Ramy Youssef
speaker
353 appearances
6 recordings
4 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard May 2025
Ramy Youssef’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Here's our first interview with Terry Gross. My guest Rami Youssef started as a stand-up comic. Then he created and starred in the semi-autobiographical comedy-drama series called Rami, about a 20-something Egyptian-American Muslim trying to make sense of how his life, including his sex life, fit with his commitment to Islam.
The series won a Peabody Award, and he won a Golden Globe for his performance. Youssef co-created the comedy-drama series Mo, starring his friend Mo Amr as an undocumented Palestinian-American. Last year, Youssef hosted Saturday Night Live and had an HBO comedy special called More Feelings. His acting career is taking off.
He stars with Steve Carell and Jason Schwartzman in the new HBO movie Mountainhead, which debuts May 31. It was written and directed by Jesse Armstrong, the creator of HBO's Succession. In 2023, Youssef co-starred in the film Poor Things, which won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy, and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture.
Rami Youssef has a new animated series set just before and after 9-11. It's about an extended family of Egyptian-Americans in New Jersey. The parents and grandparents are immigrants. The children were born in America. Each of them is trying to figure out how to respond to the Islamophobia that's resulted from the terrorist attack on 9-11.
Rami Youssef was 11 years old, and in fifth grade on 9-11, that's about the same age as the boy in the series. The series is called Number One Happy Family USA, and that's streaming on Amazon Prime.
In the father's attempt to prevent people from noticing they're an immigrant family and Muslim, he does his best to blend in by doing his best to construct the image of a happy, average American family. But because he doesn't quite understand American culture, just about everything he does to fit in is wrong, which only makes him stand out even more. The mother wants to stand up and defend Islam.
This is a scene from the first episode, which takes place on 9-11 when the father and mother clash over how to respond. Rami Youssef does the voices of the father and the son. Salma Hindi voices the mother.
Remy Youssef, welcome to Fresh Air. It's such a pleasure to have you back on the show. That scene is so funny. I love it when the father says, from now on, we have no culture.
What were the discussions like in your family living in New Jersey after 9-11? Were there conversations in your family about whether to stand up and defend diversity and defend Islam or whether to just, like you said, erase part of themselves?
Yeah.
Yeah. Did you code switch a lot when you were 11 after 9-11, like the cartoon version of The Sun does? Part of the code switching is not just the way he talks. It's also like what he wears to try to look like all American, right?
Right. A good reason to be paranoid. Like you have every reason to to feel like you're sticking out. You're not fitting in. And maybe that means prison.
So there's briefly a grandfather in the series. And he is very sexist. Like he is the man and he has control, especially control over his wife. He's grumpy. He orders people around. And at one point he says, I sacrificed everything for this family. Most men of my generation hit. And he's referring to hitting women. And he says, I only yell. I didn't even take a second wife.
So did you have a grandfather who was like that? And if so, how did you deal with it? Like, did you say anything?
Yeah. That's amazing he was one of two people in his village who could read and became a UN translator. Yeah.
So you write and sing songs for the series. And I want to play one that's, I think you can describe it as the theme song. And it ends the first episode of number one, Happy Family USA. So let's hear it. And then we'll talk about writing songs. So this is in the voice of the father.
So what made you think you should turn part of this into a musical?
Have you ever been in a band?
In your band, did you do covers or originals?
Well, in addition to like the number one happy family song that we just heard, you write some dark songs. And I want to play a dark song. This is a father singing. One of the lines he sings is sometimes the darkness comes for me. This is his like deep internal feelings, not the facade he's trying to put on. So let's hear that. Do you want to say anything about it before we hear it?
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