Comedian Ramy Youssef Returns with ‘More Feelings’

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. This is Talk Easy. I'm standing for Gooso. Welcome

(00:37):
to the show.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Today.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
I am joined by comedian, actor, writer and director Rommi Yusef.
I first sat down with Rommi last spring, where he
was campaigning around season three of his self titled show Rommie,
available on Hulu. Since then, you may have seen him
in Poor Things alongside at Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe,
or perhaps his work in The Bear where he directed

(01:14):
that great episode in season two where Marcus played by
Lionel Boyce, is learning how to make pastries in Copenhagen
while living on a boat, which is either the best
month of someone's life or the absolute worst, And if
you watch that episode, it's somehow both. And it's a
testament to Rommy's talent as a filmmaker that the team

(01:36):
at The Bear actually brought him in, which is pretty
rare for them to direct that episode of season two.
The creator of that show is a man named Christopher Storer.
He directs most of The Bear, and he also is
the director behind Rommy's latest HBO special, More Feelings, that
comes out this Saturday, March twenty third. By the time

(01:59):
you're listening to this, it is out if you haven't
streamed it yet on Max. Here's a clip from the trailer.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
I'm done apologizing. I'm done saying that we're peaceful. For
twenty years, we've had to prove to people that we're safe.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
Right.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Every time you turn on CNN, there's like some Arab
dude talking about how Islam means peace. You know that guy,
but he's always shouting it. He's always like, we come
in peace. You're like, Bro, that's the slogan for aliens.
That's what aliens say before they take over the fucking planet. Bro,

(02:39):
I'm done, I'm done saying sorry.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
That was from More Feelings, now available to stream on Max.
As you can tell just by that snippet, Rommy is
venturing into some uncharted territory. It's a bit more pointed
and political than maybe his earlier work, but it's no
less funny because romy has this way, and I think
it is a singular thing that he is doing, which

(03:06):
is he can create jokes around issue that are not
typically conducive to comedy, whether it's the upcoming election, the
crisis in Gaza, or what it's like to be a
Muslim American in twenty twenty four, Rommy somehow finds a
way to get people to laugh about things they don't

(03:26):
typically laugh about. And so before we returned to this
conversation with him from last year, I thought we'd give
him a call to talk about this new special, all
that's happened since we last spoke, and of course the
fact that he's about to host Saturday Night Live on
the thirtieth this month, which is a sentence on a
personal note, I'm just so glad I get to say

(03:49):
on this show. There are a few comedians that are
pushing the medium forward in the way that he is,
And so it means a whole lot that Rommy was
willing to talk this week and what is probably one
of the busiest weeks.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Of his life. And so with that, why don't we
call him up? Hey, Ramy, Sam, how you doing. I'm
happy to hear your voice.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
You came into the city to pick up a phone
call for me. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
For Sam, it's you gotta.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Last time we spoke on microphones, it was a week
after you had finished observing Ramadan. You are now in
the throes of it. I guess we're just going to
keep talking on microphones once a year around this like
very spiritual month of yours.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah, talking with you has become part of my spiritual
practice now. Actually, you know, so next Ramadan, we gotta
do something because now I'm actually in shock that it's
been that long, because if you told me i'd ballpark,
it's been six months.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
So that's really wild, a little disturbing.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah, I actually can't believe that that was basically a
year ago. I think actually when I saw you, it
must have been I was either on my way or
I had just come back from I was doing the
bare episode that I did, and then I was beginning
to write something new and we were about to go
on strike. There was so much happening. And so now

(05:16):
on the other end of that, now that that episode's
come out, now that the film that Poor Things came out,
it's been really cool, you know, I kind of everything
feels a lot more out there, you know, in terms
of connecting with people. Then at that time, I did
a lot more stand up since then, and I think
I've just been spiritually reflecting on you know, how do

(05:37):
you find quiet when there's a lot of output happening.
And I think that, you know, in the middle of
a press thing and getting something out and doing shows
and doing all that the month is really needed. Actually
for me, it's cool to slow down and be really
deliberate and wake up at early hours in the morning
and eat before the sun rises. Is actually it's great.

(05:57):
I don't look at my phone when I wake up
that early because I know there's no one's calling, you know,
at four in the morning. So it's a really great
way to start the day in what our kind of
crazy days. So you would think, oh, the days are
so crazy, I'm getting less sleep, But actually it's more
energizing to start the way that I've been starting.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
We're talking a couple hours before sunset. How are you
at the end of days?

Speaker 4 (06:21):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (06:22):
Right now, you know, I feel good, I because now
i'm I think this is the eighth No, it's the
ninth day of fast thing and now it's It's really
wild how the body just suggests to whatever you tell it. Right.
So there are days when I feel like I actually
can't make any sort of decision unless I have a burrito.

(06:43):
You know, that day we usally get me the burrito.
I need the burrito, you know, and I'll be there
in three months, I'll be back in like Burrito Panic.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
It is Burrito Panic. The name of your next special.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
It might be now I think it's it's either that
or if I ever you know, reboot an improv group.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
It actually is stronger as an improv group. That's a
great title.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
Hey everyone, we're Burrito Panic. We'd love to take a suggestion.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
First, one, you have another name for the group. You know,
since we spoke, as you said, you've been touring a
whole lot with this new special of yours. It's now
out on Max. It's called More Feelings, which, by the way,
could be the title of this podcast if you hadn't

(07:29):
taken it.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
I actually very much see that absolutely, Like now that
I know you a little more, I definitely see that.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
I really love the special. I rewatched it last night.
But for those who haven't seen it yet, you have
this quote about stand up that I just want to
start with. As a table setter, you said, stand up
for me is like I'm going to come on stage
with something that I'm battling with and I've figured out
a way to make it funny before I've found the
answer to what I'm looking for. So, as you're on

(08:01):
this tour, crafting the Special, What were the ideas and
the subjects that you were battling with.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
I think there was this feeling of responsibility that I
was trying to figure out. I've gotten the opportunity, you know,
to make stuff, and I think every time I go
to a show, especially now, this was really my first
tour since we'd done the three seasons of RAMI for

(08:29):
kind of a variety of reasons, I didn't really get
to go out and do a lot of cities, some
of them being COVID and other things, and so I
was really feeling this different thing as a stand up
where you're now you're getting to do small theaters and
you're getting you know, people are coming out in a
way that they weren't coming out before, and you feel
this thing of oh wow, you know I have people's attention,

(08:50):
you know, and what does that mean and what is
there to what do you do with that? And I
think that The Special kind of tackles some of that
in the sense of, you know, what does it mean
to be public and how political are you supposed to be?
And how seriously or not seriously should you take that? Right?
Because I kind of always am the comic in me
is like, guy, don't listen to me. I did not

(09:10):
finish college and I'm not you know, I just don't.
There's you know, my scope is so limited, and I'm
just trying to take really big things and make them
really dumb. And I was definitely dealing with that kind
of responsibility, but then also thinking a bit about personal relationships,
thinking about my family, thinking about getting married. You know,

(09:32):
all of these themes I think kind of found their
way into the special, and I think as I was touring,
I was figuring out how much do I want to
talk about each of them and what fits the moment
of where I am, And so that in process quote
you're talking about, I use it as like giving myself
permission to be loose enough to be cool with how

(09:53):
it goes, so to not walk in and kind of say, hey,
you know, this is word perfect and I've tried this,
you know, one hundred and twenty times and you're getting that. No,
it's there's a thing in capturing the medium of stand up.
It's never fully captured on film.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
What do you mean by that?

Speaker 2 (10:12):
There's nothing like a live show, watching a comic do
a joke for the first time and being there and
seeing them, and as a comic, there's nothing like seeing
the crowd and feeling it. And I think that what
ends up as a special that you can view is
a separate experience. It's like telling someone a story over,
you know. But if you were oh man, if you

(10:32):
were there, you know, and so this gives you a
peak of being there. It's truly never quite the same.
And I think putting together the special while also experiencing
the tour are kind of two different things. And then
as the date kind of narrowed in, it became clear, Okay,
here are the things I want to talk about on
this kind of February third, or I think that was
the date that we we shot, like the third and

(10:54):
the fourth, or the second and the third or whatever.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, as you were going on tour and then putting
the special together, at the heart of it is this
crisis in Gaza, and you manage to make jokes and
create material out of a situation I don't think anyone
has been able to be funny about for the most part,
and you are somehow holding both the ongoing tragedy at

(11:18):
this moment while also making and doing bits around the edges.
How the hell do you do that.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
I think it's because it's not reactionary. So I think
anyone who's kind of seen me do stand up over
the last few years will if you've seen me live,
you'll see some of these bits. And it's really interesting
because you'd be surprised how little of it is immediately topical.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
You know.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
There's obviously things that I'm talking about that you can
tell I wrote in the last few months, but so
many of the bedrocks of the personal stories. You know,
I have this whole story about going on a date
where talking about Palestine comes up, and that's a bit
I've had, right, and so that's where it's kind of
you know, and when we talked last time, it's not

(12:00):
like it was fully in the news cycle and it
came up right because it had come up in our season.
So it's not sensational when it's something that you actually
care about and has been kind of part of the conversation.
And I also think that anyone who's coming to see
me is also familiar with the idea that, yeah, this
is something that means something to me. And so that

(12:22):
being said, there's still a ton of reservation and what
does that look like?

Speaker 1 (12:27):
The reservation I mean.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
It looks like just the questioning I think anyone could
have with whatever they're doing, you know, like, is this
does this help? I don't know, actually, and I don't
with my work. I am open to getting enough distance
from it and then having kind of an honest assessment
of what it did. Did this affect people positively? Did

(12:50):
this affect me positively? And I think that I'll find
different answers around different pieces. You know, I'm sure there's
going to be jokes I regret, and I'm sure there's
going to be jokes that I wasn't sure if I
should tell, and then I'll look back and say, oh,
thank god I said that. But it's really kind of
complicated to think about it outside of the sixty minutes

(13:11):
of the set, because it is everything outside of the
set is in terms of the real world. Yeah, like
you said, I mean, it's incredibly it's incredibly demoralizing and dark.
And my hope is that this is something, but I
don't know.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
You know, recently, we sat with doctor Cima Jelauney, who
was working in Gaza and had come back, and there's
a couple times in our conversation where we ended up
making jokes after twenty minutes of just true pain and heartbreak.
And I like to think if she can make a joke,

(13:50):
then I think, I mean not know only that she can.
But she was like all the doctors when we were
over there, like, yeah, we would all try to do
a joke sometimes because oh my god, if we don't laugh,
it's not possible for them to do their work.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
And dude, that's my conversations have been that way with
journalists who are there, or with people I know who
are there. And you know, I was talking to a
friend of mine who you know, knows a lot of
journalists who've lost family members, who've been through and and
you know, he's like, yeah, last night we were hysterically
laughing for an hour because it is it is actually
a human response, you know, it is something And so

(14:26):
I think it's about tapping into a feeling. And again
it's it's probably part of the name of the special
and why I really lean towards calling it that because
it's kind of all that it is. But is there
room for some sort of alternate response in this? And
it is also a very Arab response, you know, it's
a very like Muslims and Arabs are constantly joking about

(14:49):
so many things, you know, like I knew a guy
who who'd lost a kid, you know, and and and
you know he's still it's it's it's the worst thing.
And he's like, you know, you know, he's like, yeah,
I guess I have two more, you know, like like
he'll find a way to laugh in the middle of
something that's that's absolutely terrible. It's an outlet, you know.
I think, like with tears, there's also there's also laughs.

(15:11):
It's the it's just how we respond.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
One joke I don't think you'll regret is one in
which you call President Biden quote having substitute teacher energy.
But I get that right. And I just thought that
was so nice of you to say that he has energy.
I thought that was really kind that you said that
about him. I was really nice.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
Oh my god, dude, I.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
Have a question for you. Don't worry. In twenty twenty,
the Biden administration called you and said, Rommy, we've seen
your work. We're huge fans. We subscribe on Hulu. We've
totally seen all three seasons. I guess at that point
it was only one or two seasons. And they asked
you to basically campaign for him in Michigan, which is

(15:59):
a central battleground state for him. Obviously, you've probably seen
in the news Biden has clinched the nomination basically in
delicate count in Michigan. There were over one hundred thousand
votes cast us uncommitted ballots, which is a direct result
of Biden's handling of the crisis in Gaza. So I

(16:19):
have to ask you, one has he seen the new special?
Two has he seen Poor Things? And three have they
called me yet?

Speaker 2 (16:28):
Biden definitely loves poor Things. The man's a freak that
we know. You know. In terms of the special, I'm
not sure. In terms of will there be another call,
probably not, especially if they've seen the special. But I
do think that the uncommitted campaign is incredibly impressive because
I think, you know, we're being really clear. I don't
think that anyone I know is saying, Okay, Trump is

(16:51):
a better option. No one's saying that. But I also
think that there has to be some sort of clarity
around we refuse to be silent. You know, we are
a voting constituent. How are we not able to vocalize
where we're at? And I think that's some of the
pushback that I know know the special will get, or
that I know I've gotten from some people where they go,

(17:12):
aren't you afraid that Trump is going to be worse?
And I kind of keep coming back to this point
of you know, that's abuse, right. It's like you don't
speak up because you don't want things to get worse,
or you don't want to get hit harder. Right, It's textbook,
you know. And so we've created an abusive relationship between
the voter and the ruling class, one where everyone forks

(17:34):
up a lot of money that they could be putting
into their family. It's hard to back anyone when you
know there's never going to be campaign finance reform. Right.
So it's like, if you don't change the way money
gets into politics, then the only thing the rules politics
is money, and then it just becomes a corporate game.
So I all these guys are just it's almost algebraic.
It's interchangeable at a certain point. And I understand there's

(17:54):
certain social, civil liberties that we prefer from a democratic presidential, House, Senate, whatever,
but it's starting to get thin, all of it. It's
really all starting to get thin, especially because a lot
lot of these laws, you know, don't change, and you
see a guy I'm almost more infuriated with Biden for
continuing to fund the border wall. That's what really tells me.

(18:18):
You know, you're using the social issues. You're saying you're
for Muslims, you're saying you're for gay people and trans people,
you're saying you're for women. But outside of those niceties,
a lot of the ways that you're legislating, you know,
other things are no different from the other side. And
so don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's all

(18:39):
the same. And I know that there's all the Supreme
Court shit and all that kind of stuff, and so
I always hesitate to get too deep on this stuff.
I just think that what they did with uncommitted was
really important because I think it's important to say and
I think having groups stand up, you know, we refuse
to be used the name and not be recognized in
how you govern, and I think that's very important.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
By the way, I also agree with I mean, I
agree with you that the the uncommitted votes were meaningful,
and I'm glad they get it. Yeah, I think on
a very base, sick level, the fact that they could
do it that they are still able to do it
is something only one candidate is offering on the next
go around. Yeah, that's not to absolve min it and

(19:20):
not ething like that.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
No, of course we're looking at this like totalitarian alternative, right,
And so again it's like, how do you voice where
you're at and also understand that there's one version of
it that can be healthy, constructive, going back and forth
and figuring out how to get somewhere, and there's another
version that might be really dark, and it's like no, no, no,
like shut up. You know. So that's that's interesting, right.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
We should remind people that the special is really funny.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
You asked me about I mean, what can I say?

Speaker 1 (19:47):
You know, let me let me set you up better.
You mentioned at this point it's almost become algebraic, the
math bit that you have in the special. Yeah, whether
it's that one or something else. What joke are you
most proud of in this new special?

Speaker 2 (20:01):
You know, there's this story and I don't want to
give away too much, but there's a story about this
book report from when I was a kid that's in the.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
Special with Gandhi.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah, with Gandhi, and I think it is probably one
of my favorite things because I actually, you know, I
just my dad just saw this special, and basically it's
a confession of something I'd been keeping from my dad
my whole life, and I don't think he kind of knew.
But it's just funny the things that you kind of bring,
you know, that you hold back from your family. And

(20:30):
that's where the work becomes really fun, where whether it's
making the show, doing the stand up, I always kind
of find the best conversations I'll end up having afterwards
are with my family or with close friends, and it
kind of opens up something new.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
You know, what's your favorite bit that you cut out
of the special that you can share here because it
won't be on the special.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
I have this bit that I think is going to
exist in my next special. You know, I talk about
prayer in the special, but I've been really into this
idea of the way that one can and I definitely do.
We'll kind I'll kind of judge what I'm praying for,
and I wonder if I have room to pray for

(21:12):
kind of all the things, because there's all this heavy
stuff going on, but then I'm also praying for really
small things. And there was this bit that I did
that got cut out of the special that was just
kind of about praying for my friends, family and gods
at the same time, but also praying for my friend's
dog in New York at the same time. And the
idea really makes me.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
Laugh that they're on the same pendulum.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Or like, how do you fit that all into one prayer,
you know, because sometimes you don't have a lot of time,
but you want to pray for all of it. And
there's just something really funny to me about that kind
of just judgment on a space that should have no
judgment is really funny to me. And obviously I'm always
kind of circling these spiritual things that kind of interest
me and keep me up. But yeah, that was a
fun bit that I think will be kind of a

(21:57):
longer bit in the next hour that I'm working on.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
Before we go, people are about to hear what is
essentially your I guess life story. I don't I don't
know how to frame. Yeah, I think we kind of
went through your life story the best we could.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
You were digging stuff up that I was so impressed.
I was just you definitely, even this quote you brought
up in this part of this.

Speaker 1 (22:20):
I was like, man, Sam is just on it. It's
all love and that's why. I mean, I love what
you're doing. And so I want to ask you this.
You're hosting Saturday Night Live that's coming weekend, and I
was thinking about you starting as a stand up living
at home in New Jersey, going into the city to perform,
and then of course, you know, when you were done performing,

(22:41):
you'd get in your mom's car and you would drive
back home through the Lincoln Tunnel, reflecting on the night.
You just had the bits that landed, the bits that didn't.
And I was just trying to hold that comic, that
twenty year old with the one who was going to
go into the city this weekend and host Saturday Night Live,

(23:04):
like the kid that was ten years old watching George
Carlin with his uncle hosting the show that Carlin hosted
that like where are you at? Like how are you doing?

Speaker 2 (23:19):
The funny thing is I think you just painted the
picture for me. Like I'm getting emotional hearing you say it,
because I don't think I've taken it in in that way.
You know, I think with stand up and making, you know,
making the show, and there's so many milestones that I've
had where I kind of get to do them and
look back and go, oh wow. I think the thing
about SNL is it's so legendary, right. I mean, whether

(23:42):
I saw Carlin on there the Wolf Feral years, everyone
I really respected has either been part of that cast
or has hosted that show. And it's a different one
because you know, so much of how we made romy
or how I do specials is actually different than what
television looked like fifteen years ago. Some of it's the same,
some of it's totally different. The media landscape is fragmented

(24:04):
in a different way, all this stuff. But SNL is
just SNL, And I think, in this weird way, it's
the thing I've allowed myself to be the most holy shit.
I get to go and do that, and I get
to go to thirty Rock and sit in the writer's
room and eat bad food with people at night, and
you know, it's a really late night endeavor. It's very

(24:25):
Ramadan friendly. Just in terms of schedule, I mean, it's
pretty fantastic. I started getting the schedule, I was like,
these guys should just fast. I mean, they don't really
start working untill the sun is down, so it's fantastic.

Speaker 1 (24:35):
They should have just hired you for the whole month.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
Yeah, I just bopy in there, dude, I'm ready. What
else do you need? It's incredibly surreal. I when I
think about the fear I used to have going to
an open mic to yeah, getting to you know, I've
been spending time past week prepping the monologue, and I'll

(24:58):
go up as I lead up to the hosting night
and run it in clubs and get it ready. It'll
also be really cool to go do it in a
bunch of rooms that were some of my first rooms
doing stand up, you know, around the city. And so
I'm really excited about that. And I think that sharing
it with a lot of my friends who I used
to kind of force to come out to shows is
it has been really fun. I Mean there's people I've

(25:20):
gotten a hit up and be like, man, I remember
when I made you come to New York Comedy Club
and we had no money, and I made you pay
twenty dollars for the ticket and then you had to
buy two things and you just looked at me like
I'd ruined your month because I had, you know, I'd
just drained your your bank account.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
Remember all the bad Wings I forced you to buy
because it needed to be a thirty dollars minute.

Speaker 2 (25:41):
All the bad Wings you ate for me, dude, just
traumatic stuff. I mean, because it is like your buddy's
out fifty bucks and you're not even that good. You know.
It's like and then it's just the weight of that,
And I almost wonder, like what will be more pressure?
Is it performing in front of people on a live broadcast,
you know national SNL? Or was it? Man, I just

(26:05):
my buddy's out fifty bucks and this set better be good,
And it might be the pressure from my friends. I honestly,
all of that stuff is always harder to me than
shooting an HBO special.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
You know.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
It's it's just the people who when you've got a
room full of people, you know, in debt because you're
pursuing your dream, that's way harder than you know SNL.
It's like, yeah, people put me put it on, you know,
like if you don't like it, they'll switch the channel.

Speaker 1 (26:35):
When you say to your friends, I'm indebted to you,
you actually meet it.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
I owe everyone hundreds of dollars for sure, at a minimum,
and for some it could be thousands. And I'm open
to repaying that debt, like whoever wants to take me,
you know, up for it. That that's that's real.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
This is great because this tape is gonna come out
before you host. So I hope people claim that one
hundred dollars.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
If I brought you to a Bringer show and you're
still suffering the consequences, call this number the Talk Easy podcast.
You will be reimbursed.

Speaker 1 (27:08):
Yeah, putting your cell not mine out there. Oh wait,
before we go. When I was relaying that description of
like a younger self and you said you hadn't thought
about it like that, what part of it made you emotional?

Speaker 2 (27:22):
Thinking about the drive? Yeah, the drive, Yeah, the tunnel,
the drive, the tunnel. Yeah. It puts it all into perspective.

Speaker 3 (27:30):
You know.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
It's like those quiet moments are the ones where you're
kind of taking it all in and I think that, Yeah,
so much of the self reflecting was in that. In
that commute to Jersey, you kind of think about, okay,
like what worked tonight, what didn't work?

Speaker 1 (27:44):
And will it ever work out?

Speaker 2 (27:46):
And will it ever work? Yeah? I mean there's always
this ticking time, you know, feeling, and I guess that's
just from being alive. You just one day you won't
be but quite directly to this kind of career. Yeah,
you really don't know. I think the next the next day,
you know, I'll do Saturday and then I go I
have dinner with my parents on Sunday, so I'll get
to do that drive. That'll be cool.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
That's unbelievable. And when you do, I hope, and I
mean this earnestly, I hope some part of you can
enjoy it in the moment. I know it's impossible because
you have a billion things to do and you have
to put this special together. Not to mention, you have
to go to the bank and withdraw hundreds of dollars

(28:29):
to give to your friends the night of.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
I think for a few friends, maybe we can call
it like an even eight fifty. I think I'll cut
like eight hundred and fifty dollars checks. I think a
thousand feels crazy. I'm going to say eight to fifty, like, yeah,
because I've bought some I've bought a lot of dinners too,
so I think it's probably I'm going to say eight to.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
Fifty for everybody, you're doing dinner math.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
I'm doing some dinner math just over the last five
years when I've been able to cover dinner. So I'm
going to say eight fifty for prior to twenty eighteen.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
We're going to send it now to our conversation from
last year. Do you want listeners to know anything before
they hear this?

Speaker 2 (29:09):
I just know that I was a different man, and
I don't even know which, which man I was a
better one or No. I'm part of what I'm doing.
I'm shedding good and bad and better and worse, just different.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
I can't even respond to that.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah, don't, don't, don't cut it out, keep it in.
It'll all be okay.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
Ramy Yusef as always a pleasure and good luck.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
Thanks man. This is the best.

Speaker 1 (29:44):
Now here is romy Yusef and I talking in April
of twenty twenty three. Help you enjoy it, Ramy Yusef. Yeah,
A pleasure to meet you, so good to meet you.
How are you feeling.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
I'm really happy to be here. A lot of stuff
happened already off pod. There's a lot of good snacks
outside and great coffee. Do you have any idea how
many things I go to that arepletely snackless. There's just
not a single offering of anything. Maybe water, and you
can tell it's tap. But here, I mean, this shit
is filtered. Thank you?

Speaker 1 (30:18):
Is this material for your new stand up special?

Speaker 2 (30:20):
I express myself in sometimes things that sound like they
could be bits, But I'm not a tester. I don't
test my material and conversation. If I think something's a bit,
I keep it to myself. I'll try it on stage.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
Because you don't want to give ideas away for free.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
It feels cheap. It feels like I'm using a lunch
to further my career when I'm just trying to have
lunch with my friend.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
Well, you're on a podcast, so if you want to
try stuff out, you're more than welcome to this.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
This is a gray area, but I will say it
falls a bit into the lunch category because of the
snack quality that you offered.

Speaker 1 (30:52):
Do pop tarts constitute a lunch for you?

Speaker 2 (30:54):
So there's this bag here of mini pop tarts that
is blowing my mind because I never want to commit
to a whole pop tart, of course, and I feel
bad that they figured out the product outside of my
prime of eating it thirty two thirty two years old.
It starts to get weird.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
You know what's unbelievable. People always say about our show
that we really talk about these big, weighty subjects, but
really we can talk pop tarts.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
Get me going on gushers and it'll get deep.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
I am kind of afraid to get you going on gushers.
I feel like we'll never get anywhere. I do want
to start with something that's just happened, though, because you
released season three of this show, romy and since the
show came out, I believe in September of twenty twenty two,
the tensions between Israel and Palestine, they have only escalated.

(31:48):
Having filmed in Jerusalem. How are you thinking about both
the conflict over there but also the context that people
now have in approaching something like episode two of season three.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
Yeah, you know it was d of September, was the
third season of Rommy, and then in August we released
the first season of mo where he's you know, proudly
an undocumented Palestinian guy in Texas. And then in Rami,
we have a totally different take where Rami is you know,
American born, and the episode we did is almost completely

(32:26):
around his own privilege as being kind of American born
and going over So what's been a culture shift When
I think about when we started writing both those projects,
it felt risky at the time to even you know,
and this was before there was like what I would
call a big kind of viral Instagram moment that the
summer of twenty twenty one, when people really started talking

(32:48):
about what was happening with the occupation of Chef's Genra
and also even people really being open and saying, you know,
this isn't a conflict, this is an occupation. You know,
this is a completely inhumane thing that is happening. And
I think even in the time, like you're pointing out,
from writing the projects to releasing the project's big change
because by the time they came out, it was like,
oh wow, people are more open to having this conversation.

(33:10):
It doesn't feel as WHOA is when we wrote it, right,
And that's in an American context, because I think in
Europe and throughout other parts of the world, people understand
what's happening in a more clear way. And so I
think the approach that we've taken with both shows, to me,
was always kind of a timeless approach because we're focusing
on character, so we're not getting into the nitty gritty

(33:32):
of political debate as much as we are kind of saying,
you know, what is the you know, blind eye that
an American Muslim like Romy turns to when you know
he's living in a country that also has colonial tendencies
and then he's visiting a country that is being affected
by colonialism, and so watching that all play out again
from a personal place, right, Like, I'm not trying to

(33:55):
use the show to sit and go back and forth.
There's people who are way more qualified than me to
talk about this, but we're trying to just put human
characters in the middle of it.

Speaker 1 (34:03):
Well, why don't we take a look at a scene
from that episode where your character is in Jerusalem on
a kind of Tinder like date. Yeah, this is from
season three, episode two of Romi, now available on Hulu.

Speaker 4 (34:23):
I can't believe you actually came.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
Yeah, sorry, I was late. The fucking checkpoint took forever.

Speaker 4 (34:30):
Yeah, with checkpoints, times are never accurate.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
No, I know, it's so frustrating.

Speaker 5 (34:34):
Like I'm from New Jersey and we have If you
hear the Lincoln Tunnel, it's basically a fucking checkpoint. Like
it takes hours to get into New York, but sometimes
it takes minutes. So everyone's always just confused, like and
is it going to take a long time?

Speaker 2 (34:47):
Is it not?

Speaker 5 (34:48):
And then it costs like twenty bucks now to get
in at least you guys, you don't have to pay, right, Yeah, sorry.

Speaker 4 (34:56):
It's okay. We don't need to keep talking about this
ship the store.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
I work in jewelry, it's it's it's why I came.
What about you?

Speaker 4 (35:06):
I work in a restaurant in Romalda, but I'm starting
my launderer company. Really yeah, super affordable lingerie. And the
tag is everyone has the right to be sexy.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
Wow, you your family's it's okay with that.

Speaker 4 (35:23):
Like religiously, Muslims in the West are so fucking updight
you act like no one ever kissed before. It's lungerer.
Everyone wears it. I'm not comment tilba.

Speaker 2 (35:33):
Yeah, yeah, of course you know I'm not. I'm not
up tight like I've kissed before.

Speaker 1 (35:39):
My favorite part is him complaining about the commute, like
it's going from Santa Monica to Los Phillies. It's like
it's ease, I know, stuff happened.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
Yeah, She's like they built the wall that wasn't there before.
He's like, I get it. Stuff happened, but you know,
you really could have told me before I got Yeah,
you know.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
He told me there was an acting on the one
on one, so.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
You know that that's really where, you know, we talk
about a character with privilege and a character who is
clearly you know, we get into his addict like tendency
and I think it says everything too though about the perception.
Right she starts talking about lingerie and he's like, what
you guys are that open about, you know, and not
realizing that the American Muslim bubble is really that it's

(36:22):
a bubble, and it's oddly disconnected at times from what's
actually happening in the Middle East, because you have all
these kids who are you know, their parents were immigrants
and haven't been back for a while, and they're really
working hard to maintain the image they have of where
they were, but it's from like the eighties, it's missing
the last forty years, and we grew up with it.

(36:45):
And then you kind of go over and you realize, WHOA,
they're moving at a really different pace than what we've
been trying to uphold.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
There's not a whole lot in the middle of the
Israel Palestine, Van diagram. Did you create Rami in that
scene so that they could both agree on something, which
is that you know you're not a great guy.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
The design of the episode from the writer's room was
purely Rommy's gonna sit with the Palsinian woman, He's gonna
sit with the Israeli woman. In both situations. Is gonna
be like, what the fuck's going on with this guy?
You know that that was one hundred percent straight up
character assassination. On a level, it felt like the only
way again to keep it, you know, to keep it character.
But this woman that he goes on this field date with,

(37:29):
I think the actress herself, I think got the script
and said, whoa, I could say this, you know, And
and that's what's fun about making something with a crew
in the actual place. I mean, you know, here you're
on set. Only producers or writers talk over there. The
guy you know who's doing craft service and bringing food
will say, hey, man, you know, it would be better

(37:50):
if you said in this part and you know, and
I'll say that to me, you know, between takes, and
I'll go, oh, okay, yeah, yeah, you live here. I'll
take the note, you know, I'll take notes from anybody
you know, the transpo guy, whoever, Whoever's got a thought
and same thing. You know, we obviously had a Palstinian
director on the episode, but being with that crew, going
through the script with them and really getting it to
a place where they felt, Okay, yeah, we're proud to

(38:10):
shoot this, it was a really cool experience.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
You recently said that this new season was mostly about
a crisis of faith. Well, what did he mean by that?

Speaker 2 (38:20):
I think, you know, for the romy character, we kind
of built the show. The premise of the show was
always what does it look like for someone to not
try to erase not just lineage, but their faith practice.
Because I think what I was seeing a lot of
was this attitude of oh, I grew up religious, I
grew up this way, but thank God now I'm free

(38:40):
of that and I get to update. And I said, well,
that's not really how I feel. You know, there's a
lot of my tradition, a lot of my faith that
I want to adhere to, but I'm kind of trying
to figure out what it means to do that right
now in this current moment in time. And I thought
that tension was different. You know, the guy actually wants
his faith, this season is the first time in the

(39:02):
show where he's disillusioned by it and we're kind of
watching him, I think, are from performing faith to kind
of stripping it down and putting it back together again.
You know, That's the journey that I wanted to put
in through this season.

Speaker 1 (39:17):
There's also in this season more of an emphasis on
the crisis of faith in the American dream when it
comes to your parents. Yeah, in particular was that onlind.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
Very very I mean, I think it was also looking
at you know, we're coming out of COVID and we're
coming out of a big reimagining and also a big
dent to a lot of the systems that you know,
we've all been trying to invest in, you know, to work,
and then we kind of watched a lot of them
really shake. And that's still playing out now. You know,
the rebounds of that are really happening today. And I

(39:51):
think part of the pressure that Arami type has, or
any kid of an immigrant has, is knowing that their
parents made a really tough move that was a gamble,
and you know, you're the dice and you got to
roll the right way in order for them to feel
good about what they did. And so when you spend
the lot of your life feeling like I got to
be the thing that makes my parents' existence worth it, it's

(40:15):
a very odd pressure to have. But then you know,
really also wanting to step back from the parents who
are like, well, was it really worth it for us
to even come here and make this gamble too?

Speaker 3 (40:23):
You know?

Speaker 2 (40:24):
Are we getting what we thought we would get? Is
this the dream we signed up for a lot of
these things that they put a lot of stock in
are falling apart for them, And I think that's also
part of them realizing, Okay, you know, we've been living
culturally in a certain way, but we need to be
more spiritual because we're trying to invest in land. We're
trying to invest in the idea of a country. We're
trying to invest in this idea of a job and

(40:45):
what a job means and to have a job that
informs my identity, and then realizing, no, there's probably something
more spiritual to really be digging into. And so yeah,
that awakening is happening for all the characters.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
To understand the context of the dream your parents had,
then we have to go back a little bit. Because
you grew up in New Jersey with Egyptian parents, and
you said as practicing Muslims. There was a performative element
that felt like you were living in your own Truman show.
We've been talking a whole lot about performance. What did

(41:17):
that look like?

Speaker 2 (41:18):
I'm trying to remember the context in which I said that.
That does sound like something I said. You're pulling great stuff.
I like that, you like your words. I'm like, dude,
past me was wow. You ever worry that you're regressing?

Speaker 1 (41:28):
Yeah? I do? I do?

Speaker 2 (41:30):
Is that regress easy?

Speaker 1 (41:32):
We do fifty two a year, so I have a
shot at redemption every week.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
This one's a progress episode.

Speaker 1 (41:38):
We're finding it.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
I feel it. Yeah, your progress is in how I
answer these questions.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
And your progress.

Speaker 2 (41:44):
This podcast bears nothing on my progress. Oh really, yeah,
I'm just I've already had a good time, like coming in.
Oh okay, this is in the wind column. Yeah, most
of the do with the pop tarts. The pop tarts.
I like the lighting in here. It's nice, you're nice,
the ac is good. I'm good.

Speaker 3 (42:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
I won. Sounds like Trump.

Speaker 2 (42:03):
Honestly, if you didn't look at what he did and
just you know some of what he said.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
An optimist, I mean, I could say how someone who
grew up with a photo of Donald Trump in their
living room as you did, would say something like that,
do you want to offer contacts with that for people?

Speaker 2 (42:19):
My father, Yeah, he worked at the Plaza hotel for
over ten years. When he came to the country, he
just started, you know, he was a bus boy at
some of he started at the Waldorf Astoria, and it
was because he spoke Arabic and there were a lot
of high spending Arab clientele that would come in from
the Gulf.

Speaker 1 (42:36):
He was previously a travel agent in Cairo.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
Yeah, I forgot, you know my dad. I mean he
was last week's guest. But yeah, so he started bussing
and then he kind of went over to the Plaza
and he was doing that too, and then eventually became
a manager of all the food and beverage and all
their like banquet halls and all that stuff. And so
he do the Trump kids birthdays. I'm working late tonight.

(43:00):
It's you know, Eric's birthday. You know that, you know,
And at the time wasn't bad or anything. It was
just this is just, you know, a guy my dad
works with. But I think part of what we got
to explore in the first season, which was something that
was very true in my life, just that fear of
being a kid and being so close and at the
time my dad worked in the city when nine to

(43:20):
eleven happened. And I think part of what we got
to do as a show, and part of what even
other things that I continue to explore, is just the
impact of that time for the psyche of a kid,
especially a kid who felt implicated.

Speaker 1 (43:33):
Is that how you felt?

Speaker 2 (43:34):
Yeah, I did, because you're looking at a screen on
TV and you're seeing these people who've done horrible things,
and you know, one of them's Egyptian, the other ones this,
the other one's that, and they have names that tell
like people in my family and look like people that
are in my you know, so, and that's the only
reference point in any media. Was that right? And then

(43:55):
you start to have this self doubt trickle in where
I always felt like I had something to hide even
though there wasn't anything to hide. And then I also
didn't get to fully digest my own background from you know,
like a pure context or even an inquisitive, curious context.
It's all in the defensive, you know, So everything that
I know is just about defending myself at that time,

(44:17):
it's not a curious exploration and an understanding. And I
see this in a lot of people of my generation,
where it's like now we're in our thirties and only
just now we're really getting into our faith in our
background from like a more curious place.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
Specifically, do you remember a moment where you can kind
of acutely remember playing defense as a kid?

Speaker 2 (44:42):
Yeah, I mean some of it is in the episode
we made in the show, Just like I remember really
being in a history class as a middle schooler and
pointing to a map and really trying to put Egypt
in Africa, you know, and just say, wholeheartedly, straight faced
saying I'm African, you know, and then leaving and knowing
I'm not really African. I know, I'm not African, you know,

(45:04):
and being in that place. But for me, the whole
thing is I'm never going to be someone who sits
in and p tens like horrible things happened to me,
you know, or we experienced hate crimes on a big level,
or something like that. And it's why in making the show,
I never try to paint the family or the Romi
character as victims because I'm not in a position to

(45:26):
say I'm a victim, but I am in a place
to say, oh, you know, there are things that really
happened here that, oh, maybe I could make an offering
to unpack comedically. But it was a mind fuck the
whole time. It took me a long time to even
admit that.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
So if it was difficult to explore or even examine
parts of yourself at home, I wonder when high school
rolls around, you take this TV production class. Was making
videos in that class a way of examining and exploring
parts of yourself that you previously weren't able to do.

Speaker 2 (46:02):
You know, I felt this when I was a kid,
even before I went to high school. The first thing
I ever saved up for with my post Ramadana eid
money was a video camera, and I loved that. I
remember being a kid and just going around the whole
town and my street and I would film things, and
then we'd go visit my grandparents and Queen's and they
had a computer that had a Windows Movie Maker. It'd

(46:23):
be a whole day, we'd be there, a whole weekend,
and I would just be in there on that computer
editing things that I shot and then by the time
I got to high school there were more tools to
do that. Then that became short films and that kind
of thing, and then I started to write. I was
writing those, and then I started to be in them,
and so it was a big incubator. And my buddy

(46:45):
Jonathan Braylock, who I still work with a lot, but
then my buddy Steve Way who's on our show, we
did a lot together in that period, and I think
we kind of started to find a lot of things
that we were just making each other laugh. And then
years later we got to make the show together.

Speaker 1 (46:59):
Well, we are going to watch one of those films
that appeared on a YouTube comedy channel called Inside Joe Films.
Now for the context around this period, you're a freshman
in college at Rutgers, nineteen years old, working part time
at an apple store in the meatpacking district, Yes, attending
acting classes at Williams Prestudio. Once those classes ended, you

(47:22):
would run to the train station, hop on, get home
by twelve thirty one o'clock and fall asleep. That process
is like wash rints and repeat, Yes, And it's in
that wash rints process that you wake up one morning,
brush your teeth and notice a minty saliva dribble running

(47:44):
down your chin, which I think happened to me this morning,
by the way, But what happened there.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
I got Bell's palsy. The level of research is unbelievable.
I'm starting to think you knew to bring these mini
pop tarts just based on something I had said at
some point. Yeah, that was a big life changer for
me because I was doing everything, you know, and I
was going to college in the morning. Then I'd go
work at the Apple store, and then I go to
acting class. Then I do an improv sat a night

(48:11):
or a sketch or whatever, and then I'd get home
really late. I was truly bringing myself out at a
pretty young age. Then this thing stopped me and I said, Okay,
you know, I can't move my face. It's weird. Sometimes
it goes away after a few days, they'll go it
will be a few days, or be a few weeks,
or it'll be a few months, or it'll be a year.
And if it's more than a year, it just might
be how your face is where half your face just
doesn't work. You can't even blink. I had to wear

(48:32):
an eyepatch at night because my eye would otherwise dry out.
And I had it for six months. This was my
biggest at the time bargain with God, which was, Okay,
if this gets better, I'm going to drop out of school.
All I'm gonna do is I'm going to work on acting.
If it doesn't get better, I will accept it, and
I will continue school, and I'll drop out of acting

(48:53):
school and I'm just become a lawyer, you know. So
I was really dramatic about it, and it made it
a real inflection point for me to say, Okay, if
I heal from this, I'm actually going to free myself
from trying to do everything and trying to please everybody.
And I was in that place where I was enjoying before,
but I really wanted, you know, to do right by again.
You know, my parents made this gamble. I didn't know

(49:14):
anyone who's succeeded in comedy. You know. How do I
go home and tell my dad, like, thank you for
not seeing your parents for a majority of your life,
and I'm going to perform at a theater. But then
this thing happened and I said, life's too short. I
got to just do this for me. So it created
that well, why.

Speaker 1 (49:33):
Don't we take a look at you in that fork
in the Road moment where you turned Bell's Palsy into
a short film aptly titled Bell's Paulsy.

Speaker 2 (49:45):
Who there's Waddy? We got it to Chicago Sketch Fest.

Speaker 4 (49:50):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (49:53):
No, not? What what's wrong with your face? John? I
told you on the phone, I have Bell's palsy. We
got to come up with a plan. No, there's no plan.
We just need to I got.

Speaker 1 (50:10):
This is great, man. You can't even tell.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
But you know Halloween's over it tonight. Right, It's okay, man,
I've got a plan.

Speaker 3 (50:25):
Really?

Speaker 2 (50:26):
Yeah? Three? Two?

Speaker 1 (50:29):
What happening yet?

Speaker 2 (50:35):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (50:35):
Come on?

Speaker 2 (50:36):
What you still have Bell's palsy? John? I told you
that the changing of the Year wouldn't magically heal it.
It was my Christmas resolution. That's sweet. I know I
have not watched that for ten years.

Speaker 1 (50:50):
How does that feel watching that a decade later?

Speaker 2 (50:52):
It's cool that we did it.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
It's not that bad. I was like, this should be
a lot worse.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
Right, I watched one of the sketches we did. I
was getting ready to be like this is gonna really suck.
And then I went back and I was like it
doesn't really suck.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
I mean, yeah, no, they're all tightly edited.

Speaker 2 (51:12):
It actually means a lot, because that's when you work
with a network, they always edit you down, you know,
But we had no network. Man, we edited ourselves down here.
I take pride in that. You know, Wow, we had
that down. You know. Maybe the writing wasn't always there,
maybe we were figuring it out, figuring out our voice,
but we edited.

Speaker 1 (51:28):
Your commitment to editing, to acting, to making these it
is what propelled you forward and brought you to Los Angeles.
Did you make that call to come here at like
three in the morning at a place called the Candlewick Diner?
Because it seems like you love making big decisions and diners,

(51:51):
And I love diners. I think you love them more
than me and Michael Mann, who I thought loved them
the most based on every film he's made.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
I love diners. Sometimes I feel like my whole life's
happened in a diner.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
What happens to you in there? Is it just like
the prices? Is it the good?

Speaker 2 (52:09):
In a Jersey diner? They are encouraging you to loiter
and I think that was really nice to have. I
definitely edited some of those sketches. Would I would go
plug in at a diner for sure?

Speaker 1 (52:21):
Did you make your decision to come to LA at
one of those?

Speaker 2 (52:25):
It was kind of made for me because I booked
this you know show on Niket night, and I actually
was reminiscing about this the other day because it was funny.
I got, you know, a call from my manager at
the time, and he said, listen, if you can fly
yourself out to LA they want you to meet do
this producer session. Right for anyone who doesn't know, it's
you meet producers and then if producers like you, you

(52:47):
test with the network. And if you test with the network,
they pay for your flight. But the producer session, you
don't get that. And so I remember looking at my
bank account I got this call. I was at Apple,
I had just dropped out of school. I looked up
ticket prices, I looked at how much money I had.
I went, I logged into my like Wacovia bank app
at the time, and Wacovia famously got acquired by Wells Fargo.

(53:08):
So this is just anyone who's like really into the economy.
That's most of our listeners, I think a lot of people, right, Yeah,
So Wakovia. So I go to my Wacovia, I type
in my username, my password. I look at the amount
of money.

Speaker 1 (53:18):
It sounds like a virus.

Speaker 2 (53:20):
It honestly really does have I don't know, like coronavirus. Yeah, yeah,
I picked you know, she didn't she didn't. Of course
we are. She didn't tell me. This is staying it.

Speaker 1 (53:35):
You do like it.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
I love editing, and I'm telling you the Wakcovia a
bit has to stay in. I log into my Wacovia,
I look how much money I have. I look how
much a plane ticket is. The disparity between what it
will cost to get me there and what I have
is one hundred fifty dollars. It's under three hundred. It's tight.
But at the time three hundred you know you're eating,
you know, for a couple of days. But at the time,
I go, okay, I'm gonna do this. My goal was

(53:59):
not to get the show. It was to test because
I thought if I could test for the network, at
least I know they'll get me a hotel and they'll
get me the flight back. I couldn't them that I'd
actually book it because it just felt so insane. But yeah,
so I ended up going and I test and I
was like, great, they got my flight back. They put
me in a hotel. I literally go from my friend
Lena's couch to getting a hotel over on my Hollywood

(54:22):
and Vine. I'm like, this is big. I'm by the
Chinese Theater, I'm hanging out, I'm going to the Wax Museum.
I'm living life.

Speaker 1 (54:27):
And then I booked the role and we're like a
couple of blocks from there.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
Dude, every time I drive by, and I lived here
for ten years, every time I drive by, I go, Man,
remember that trip. It's a big shift. You know. It's
across the country, which is almost like going to a
different country. And I was living at home and then
suddenly I'm living by myself. It's actually still the biggest
thing that's ever happened to me in my entire life.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
After the break more from Robbie Yusuf.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
So you move here for this show called Seed Dad Run. Yeah,
you're living in an apartment in Koreatown on sixth and
Saint Andrew Place.

Speaker 2 (55:25):
Yes, when you get.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
This show, Yeah, I was thinking, because like you know,
this writer strike is upon us right now. Yeah, will
you be able to stay afloat through seed Dad Run residuals.

Speaker 2 (55:42):
That and that's the question. Whatever deal we made on
that was part of an issue that the WGA had
because it was like such a bad type of deal.
It was a residualist deal actually, and it's the kind
of thing that they're trying to get to the bottom of.
So I would say the lineage of see Dad Run
is very directly tied to what the guild is fighting

(56:03):
for now, you know, over ten years later, and so
you could see that run to the current strike that
is upon us. So that that's a really clear line
that not a lot of people are drawing. I think
if you had a yarn board, it's a big one.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
And it's like, it's kind of good that we're finally
drawing it, that we're finally making the connection that's always
been there.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
It's always been there. It's been unsaid, it's been awkward,
it's been kind of one of those Hollywood things no
one wants me to talk about. Yeah, yeah, should we
And we're there to wow, you know this is it's
this is Cee Sam Run. You know this is big.
I stand by that joke and that's what let's keep
it in the cut. I stand by it. It is
it's not quite Wakovia level, but it's good.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
Yeah. I mean I don't feel sick after it, unlike Wacoba.
One of your co stars on See Dad Run as
an Oakland comedian named Mark Curry. Yes, he decides to
take you on the road where you open for him.
Is that right?

Speaker 2 (56:59):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (57:00):
Now there's one night in particular, you're at a hotel
and you're by yourself in your room and it sounds like,
I think, because you just bombed that you kind of
lean into and start to discover your comedic voice as
a stand up. Is that right?

Speaker 2 (57:18):
I bombed so bad that the Miami Improv booked another
comedian for the next night because I did so poorly
the night before. You know, I was supposed to do
fifteen minutes and then I did it. But then the
next night they said, hey, you only need to do
five tonight. You know, we got someone else to do
in between the nights. I had this thing. I didn't

(57:38):
know anyone in the city. I was so embarrassed. I
was so ashamed. And then I go into the hotel
and I completely just forced myself to say, Okay, I
don't want to feel that again, and I wrote a
lot that night, and then the next night I came
in and even though they had cut my time, like
my five was really on it. But I remember the

(57:59):
club owner really being like, where was that last night?
And I just said jet lag and then I walked
away kind of confidently.

Speaker 1 (58:07):
It sounds like you made a kind of pivot and
the work. What do you think you were moving towards?

Speaker 2 (58:12):
It was just digging deeper. It was playing a different
kind of room, you know I was doing. I started
doing stand up on I moved to La you know,
I'm doing like Silver Lake rooms Burbank, these kind of
different kind of demographics as opposed to when you go
to a Mark Curry show, and it's like I could
feel this thing of what's your essence? As opposed to
some of these smaller rooms I was starting to stand
up in. It was just do you have a witty idea?

(58:34):
These rooms they were like, dude, are you funny? Are
you not funny? Because you're not funny. We'll just talk
until Mark comes out. It wouldn't even be like I
bombed and it was silent. They would just watch me
for two minutes and then go anyway, so and then
just conversations start full full conversations are happening while you
doing stand up, and so immediately I had to put
myself in a position of how do you hold attention

(58:55):
and also realizing the value of having people's attention, don't
waste it, really offer them something. So I just dug
much deeper, and I had to move through a lot
of fear, and it was really nice to not be
in a city where I knew anyone. Those early road
dates were just really good for that. You know, you
don't know anyone, so just go to the hotel room
and write and get better.

Speaker 1 (59:13):
But it essentially all came back to essence.

Speaker 2 (59:17):
Yeah, any useful diversion from someone's attention to say watch this,
listen to this, do whatever. I take very seriously, and
I say, well, I better be providing a unique essence
of something for them. If I'm gonna ask them to
take an hour to watch my special thirty minutes to
watch an episode like why why am I asking you
to not talk to your family for thirty minutes? This

(59:38):
better be worth it.

Speaker 1 (59:39):
Well, then I think we should probably take a look
at what may be the earliest televised example of you
stepping into and finding your essence, which comes in twenty
seventeen when you made your late night debut on The
Colbert Show. Yeah, the performance did come on the heels

(59:59):
of Trump's Muslim ban.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
I still think we're gonna be okay. I really do,
because I believe in God. Like God, God, not yoga.
But and I know that's a weird thing to say.
I get it. You know, religious culture can be crazy.
I don't agree with all of it. I grew up
in a town where I watched my gay friends struggle
to come out to the religious community, and now I

(01:00:23):
live in la where I'm a religious person struggling to
come out to the gay community and tell them what
I think. They're just like, you believe in God, Dude,
that's so gay. I just for me, God is hope
that there's more to life than what's in front of us.

(01:00:46):
You know that even if things seem impossible, there's still
a chance that it could be okay. And I'm not
trying to be preachy. I'm really not. Like. All I'm
trying to say is just just submit to Islam because
it's the truth and that's the only way you'll be saved. Seriously,
that's the only way. That was six years ago. Now

(01:01:09):
I feel like I'm so much younger there in twenty six. Yeah,
I still can't believe that they let me say that
on TV too, because that was one where the producers
were like, I remember just getting this call because they
saw the transcript of the set and like, so, yeah,
so you're trying to say, you're trying to end the
clip with submit to Islam, and I remember I had
to like bring them out to a show to say no, no,

(01:01:31):
it's a bit it ties to you know, what's happening.
And it's one of my favorite kind of bits because
it's the kind of bit where if you are kind
of just an open minded i'll say, comedy fan that
skews liberal on a certain level, you watch that and
you go, that's really funny, Like he's playing on this
fear that everyone has. If you're conservative, you're like, oh

(01:01:53):
my god, look at this. It's the Muslim agenda. And
if you're Muslim, you're like, nice, it's the Muslim agenda,
you know. Like so it kind of hiss all three buckets,
which is what I you know, is kind of my favorite.
You know, Lane to be in.

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
You're always thinking about those three buckets.

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
Yeah, I want them all to be happy, which sounds
like an insane way to live. It does sometimes I feel,
you know, insane, insane, and I know you feel it too.
Don't drag me in of yourself, dude, come on, you do.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
Oh you have me at Wacovia.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
This is such a good bit. That bit comes from
pain and shame. You know, you know I like that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
You know that's good.

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
I know, dude.

Speaker 1 (01:02:30):
You can hear it in my voice.

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
Yes, man, stuff people can't even see on the podcast.
It's a body language thing. Yeah, but oh wow, seeing
that's crazy. I haven't watched that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
And looking back at that clip, it feels like a
clear bridge between your early comedy and the comedy that
would inform the pilot of Ronie.

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
Yeah. I did that Nick show, and then I was
doing the Road with Mark, and I remember that show
ending and thinking, okay, cool, I was on a show,
and now that I've been on a show, I'm going
to be on other shows. I'm gonna act. And it
never happened. I was so bad at auditioning or I
would get really anxious, but then I would also feel
like nothing quite fit me. You know, I would go

(01:03:14):
in and they'd be like, you're not the leading guy,
You're not exactly the nerd. Well, I want you to
play the brown guy. But they didn't understand the reference
in which they were writing it. They would write something
that was for someone who was Indian or Pakistani and
then they'd say, oh, you're kind of you know, there
was no real So there was this thing where the
acting thing just wasn't hitting, and I almost forgot for
a period that I knew how to make my own

(01:03:36):
things because I just got so into the acting world.
And then I said, hold up, I got, you know,
this gift of an acting job. But that's over and
now I got to go back to digging into what
it is I really want to say and what I
want to do. And so there was this period of
just doing stand up for the first time in a
serious way. It was like three years straight where it's
just I'm doing stand up every night. I'm figuring out

(01:03:57):
what the next chapter of my life is going to be.
My first ever open mic in LA was with my
buddy Ari Kcher. He'd been working on Draw Carmichael's show
and I had been opening for Drod. I'd also been
opening for Mo who you know we made you know
his show together now and so in that time I
was just doing a bunch of sets with them, But
then Ari and I kind of started talking about, Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:04:17):
Cool, let's do the show. It was a really productive
time from there. You make the show at premieres in
twenty nineteen, you win a Golden Globe in twenty twenty.
But throughout the show's run it's been four years now,
a whole lot of people have compared Ramy to programs
like Louis Master of None, Fleabag. But I want to

(01:04:39):
talk about the influence of Larry David and curb your
enthusiasm because he said once there's a twin chip between
Jewish humor and Muslim humor. What is that?

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
It's like an inherent sarcasm, an inherent self deprecation. You know,
it really hit me just how not celebrating Christmas really
put me so closely intertwined with my Jewish friends. It's
you're really missing out on this massive human event. You
feel like a five year old adult because everyone believes

(01:05:14):
in magic, and you're like, dude, this is just a
ploy for Macy's to sell stuff. In December, you know,
and you're looking at your Jewish friends and they're the
only other ones who know. And so there's something about
that in America where I feel, oh man, we're the
only ones who really get each other here because we
missed out this childhood window of daydreaming about Santa. We're like, yeah,

(01:05:39):
that dude wouldn't fit down the chimney. And you got
a bunch of kids who are like, of course he
fits because of the you know what, and you're just like,
you guys are brainwashed. It creates something very early on
that I've found to be at the heart of our humor,
you know. I mean, yeah, look, Larry's just, I think
the funniest and he's so honest to what he thinks

(01:06:01):
in his perspective. And it's why I always think Muslims
and Arabs are some of the funniest people because they're
so stay fast, whether in what they believe or what
they think. They're not going to move off it. And
that's comedy to me. And when you have four people
in a room who all think that way, it's just
so much certainty. It's just hilarious. It's just so funny.

(01:06:23):
I feel that's what's really funny about Larry. He's so
certain despite being completely wrong, and that's.

Speaker 1 (01:06:28):
So wronging, and a whole lot of situations, like thinking
back to that scene we started with at the beginning
of this conversation, You're on a tender like date, but
he's certain that he's the best she can do.

Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
The under the occupation, under the occupation. Yeah, that is
definitely something that is his own kind of probably Larry
david Ish moment.

Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
It is reminiscent of Curb Your Enthusiasm, because there are
so many moments in that show, like in Rommie where
you're sitting there going, oh my god, dude, will he
just shop talking? Okay, but hold on, we're talking about
the comedy of this show. But so much of the

(01:07:13):
writing and the dialogue around Robby is about representation, what
this show means in this moment and what it tells
us about X people, which I've always found to be
sort of reductive and not terribly interesting. So I want
to ask about something more specific, which is this quote

(01:07:34):
you have. You said, my work is not about showing
that we're all the same. It's actually about highlighting the differences,
because we're not all the same, but we're all trying
in a similar way, and we're all feeling in a
similar way regardless of those differences.

Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
Yeah, it's yeah, I stand by it even more so
because I think the level of specificity that we aim
for is not with the intention of creating a flag
to represent It's just the thing that me and the
people who make the show want to do with this specific,
fixed set of characters, and it's not really meant to

(01:08:11):
be wholly representative of almost anyone, even if you get
really subsecty, you know what I mean. I've always felt
like the show has a right to exist outside of
that framing, because then it allows it to be something
that is an exploration in its own tone, in its
own thing, and not have to fit into Hey, Muslims,

(01:08:33):
we've got a show for you, because that puts us
in an impossible position that is also an inaccurate one.
And so, yeah, I'm not interested in saying we're all
the same, like I'm more in favor of saying no, no,
we're different. But we have the same debts, we have
the same stresses, we have the same desires, even though
the way we approach them, or the tools we have

(01:08:54):
or the belief systems we have look different, you know,
and so it's like, yes, on a level here, I'm
saying something has been done to say that people who
live in the Middle East are not human, you know.
So on a level that has been done through a
lot of the media that's happened over the last thirty years,
there's been a dehumanization. So in terms of where Rami

(01:09:17):
falls into the realm of representation, it probably mainly checks
the box of if you thought we weren't human beings,
we are. But if I'm trying to tell you anything
other than that, it's going to fall short. I'm not
trying to say this is what Muslims are like all over.
I'm not trying to say that I'm just like you.
I'm not trying to say whatever. But I'm trying to

(01:09:38):
say the process of surviving, in the process of living
and being all of that is really similar. And so
the monoculture of just us, we're all the same. It's
well intentioned, but it really falls short. And then sometimes
the goal of what that does. That's where I see

(01:09:59):
the effects of colonialism still happening. And you know those
countries in the Middle East where you know you'll go
into a restaurant and they only have a menu in English.
If you don't read English, don't even be These are
the kinds of things we've been kind of led to
believe in our own culture because the storytelling and the
narrative of what American culture is so strong. And I'm
not saying it's all bad. I mean I love that

(01:10:21):
I grew up here, and part of loving growing up
here is getting to talk about all the baggage that
comes with that and how that influences everyone everywhere, and
what's fun about making these shows? And you know, now
we're you know, we're making more shows and we're doing
other things that I've been able to do with my
production company as it's grown out of making Rami and
making other things, is like, we just get to show

(01:10:43):
so many different slices of that. And I think representation
is not one show. It's like thirty you know, it's movies.
It's a lot of artists getting to try and getting
to fail and getting to mess up and getting to
be imperfect and getting to succeed. That is more so
what I think that means as opposed to you know,
anything one season of television or even three could do.

Speaker 1 (01:11:05):
That basically squares away the macro conversation as we leave,
I want to bring it back to you as a
person because again that episode that we've been interrogating and
circling over and over again, episode two, what happens in
the last ten fifteen minutes involves you trying to get

(01:11:27):
past the border, having your coat stolen. Inside the coat
was your passport. These preteens took it in part because
you stole their bike, and you have this quote you said,
I think what happens with this kid, the kid who
stole your coat boomerangs for Rami and becomes this ever

(01:11:47):
present haunting of what happened and is for me very
symbolic of the manifestation of guilt that I just feel
as a person all the time. I guess I want
to sit with that because at thirty two, having just
finished Ramadan and where you've been thinking about where you
stand and where you are and where you want to go.

(01:12:09):
That guilt that you feel are you still working through that?
Is that still fueling a lot of the work and
who you are at this moment.

Speaker 5 (01:12:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:12:19):
I think about the cost of living all the time,
just what it costs for us to have everything we
want all the time. Right, there are people in the
margins of this country that are, you know, deeply suffering
in ways that people in other parts of the world aren't.
Then we've you know, lived between New York and la
where you can walk into a supermarket and get whatever

(01:12:40):
you want all the time, you walk into a clothing
store and get whatever you want all the time. I'm
willing to bet a lot of the people who listen
to Talk Easy are able to afford some of those things,
and that comes at a cost that's way beyond that,
you know, when I look at the way the episode ends,
haunts him the whole season because this character, for sure,
is talking about his American passport and he's being very

(01:13:01):
ignorant in how he's doing it. And then in order
to fight for his privilege, someone in that episode directly
suffers and continue to and he kind of goes off
and he's trying to live his own life and he's
spiraling in this way and then realizing, oh man, you know,
and then it kind of comes to a moment at
the end of the season where he tries to do
something towards that debt, even if it's you know, successful

(01:13:25):
or not. Isn't even the point is he addresses it,
and you know, I think there were a lot of
people who saw only that episode and didn't finish the season,
and we're really upset by it. You know, they're really
upset by what happened. I think part of that too,
even going back to the representation conversation, when there's so
little that even touches something like Palestine, I understand those sensitivities,

(01:13:46):
and you know, it's our stab, it's our try, and
it's something that we made with like a Palestinian crew
and palsing director who really they understood the vision for
the whole season because we're asking people to watch ten episodes,
not just the first two. We're asking people to be
invested in what this means for a character. And so
what it was trying to get at for me is
that feeling of sometimes merely the way that you're living

(01:14:08):
has a cost that you never have to look at.
And if that is inspiring for me to like figure
out anything I could do in my own at times
very minimal position in the scheme of the world, or
if at any times I have windows or shots to
talk about things in a bigger way, then I can't
feel good about that because I need to continue to
try and be at least somewhat part of making that

(01:14:32):
a little bit better. And it's funny you guys say
it out loud and yeah, you sound it sounds crazy,
or it sounds just incredibly I don't know. I don't
know what it sounds like, but it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:42):
Sounds like you listen to what your uncle told you
as a kid. He said, it's the humans job to
give back more than what they take.

Speaker 2 (01:14:54):
That's one of his good quotes. That's a great quote.
I think about that a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:14:57):
It's funny we keep circling around this idea of what
it means to have a voice in this moment while
not being overly delusional about its power. But I do
want to know if you think your work in some
ways is in line with the generations that came before you,

(01:15:19):
because it seems to me that it feels like an
amalgamation of the work your family has done, which includes
your grandfather who was an interpreter for the Arab League
and the United Nations. Then your father, as we mentioned
last week's guests, the travel agent in Cairo who would

(01:15:39):
show Americans the Pyramids and so in thinking about being
an actor, a writer, director, the creator of this production company,
Cairo Cowboy. Do you feel like your work is a
kind of amalgamation of both interpreter and travel guide?

Speaker 2 (01:16:00):
Wow, it's beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:16:01):
The funniest answer just be like now.

Speaker 2 (01:16:03):
You know it's a soft no, but no, it's beautiful
to hear it in that context. I think for me,
I really respect people's time. You know, you only have
a half an hour to watch them. You know, you
have such a busy life when you watch anything that
I say, I'm not in a position to give you
hard facts about anything. It's truly it's just comedy, you know.

(01:16:24):
But what I hope I'm able to do is just
bring people closer to some of their own human questions.
So a lot of what I'm doing in anything I'm
doing is openly offering and work shopping the stuff that
is going on in my head or in my heart,
or that I wonder about. I'm open to do that
in as nakeative a way as I know how to,

(01:16:45):
And the hope is maybe that inspires a conversation you
weren't going to have with someone in your family. And
I think, especially growing up in a few different communities,
not even just you know the air of a Muslim community,
but a few different communities where it was hard to
talk about certain vulnerable things. My hope is that you know,
me asking my questions, me doing my workshopping, me finding

(01:17:07):
the funny patterns, and me also failing sometimes in how
I do that and other times succeeding in how I
do that is an offering that helps digest some things
that are not digestible. Then I feel, in my own
little corner of what we're all kind of chipping in
to try to do, I'm doing something you know.

Speaker 1 (01:17:27):
Well, Then my last question here, if we ever like
listen back to those or do this again, I'll be back. Okay,
So when we do this again, Yes, let's have this
as a time capsule for us at thirty two, recently married.
What are those questions that you're asking yourself at this moment.
We don't have to have the answers for them. What

(01:17:49):
are those that you want to put on record?

Speaker 2 (01:17:51):
Yeah? You know that I want to put on record
is just we're really siloed right now. I think a
lot of people are really siloed into their experience, into
their phone, into things they're doing what I've been thinking
a lot about is what is community going to look like?
And how do we bring back being connected in as
many real life ways as possible? And a lot of

(01:18:15):
what I've been thinking about right now is how do
these stupid jokes and how do these shows you know,
where we're just giving again workshopping, giving our best stab
and like trying to get at that you know ethereal it?
What does that turn into just in terms of people
getting to feel less lonely. But a lot of what

(01:18:36):
I've been thinking about is just, yeah, well, what does
that actually mean offscreen? What does that actually mean beyond
asking for people's attention? What happens once you have it?
And where does that go? I don't think I'm the
person to lead anyone once I have their attention, But
it's more like, yeah, how do you what does it
look like to just turn that into a way where

(01:18:56):
where people just get to genuinely feel closer together in
real life? And I think you know, we've been talking
a lot about I'm sure you've been talking about in
your circles a lot about AI and how what we're
going to see over the next few years is just
going to be so rapid, and I think that need
for real life togetherness is going to be at an
all time high, and so just been trying to figure out,

(01:19:17):
you know, what do I need on a personal level.
But that's a big question.

Speaker 1 (01:19:21):
You still want to make the show.

Speaker 2 (01:19:22):
There's a lot I want to make. When we finished
the first season, I realized what it took to make
a season of television, and I remember thinking, I would
love to do this for three or four seasons and
then put it down for a bit and live some life.
There's nothing about the story that says you can't take
off for a while and then come back and say,
you know, here's where this is at. So I think

(01:19:43):
a lot of the decisions I'm making right now is, yeah,
when does that hiatus come? Is it now? Or are
we going to do one more? It's probably now.

Speaker 1 (01:19:52):
Well, look, whenever you put it down, I'll make a
promise that I'll still be here on the other side
of it, if it's any consolation. And in terms of
stupid jokes, boy, we have made so many of them.
I don't know if they've helped make meaning out of
this conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:20:09):
I hope, But I think in the time here, we've
definitely caught Walkovia.

Speaker 1 (01:20:15):
Odd.

Speaker 2 (01:20:20):
I think it's a great ending.

Speaker 1 (01:20:22):
Brommy Yosef.

Speaker 2 (01:20:24):
So fun, That's.

Speaker 1 (01:20:27):
Great, wow, and that's our show. If you enjoyed today's episode,

(01:21:24):
be sure to leave us five stars on Spotify, Apple,
wherever you do your listening. If you want to go
above and beyond, sharing the program on social media, tagging
us at talk easypod. Really, all of this helps new
listeners find the show. I want to give a special
thanks this week to the teams at Narrative, PR and HBO.
I also want to thank Eric Sandler, Owen Miller, and

(01:21:46):
Sarah Bruger at Pushkin, Lily Salzburg, and of course our guest,
Rommy Yusef. His new special More Feelings is now available
on HBO or Max. You can also see Rommy host
SNL this Saturday, March thirtieth for more episodes. I'd recommend
listening to our talks with Bill Hayter, Quinn de Brunson,

(01:22:06):
Natasha Leone, and Dan Levy. Call them I've hosted SNL.
If they haven't, they should to hear those and more
Pushkin podcasts. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you like
to listen. You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.
At talk Easypod, we make mugs. They come in cream
or navy. We've also made a record with fran Lebowitz

(01:22:27):
a sentence I never thought I'd get to say. To
get that and more. Visit our website at talk easypod
dot com, slash shop That's talk easypod dot com slash shop.
Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer
is Jennick Sabravo. Our associate producer is Caitlin Dryden. Today's

(01:22:48):
talk was edited by Caitlyn Dryden. I want to say
a special thanks and goodbye to Caitlin. She has been
with us for a few years now and she is
going on to continue making her show. It is called slut.
If you have not listened to that really ought to,
you can find that wherever you are listening to this
Talk Easy would not be what it is today without

(01:23:10):
Caitlin and all that she has done. We are going
to miss her a whole lot here, but I'm so
excited to see what she makes next with that. Our
episode was mixed by Andrew Vastola. It was taped at
Spotify Studios in Los Angeles and Pushkin Industries in New York.
Our music is by Dylan Peck, our illustrations are by
Chris Chenow, and graphics are by Ethan Seneca. I also

(01:23:33):
want to thank our team at Pushkin. They include Justin Richmond,
Julia Barton, John Stars, Kerrie Brody, Kira Posey, Jorda McMillan,
Tara Machado, Justine Lang, Sarah Nix, Malcolm Gladwell, Greta Cohen,
and Jacob Weisberg. I'm San Fragoso. Thank you for listening
to Talk Easy. I'll see you back here next week
with another episode. Until then, stay safe and so long

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