Ramy Youssef is a firm believer—full stop. While many of his millennial peers have rejected faith in favor of science, he has only doubled down on his belief system. Don’t be mistaken; he’s also into things like talk therapy. (Youssef is a proud therapy-goer.) But his faith has gotten him through a lot. And right now it feels like there’s a lot to get through.
In More Feelings, his new stand-up special (it streams on Max this Saturday), Youssef doesn’t shy away from all the pain in the world. Filmed in his home state of New Jersey, the hour explores his emotions through anecdotes covering contemporary politics and inane personal dramas. In a slightly unusual twist, he also has his best friend and fellow comedian Steve Way open the special. (Fans of the Hulu series Ramy will not be disappointed.)
It isn’t an easy time to be an Arab American—not that it ever has been—but rather than avoid the discomfort of his daily experiences, Youssef freely quips about them. “Muslim dudes, we’re going back to being Dominican,” he says at one point in the special. “With everything going on, we’re like, ‘Hamas? No, no más.’” Indeed his mounting visibility (from his semi-autobiographical hit show, Ramy; his collaboration with Mohammed Amer on the Netflix drama Mo; and his supporting turn in Yorgos Lanthimos’s Oscar-nominated Poor Things) has turned Youssef into one of Hollywood’s most prominent Muslim dudes—even into something of an unwitting spokesperson for Arabs in American pop culture.
Youssef didn’t choose this, but he acknowledges the weight of it. In the special he talks in explicit terms about Palestine, just as he has done for a while now; as he said in a Vanity Fair interview earlier this year, “The headlines are always late, and the art is always early.”
Vogue spoke with the comedian about the venue for his second special (a follow-up to 2019’s Feelings, filmed at the Chicago Cultural Center), his best friend Steve, and how he navigates writing jokes about touchy subjects.
Vogue: I’m curious: How did you choose the White Eagle Hall as your venue this time?
Ramy Youssef: There was something really fun [in] doing the last special away from home. It was nice to go to a city where I didn’t know anyone, but Chicago interestingly has this really large pocket of the Muslim American community. And it had the mix of an audience I love: the Chicago comedy fans and also people who had heard there would be a show, because at that time I really didn’t have anything out. This time it was nice to do something at home and something different. You know, the Chicago taping was very grand.
It was really grand.
I talked a lot with Chris [producer Christopher Storer] about lighting it up brightly so that you could see the crowd and show the diversity. This special is in many ways the opposite—it’s really intimate, and we don’t see the crowd that much, and we’re more with me. It has the casual feel of any night you would do stand-up, which is not this big theatrical production. It’s more of a conversation and getting the material off your chest.
You had your friend Steve, who plays Steve in Ramy, open for you. I haven’t seen a lot of specials where there’s an opener. Why was that important?
That was something that we talked about early on. I try to bring Steve wherever I can that works for him, in terms of wheelchair accessibility. When I got in the edit, it felt really cool to have this one particular piece and introduce some people to Steve who hadn’t seen him. And there’s probably nothing I like more than Steve making fun of me or cursing me out. That brings me a lot of joy, so it’s just a really fun way to open this. I really think the world of Steve.
Also, for anyone who is a fan of Ramy, seeing him open when you aren’t expecting it is so exciting.
It is the wildest reaction of the night. There’s something in this cheer for Steve that acknowledges the reality of how logistically crazy it is for him to be able to come. All of it’s just so surreal.
It was like seeing a rock star come on stage.
Everyone’s expecting to see me. It’s why they bought tickets. He gets the oh-shit reaction.
I’ve enjoyed many of your fits lately, so I have to ask about the outfit you put together for the show.
The jacket was made by Stòffa. I had this great conversation with Agyesh [designer Agyesh Madan] about how I like wearing oversized hoodies on stage. I like the feeling of not fully drowning in something but being almost cuddled by something. It makes me feel cozy and relaxed. I was basically talking to him about what the evolved version is of something that feels like a hoodie but isn’t, and he made that piece for me for the show. I really tried to make it feel as much like any show I would do [as possible], and sometimes I make a last-minute change. I rolled up to the venue with enough options to switch. And the jeans are this old vintage pair of Levi’s. I think they’re from the ’70s. I got those at a vintage store probably three years ago, and I genuinely wear them three or four days a week.
This special is very much in conversation with the current global political landscape. In it, you call yourself “the mayor of Muslim disaster,” in reference to the fact that as a Muslim American artist, there are certain expectations about you speaking to issues and tragedies within the Arab world.
I know my audience is wide, which I’m really grateful for in terms of who I reach. So it’s not like I’m just speaking to the various Muslim communities, I’m actually speaking to every community that I’m a part of. There’s a Hollywood contingency, but there’s also semi-hipsters. What’s happening right now in Palestine and Gaza obviously has been a priority for me, between themes that we’ve already explored in Ramy and Mo. It’s all a continuing exploration of trying to shed light and humanity and do it, hopefully, through a context that breaks through the talking heads in the news. Art can talk a lot, too, and that’s a contribution I hope to be a part of.
Are there other artists you look to who create things that inspire you or speak to our time?
I’ve been in touch with these kids who live in the West Bank, and they’re part of this collective called the Freedom Theatre in Jenin. Jenin has always been a really tough place, and it obviously has gotten much worse in the last few months. They just got nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, and, man, they really inspire me. We cast these kids in our show in the third season, and they were amazing. We’re on a tight schedule, and we’re moving fast, and these guys don’t waste a take. They’re so good and so fearless, and the fact that they can focus on the art in the midst of everything is amazing. Even now I’ll message them and they’re like, “We’re writing” or “We’re trying to memorize some lines.” Those are my heroes.
There’s been a lot of reckoning in comedy over the past year or so about the idea of emotional truth. This would be murky for you, given that you play a fictionalized version of yourself on Ramy and people draw conclusions about you from that depiction. How do you feel about that debate, and how does your joke-writing process differ in stand-up versus in writing Ramy?
I think people should be very aware of the term performer. It’s literally in the description. I don’t think it should matter what’s true and what’s not true, and it’s why I’ve named both specials Feelings. It’s just feelings. A lot of the conversations around truth speak to the lack of sincerity, the lack of truth, and the lack of facts we’re surrounded by, unfortunately. That obviously sucks. But for me [my stand-up] is about things that are very real to me and do have a lot of true elements. But then it gets simplified for the performance—it gets crystalized and turns into something that can be funny. That’s always been the process of comedy—how to find the pattern in a mess of things and then figure out how to simplify it all and make it funny.
This interview has been condensed for clarity.