Illustration by Krishna Bala Shenoi.
Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso is a weekly series of intimate conversations with artists, authors, and politicians. It’s a podcast where people sound like people. New episodes air every Sunday, distributed by Pushkin Industries.
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This weekend, comedian Ramy Youssef released a powerful and personal new HBO special, More Feelings. To commemorate the one-year anniversary of our first talk, we begin with a phone call with Ramy.
Then, we dive into our talk from 2023, discussing the third season of his Hulu show Ramy, a timely scene from the show, and the questions that shaped it. Then, we walk through his coming of age as a first-generation Egyptian-American in New Jersey, his early forays into film, and the sketch inspired by his life-altering Bell’s palsy diagnosis.
On the back-half, we discuss Youssef’s television debut in the sitcom See Dad Run, how he found his “essence” as a performer, and the politics of his stand-up comedy. To close, he describes the influences behind Ramy, from The Carmichael Show to Curb Your Enthusiasm, a philosophy that guides his work, and the future of the series.
Subscribe and download the episode, wherever you get your podcasts!
From the episode:
Ramy Youssef: Any useful diversion from someone’s attention to say watch this, listen to this — I take very seriously. If I’m going to ask them to take an hour to watch my special, or thirty minutes to watch an episode of Ramy, it better be worth it. I have to be providing a unique essence of something.
