Who is Ramy Youssef? Nationality, height, age, movies and TV shows

The actor, writer and comedian Ramy Youssef is best known for for his award-winning TV series Ramy, but also has more than one HBO stand-up special - and is now also a star of the big screen. Director Yorgos Lanthimos handed the Egyptian-American his first major film role in the acclaimed 2023 picture Poor Things, which scooped four Oscars at the Academy Awards in March.

Born in New York to Egyptian parents, Youssef was raised in New Jersey - the setting for Ramy, a semi-autobiographical comedy series on which he serves as writer, director and lead actor. The Hulu show, whose third series came out in 2022, centres on an Egyptian-American millennial and his attempts to marry his Muslim faith with his desire to fit into the western culture surrounding him.

According to Hulu, Ramy “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.”

Golden Globe winner for Ramy

Speaking to NJ Advance Media in 2019, Youssef said: “Part of my desire to make this show was a lack of seeing anything that felt like it. I think that a lot of the stories I would see was kids who are first-generation immigrants, watching them try to rip themselves from their family and their faith and kind of erase. I hadn’t really seen anything where someone’s trying to reconcile the two.”

Youssef won a best actor Golden Globe for Ramy in 2020, and has received two Primetime Emmy nominations for the show.

An actor who previously appeared on USA Network’s Mr Robot and Nick at Nite sitcom See Dad Run, Youssef has directed an episode of the hit Hulu series The Bear. He is also the co-creator of Netflix’s Mo, a show about a Palestinian refugee seeking asylum and US citizenship in Houston, Texas.

At the Oscars last weekend, he spoke of his support for Palestine amid its ongoing war with Israel, and was one of a number of performers who sported an ‘Artists for Ceasefire’ pin. “We’re all calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza,” the 32-year-old said. “We’re calling for the safety of everyone involved. And we really want lasting justice and peace for the Palestinian people.”

Star of Oscar-honoured Poor Things

Youssef was at the 96th Oscars as part of the cast for Poor Things - a film in which he plays Max McCandles, a medical assistant who first studies, then marries Bella Baxter (Best Actress winner Emma Stone), a young woman brought back to life by mad scientist Dr Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe).

In an interview with Variety magazine in January, Youssef revealed that he snared the role of McCandles after clicking with Lanthimos in discussions about how to bring his comedic abilities to bear on the part. “There was just this connection around tightropes, and walking them,” he said. “I immediately understood what he wanted, because [Max is] this character that could be totally overblown or creepy if not handled in a particular way.”

Youssef, whose film work also includes a voice role in the 2023 Disney movie Wish, brought out an HBO stand-up comedy special, Ramy Youssef: Feelings, in 2019. He picked up Critics’ Choice and Writers Guild of America nominations for the show - and has now released a follow-up. Ramy Youssef: More Feelings came out on Max on 23 March.

Ramy Youssef: More Feelings - watch the trailer:

“People so quick to think worst of Arab men”

In much of his stand-up work, Youssef talks about being a Muslim American in a post-9/11 society, and his experiences of dealing with Islamophobia. Speaking to The Guardian earlier this year, he said: “[It’s shocking] the way that people are so quick to dehumanise and vilify and think the worst of Arab men - what they think they can do to other people and what they think they do to Arab women.

“And the way that people can look at people who, especially in societies like London or America, are your neighbours, they’re your doctors, they’re serving you food, they’ve been next to you, side by side. But you’re ready to believe almost anything about them. I’m surprised and I’m not surprised.”