisions I'm making right now is yeah,
Speaker 4: when does that hiatus come? Is it now?
Speaker 3: Or are we going to do one more?
Speaker 4: It's probably now.
Speaker 1: Well, look, whenever you put it down, I will make
Speaker 1: a promise that I'll still be here on the other
Speaker 1: side of it, if it's any consolation. And in terms
Speaker 1: of stupid jokes, boy, we have made so many of them.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they've helped make meaning out of
Speaker 1: this conversation.
Speaker 4: I hope, But I think in the time here we've
Speaker 4: definitely caught Wachovia. I think it's a great ending.
Speaker 1: Romy yusef I'll plug you so fun And that's our show.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to leave us
Speaker 1: a review on Spotify, Apple, wherever you do your listening.
Speaker 1: Just clicking those five stars somehow, even in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: is still the best way for new listeners to find
Speaker 1: the show. I want to give au special thanks this
Speaker 1: week to Chase Later, Matt Haberman and the team at Narrative,
Speaker 1: pr Hulu, and of course, Rommy Yusef. All three seasons
Speaker 1: of Romy are available to stream exclusively on Hulu. If
Speaker 1: you haven't watched the show already, I highly recommend you
Speaker 1: do so. If you'd like to learn more about Rommy
Speaker 1: and his work, visit our show notes at talk easypod
Speaker 1: dot com for more conversations. I'd recommend our talks with
Speaker 1: Bob Odenkirk, Quinn de Brunson, Hero, Maria Abby, Jacobsen, Natasha Leone,
Speaker 1: Padma Lakshmi, Alan Ruck, and Bill Hater to hear those
Speaker 1: and more. Pushkin Podcasts listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
Speaker 1: or wherever you like to listen. You can also follow
Speaker 1: us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram at talk easypod. If you
Speaker 1: want to support talk easy by purchasing one of our mugs.
Speaker 1: They come in cream or navy or our vinyl record
Speaker 1: with writer fran Leibowitz. You can do so at talk
Speaker 1: easypod dot com slash shop. Let's talk easypod dot com
Speaker 1: slash Shop. As always, Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Janixa Bravo. Our associate producer is
Speaker 1: Caitlin Dryden. Our research and production assistant is Paulina Suarez.
Speaker 1: Today's Talk was edited by Caitlin Dryden and mixed by
Speaker 1: Andrew Vastola. Our assistant editors are Clarice Givara and c J. Mitchell.
Speaker 1: Music by Dylan Peck, illustrations by Chris Chenoy. Photographs today
Speaker 1: are by Julius Chu. Video and graphics by Ian Chang,
Speaker 1: Derek Gamberzac, Ian Jones and Ethan SINCA special thanks to
Speaker 1: Kaylin Ung. I also want to thank our team at
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries, Justin Richmond, Julia Barton, John Snars, Kerrie Brody,
Speaker 1: David Glover, Heather Fane, Eric Sandler, Jordan McMillan, Isabella Navarrees,
Speaker 1: Tara Machado, Maya Cana, Carly Migliori, Jason Gambrel, Justine Lang,
Speaker 1: Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Weisberg. I'm San Fragoso. Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening to Talk Easy. I hope you enjoyed our
Speaker 1: midweek episode with Arlow Parks. If you haven't checked that
Speaker 1: out yet, I'd recommend you do so. She's a fantastic
Speaker 1: young gen Z musician. I have never felt older, just
Speaker 1: saying that sentence. Anyway, I'll be back next Sunday with
Speaker 1: actor Oscar Isaac. Until then, stay safe and so long.