KCRW’s Behind the Screens: Elvis Mitchell in Conversation with Ramy Youssef (Presented by Hulu)

On August 24th, KCRW hosted a conversation with KCRW’s Elvis Mitchell, host of The Treatment, and Ramy Youssef, star of the hit Hulu comedy “Ramy.” This event was the first installment of KCRW's Behind the Screens event series.

Ramy, so good to talk to you, man.

Ramy Youssef: It’s so good to talk to you. Thanks for doing this.

Elvis Mitchell: Oh, my pleasure. The first thing I have to say to you is, in performance terms, tell me how you got to playing Ramy the way he was because I've seen you perform stand up and you have a really appraising stare which you’re using on me right now, whereas the character Ramy, his eyes wide open, almost never blinks. And I just wonder where that characterization came from. It's really interesting. Somebody who's kind of taking in the world, but not quite seeing things at the same time.

Ramy Youssef: It's a really good question. On a performance level, something that I was really looking for when we were crafting the character is stripping him back from the real me. I didn't want to create this character who's just charming baristas at coffee shops and just being an affable kind of person. The way that I feel like I can be in real life or even the way that I feel like I can be in comedy is seeing the way things affect me and then I make a choice as to how I want to interpret them and how I want to present to the world. And I think in making this character, I wanted to kind of strip back that presentation a little bit and have him a little bit more stuck, a little bit more lost, a little bit more in his feelings, which gets the performance that that started to feel like the pocket of differentiating real me and screen Ramy.

Elvis Mitchell: I have to say, for me, that really hit at the end of the first season when you're in Egypt and even though he's been there before, it’s like a new world to him. He's constantly doing comic doubletake reactions and things with his eyes wide open. That really felt to me like the moment where, in a lot of ways, he is physically in unison to me because he's kind of lost in his own body as a grown up

Ramy Youssef: Yeah, he's definitely like fish out of water no matter where he goes in a way. And I think a lot of it is rooted in the thought that when you strip back all of us, we're scared and we’re mostly meeting people at their defense mechanism, at their way of coping, at their idea of who they are. I think so much of what was exciting to me about the core of making this show was this character - presenting that there's who you think you are, who you want to be and then who you actually are. And you're watching someone fill that gap. It does become something that manifests physically when he goes to Egypt. He's so rocked because he had these preconceived notions as to what it was gonna give him. It was almost like a little colonial of him to walk into his country and be like come on, you're supposed to give me what I'm looking for.

Elvis Mitchell: I guess I wonder if you create the character like that too, because you want him to be a little bit of an audience surrogate. Because for a lot of us, we're really learning about these areas that exist in the world of Islam and for that character to be somebody whose questioning himself becomes a really cool way to bring the audience in slowly while over explaining things to them, I think

Ramy Youssef: I think that's a really good way to put it. I don't know if we were actually intentional about Ramy being an audience surrogate, but he really is. He really is this character who is asking the same questions that a lot of people are asking. We're definitely living in shorthand and not spelling things out too much. And by virtue of that, he's just trying to figure out what that means for him. So that becomes a really exciting way for us to also let our other characters shine. That's something that's been so fun for me with the show is getting to put my stand up and different things that I think into, not just the Ramy character, but everyone around him in a way that is really exciting.

Elvis Mitchell: As you're talking about this, one thing I love about the show, too, is that it's full of great actors. Whenever I see Laith (Liath Nakli), as soon as he turns up, he always gets too close to people. It’s such a great performance thing and you can almost see your character blinking whenever he starts to talk because he's immediately way too close, both figuratively and literally. Talk about casting the show in that way.

Ramy Youssef: It’s such a love letter to people like Laith. I've known Laith since I was 18 and I’ve watched him typecast for things and no one really use him in the way that I knew he could perform. That's someone who when we were in the writers’ room crafting his uncle character, I'm like ‘oh man, I know the guy. I know who could do this.’ It’s also looking at who really affects this Ramy character and vice versa. We have Hiam Abbass playing my mom who is such a gift in terms of casting. I searched the entire earth trying to find someone to play my mom because she was on Succession. We were making this show and we're in the pilot and we're like ‘yeah Abbass would be great, but she's a series regular on Succession. You can't be a series regular on two shows.’ We were really lucky because I went to Egypt to audition people to play the mom and then I came back and I was like, ‘Okay, what if we just shoot the pilot with Hiam? And then if we can get it picked up, then we'll find it.’ We were just trying to buy time and Hiam was like ‘cool, cool, we'll do it.’ And then HBO is super, super gracious towards us and lets us have her for the show, which was really, really cool. Then going to Egypt to try and find people to play my parents ended up being really paramount to us going to shoot in Egypt, because we're like ‘well, we already know we have a great cast over there. You know, we met them when I went over.’ So a lot went into the supporting cast. And in many ways, this is an ensemble show for me. I mean we're obviously tracking the through line of the Ramy character, but I just have too much fun writing and directing for the other characters where I'm like ‘man, they just make me really excited.

Elvis Mitchell: That's a good point to bring up because the character almost exists when he's around other people. The only time we really see him actually thinking about things is that last scene of the last episode with the dog in the car, but he's so defined by his relationship to other people. Is that something that you were working towards in the writing of the show, too

Ramy Youssef: I think it's this thing that can happen when you're trying to figure out how to be. You gravitate towards people who have strong points of view and who have a code and he's looking to create his own code. There's obviously the faith and there's obviously this religion that means a lot to him and his culture. But he's also really looking like ‘Well, what's where am I at?’ Because in his eyes, everyone around him has decided how they want to be and how they want to be about. But so much of that is basically how anyone feels when they're going through life. They often feel like everyone around them is more figured out than they are. We get to mess with that too, when we go into perspective of different characters, because then we're with someone else and suddenly ‘Oh, wow. It's just as fish out of water too. Oh, wow, his mom is in her own way and his father, etc.’ So we're really getting to play with perspective. When it pertains to the Ramy character, he is probably, at this point, the spongiest. So we get to see him like any good sponge just get ringed out and fill up and get ringed out and just really go through it.

Elvis Mitchell: I have to ask you too, because especially after seeing your stand up, where in one way you were talking about being tested and testing yourself. In a lot of these situations in the show, Ramy ends up being a test for the other characters. They end up questioning themselves. They think they know who they are. So they come into contact with him, which I think is a really interesting idea in a show that’s about faith to make people who you would think have a sense of assurance about themselves ask questions.

Ramy Youssef: That’s a really great way to put it. Question asking is really at the core of the show for me. I think that comedy is at its best when it's asking questions and I think it's at its worst when it's answering them. That’s what we look to do here through the format. But also, the nature of fate is seeking and that's always just been so interesting to me. It excites me that we've been able to translate that because it was the mission statement of the show. I remember walking around with Gerad and I just said to him really simply ‘I want to talk about God - the way that I feel God in my life, that rattling question, the connection, the guilt, the everydayness, but also the reality that I am in the present moment that I'm in. And I want to see it on screen in a way that isn't this cartoonish angels in heaven. That isn't this bipolar priest who does cocaine. I really want it to just feel like me, like a lot of people that I know, like the people I grew up with.’ We were like ‘we're not gonna have sex until we get married’ and then we'd have sex. And then we'd be like ‘well, we're never going to do it again.’ And then you watch us just try and justify that saying ‘no, but I do. We’re in love.’ Just watching someone deal with that and trying to wrestle with the moral and with the carnal. Those are all the questions that are at the core and that wrestling match is more indicative of what this show is about than anything. It's more about that match than it is about Muslims.

Elvis Mitchell: I think so too. I was wondering if this came to you conceptually about the character, but he ends up being a test for so many people. It really brings to mind your stand up, where basically you test the audience and see how far you can push them. But we realize you're asking the same questions too, so it's not like you're being superior to anyone. There’s no smugness in the act. And I wonder to that idea of constant testing, if that created something that was conceptual to the show.

Ramy Youssef: That's really great framing. The quick answer is no. You're framing it in a way that is actually very exciting to me, because I haven't quite heard it like that. It really is at the essence of what excites me in general. I don't like getting on stage and saying ‘Here's the answer.’ I really like getting on stage and saying ‘Come on. I know you have this question too.’ That’s really what's exciting to me. ‘Don't tell me you don't have this question too. Can we just meet at the question? And then either come with me or we'll go our separate ways.’ That's the intersection of what's so exciting to me. And it's certainly at the core of the show.

Elvis Mitchell: Whenever you see a show with a comics name in the title, at some point, he's smarter than everybody else around him. He may not be as effective, but he's smarter than everybody else. Ramy is not, nor does he seek to be, smarter than anybody else. I wonder, as you were cooking this whole thing together, if you thought a major theme was that you can't be smarter than everybody else. If that's the case, then it's not a show about faith, it's a show about telling us who knows the best.

Ramy Youssef: Yeah, it really comes down to me. To me, it's about a crossroads in comedy in general. Comedy is faced with this crisis right now because a lot of the ways in which comedy is discussed is ‘Here are our modern-day philosophers. Here are truth tellers. Here are the people bringing truth to power.’ And most of us are not very well read, didn't finish college and are kind of degenerate. I grew up with Jon Stewart, who did do those things. I grew up as a Muslim kid in Jersey and my biggest defender in the 24-hour news cycle was this amazing Jewish comic. And he did do those things. Because that was his brand. But I don't think that the ‘Jon Stewart effect’ can be conflated to what comedy is supposed to be doing. Again, because so much of what we get from actual leaders and sources of information is so faulty, we're at a crossroad where people look to comedy for that information. So I think in crafting a namesake character there is an instinct I think many would have of being like ‘Oh cool. He's gonna tell truth to power. Or he's gonna sarcastically zing us into what he wants to point us into saying is true.’ I don't think that's anything we ever wanted to do. We wanted this character to be the flaw. I didn't want to make a show where people follow me. I want people to meet their own experience in as intimate and as questioning of a place. Because that's all I really feel like I'm qualified to do. But when you actually boil it down to the question of what do you think comedy is supposed to do, I think the work is going to either go in the direction that you said a lot of namesake stuff goes in, or go in a direction that we've been really excited to go in.

Elvis Mitchell: As you're saying these things, so many things are popping into my head. One of which was that you created a show that, despite dealing with all these philosophical stances and questions, is at the root of it funny. A lot of modern economy is about offering up philosophy to like-minded people, and if you laugh it is because you agree. Obviously, all these things you're talking about are clearly important, but you need to show it to be funny, too.

Ramy Youssef: Yeah man, it's just gotta be funny too. I think that's because we're asking questions and we don't have to be right. It's just funny. That's got to be the number one thing. To me, the funniest thing is watching people be messy. When people are messy, they're not trying to get a platitude across. They're not trying to preach. They're striving, but in that quest, they're failing. That to me, is what I personally find funniest. So we make sure that at the core of everything is the right kind of failure.

Elvis Mitchell: It's funny because I just find myself thinking as a person of color watching the show, so much of what we do in this society is reacting to power, rather than preaching to power. It feels like in a lot of ways that's who you are in both your stand up and as a creator. But, that's very different from being an actor. You got to try to feel the truth of the moment. You do a lot of things - you're writing the show, you’re directing. How tough is it for you to clear your head and find that physical space of the guy who sort of leans forward as he's looking for answers to questions? Obviously, that’s so different physically from you. How hard is it to get yourself in that space in front of the camera?

Ramy Youssef: It's such a rare opportunity to get to do what I'm doing because there are so many people who are so talented and who have things to say that never get the opportunity to do what I'm doing. I'm never going to feel like I'm here only on merit. I'm like ‘Man, this is a window and I got to run towards it. And I have to do things that I really care about.’ I think that is when every premise is something that means something to me and when every premise has a massive risk to succeed or fail. Most of the things on our show are pass or fail. They’re not really down the middle. They’re either going to work or they’re going to fall on their face. That’s most of what we try to attempt. It’s like any good tightrope walk. You have to pay attention. You have to give it your all. Otherwise, you will fall off the rope. There's no way it can't demand all of your attention. That’s really the barometer for every premise for every episode for every scene - do I feel like I need to focus on this tightrope? Because anytime I feel like I have a whole sidewalk to walk on, that's when it would suck. I'd be like ‘Oh, yeah, this seems easy.’ It can't feel like that. It's got to feel like I have to really be in the pocket to get this right. That's what's exciting to me.

Elvis Mitchell: As a stand-up comic, one of things that I think distinguishes you is that you clearly have a low threshold for boredom. In doing all these things, I was wondering if it gives you a chance to use so many different parts of your concentration that helps you focus in a way that you're not bored by it.

Ramy Youssef: That's a really good breakdown. This is pseudo therapeutic for me, Elvis. You’re definitely framing a couple of things for me where I’m like ‘Yeah, that is what's at the core of this.’ It’s interesting. We've made 20 episodes in a really short amount of time. So it's cool to think about it holistically like this. I agree with that.

Elvis Mitchell: In prepping for this, I found two things that people tend not to ask you about. One is that you clearly trained as an actor. I can see you making actors choices, not only in the frame, but when you direct other people when you're not in the shot. And that as a creator, you're responding first and foremost as that. I think the show's really exciting because that thing that you were talking about, that pass or fail barometer. This is one of those things that probably happens on every show. Like, ‘how can we be anti-Semitic, we're Semitic.’ Or the whole thing about going from porn star to breast milk. Like is that who I think it was? I can feel the concepts going over in your head. Like ‘okay, we've got to do this, got to do this, got to do this.’ It’s not a show that I would watch that I can do.

Ramy Youssef: Yeah dude that is it. It's 100% the barometer. If I wouldn't watch this, why would I do it? If I don't have to explain why I did this to my parents, then what's the point? If it could happen effectively online or on TikTok or in a tweet, why go for that joke? Even if I could do it effectively on stage, why would I do it? It’s this unique format that, again, is utilizing an ensemble. It's utilizing the art of TV. Why would I go for anything that could happen in any other format? That is so much of what our material goes through is like ‘could this be tweeted?’ It’s not that you can't have a tweetable line of dialogue, but the premise is what we're really trying to zone in on. We want to make sure they’re exciting and they need a TV show to do. I don't want to waste anyone's time, man. There are 500 shows on TV. If you're gonna click and watch my thing, I don't want to disrespect you. Why would I waste your time?

Elvis Mitchell: What you're talking about is the concept of being able to explain something simply, but not making it simple minded. There’s enough weight that it’s not tweetable and you can't reduce it to 30 seconds on TikTok. The thing is that this show really is storytelling. If you looked at the first episodes of the season, and the last episodes of each season, they all tie together and you can make a movie basically out of those four episodes.

Ramy Youssef: It’s something that's been an exciting result of really organically chasing the premises that excite us. I want to dig into things that make me nervous. When that's at the core of the investigation, because a lot of the time making this thing just feels like an investigation, it's asking what do we really want to do? What are we really going to land on? I'm not some narrative genius. Like ‘here's the novel before we even roll the camera.’ So much of it is like we're finding it. I want my sensors to be so sensitive to what's going on in the moment that I get the thing that I'm most attuned to in that moment. When that ends up happening, there is this synchronicity that happens between the first and last episode. There is this synchronicity and watching the tone evolve to the reality where it’s starting to feel almost like stages of the character's life. And those aren't things that I could have told you when I went into Ramy, this was the point. It's not that. I did go into it saying ‘I want this to scare me. And I want this to do things that only this thing could do.’ A lot of what you're talking about is more a result of not giving up on those desires as opposed to like a master plan.

Elvis Mitchell: I wonder too if part of the reason to do this show as compared to doing stand up or writing for somebody else,is that it really gives you a chance to flex your acting muscles and use those skills that you have.

Ramy Youssef: It's really fun, man. I trained as an actor before I did stand up. You know, you're in LA, the most annoying stand-up comedian is the one who was an actor. I stepped into acting to just want to act. When I did stand up, I did it just to do stand up. It wasn't like any one thing was to try to serve the other. I do respect format in that way where if I'm going to do something, I'll want to do it to my fullest. And sometimes if I feel like I can't do it well, I'm just not even going to do it at all. I remember picking up a guitar when I was a kid and my fingers couldn’t do the barre chords effectively, so I just dropped it. I want to do something and actually be able to do it. And I started video editing. My approach has been that I don't need to do everything, I just need to do the things that I could actually engross myself in and make a contribution. I don't want to be doing it just to say I'm doing it because that's just super disrespectful.

Elvis Mitchell: Did acting feel like a fit for you as soon as you started it? Or was it kind of a bit of an uphill climb for you?

Ramy Youssef: I think it felt like a fit. It was funny. I did have to separate for myself that acting and auditioning were two different things because I just hated the auditioning process. It took me a while to be like ‘Oh, that's just because I care about how things are written and most of the things you audition for, you get and and you're like, I don't understand why people believe in this.’ And then you have to go in and pretend. They’re two different things. Once I separated that those are two different things, I was like ‘Oh, yeah, no, no, I really do love acting.’ I do love getting to surrender to something and strip real life performance and just focus on what the work is calling for. And if the work is calling for an honest attempt, that's really exciting to me. Like an actual honest attempt at getting at something, that’s really fun.

Elvis Mitchell: This is complex, not in narrative storytelling terms, but in emotional terms. This is as complicated a piece as say Mr. Robot. I wonder if in some way or another, the fact that they were designing all those things and setting all those plays into motion that will eventually cause something else to fall over, was an inspiration to you in the way this show works.

Ramy Youssef: Interesting. Kind of. I got to do a couple episodes of that, which was really cool. What Sam’s so good at is he's like ‘I'm going to create a tone and I'm going to really stick to it.’ That's something that I've just really respected. He’s really clear as to what he's presenting and how he's doing it. It's unified in that sense. You can tell it goes through the same filter and it comes out that way. I felt like those are the things we try to do too. Obviously, we have a different tone and we have a different filter, but the principle behind it is the same. I really appreciate it. And I think that's why that's one of those shows. First season, immediately, you're just like this is stunning and someone cared. And then they actually knew how to reach the bar that they set for themselves.

Elvis Mitchell: This may be a little bit of a stretch, but the reason I linked them is that they are both about vulnerability or being vulnerable in the world. About maybe being too vulnerable in the world. And it’s good.

Ramy Youssef: They opened themselves up in a very personal way to global things. I think that’s a really tough line to ride without getting preachy and didactic and kind of lost in the soup.

Elvis Mitchell: I just wonder if there are movies or that kind of thing that you showed to the cast before you started each season to give them an idea of what it would look like. Because in visual terms, the show is very different from what we see in comedy. One of the things that happens is at no point is there a shot that tells us where to look.

Ramy Youssef: We really have been blessed with really great DPs. In a lot of the conversations with my co-creators, Ryan Welch and Ari Katcher, we started off wanting to dig into a tone that feels more like a short film. We wanted to do our best to not do the TV thing and have A story, B story, C story. We had all done a lot of multi-cam. Ari had done it on Carmichael. I had acted on a multi-cam show for a couple of seasons. So we got what was funny about that. We had thought about this show at some point actually as a multi-cam because we all had the experience in it. When we really started parsing out my stand up and I started putting together documents of what I want to talk about, we realized it's not going to work as a multi-cam. We need to really go the other way. Once you go the other way, how do we really utilize this format for what it is and really go into it? And really quickly, we decided we'd rather do dedicated episodes than A stories and B stories. If we have a tonal calm, it's not really another show as much as it is like The Graduate. That is how do you tell a fish out of water that isn't your typical fish out of water, that uses the camera, that also uses ambition, that also uses all those feelings. That would be the thing I would talk about when we were talking about the show. Then, of course, agents are like ‘well, I don't think you can sell a TV show talking about The Graduate.’ So we didn't and we hid how we wanted to approach it. I think in those early convos with Ari and Ryan, we really zoned in on just that desire to have these episodes be focused and these premises to live on on multiple levels, without just throwing something out there and then jumping into another character.

Elvis Mitchell: Each one of the episodes lives on as a fully formed anecdote really. When you break with form, like in the last episode of the season starting with the flashback, it was really jarring because it was a real 180 from what had been done before and it certainly reorients us. It’s like I said. To me, the first and last episode of each season can be combined and you could make a piece out of them, which is really kind of amazing. You think of a sitcom in those terms.

Ramy Youssef: That's really cool. I think it’s something we've been excited about being able to do. And I think we've been able to do it so far in the first 20. Like when you click on the next episode, you're not quite sure exactly what's going to happen. And I think that's something, again, for the bored watcher and creator, I like that. It’s cool. You don’t know what’s it going to be. And it still feels like us, but you don’t know what version of us. It's like knowing an interesting person. You kind of know what they're capable of, but you're not quite sure how they are going to show up to dinner. Are they going to dye their hair? But it’s still them. That's something that we have a lot of fun doing.

Elvis Mitchell: I have to say, to that end, the cold open even leaves me in a state of agitation. Like, when's this going to end? How's it going to end and what's going to happen with this? I wonder if you craft those consciously in that way to keep people feeling at loose ends as they're watching the show.

Ramy Youssef: In a way, between our cold opens and between crafting our closing credits with music, that almost might be the thing that I borrow most from stand up. Like you can open up with a really cool question and then you can dig into it and then you can have a punchline. We have this song in our intro that is Hany Senouda, from this band called Al Massrieen, which means the Egyptians. It’s a classic Egyptian song that used to be the soccer anthem through the 70s. It punctuates things in the way that an audience laughter could. To really kind of get into those nuances is really fun. That structure, that format is the thing that I've unconsciously taken most from standup as I look back on the episodes. Like oh, this is what we've been having fun doing.

Elvis Mitchell: Since you sort of alluded to it, what was the pitch to Hulu if you weren’t saying ‘what we do when we graduate, but in the 21st century?’

Ramy Youssef: I think I opened up with a line where I was like ‘I'm a Muslim American and I feel most like the hyphen between the two words.’ Just that piece, just that little dash and I'm bouncing this way and I’m bouncing that way. I want to make a show that is that dash and it's not looking at the culture critically as an outsider and it's not looking at America critically from an immigrant perspective. It’s really a synthesis. What does synthesis for a person of color or for an immigrant family look like? As opposed to a lot of storytelling that has focused on erasure or how to upgrade to our version of white. It would be like ‘I want to go to the prom’ and someone's crying. And this character actually isn't even sure if the prom is in his interest. It's probably a corporate, potentially satanic event. But he's trying to figure out if that’s real. So, again, stripping away anything didactic and really looking at synthesis. That was really at the core of the pitch.

Elvis Mitchell: Well, because I know you're getting tired, we're gonna let you go. I can't thank you enough for doing this. Big fan. Huge as you can tell.

Ramy Youssef: You gave me some language I'm gonna steal when I try to explain things to my dad about what we're doing. I really, really appreciate it.

The Golden Globe Award-winning actor Ramy Youssef returns to Hulu for his critically-acclaimed performance in the Hulu Original comedy series "Ramy." The series follows first-generation, Egyptian-American Ramy Hassan (Youssef) who is on a spiritual journey in his politically-divided New Jersey neighborhood. "Ramy" brings a new perspective to the screen as it explores the challenges of what it’s like to be caught between a religious community, who believes life is a moral test, and a millennial generation that doubts an afterlife even exists. In the second season, Ramy delves further into his spiritual journey, finding a new Muslim community and embracing a deeper commitment to his faith.

Alongside Youssef, the newest season stars two-time Academy Award and Golden Globe Award-winner Mahershala Ali. The series also features Mohammed Amer, Hiam Abbass, Amr Waked, May Calamawy, Dave Merheje, Laith Nakli and Steve Way.

"Ramy" is written, executive produced, created by and stars Ramy Youssef, executive produced by A24’s Ravi Nandan with co-creators Ari Katcher and Ryan Welch, Jerrod Carmichael, and produced by A24.