{"id":26626,"date":"2022-08-24T12:47:09","date_gmt":"2022-08-24T08:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/me\/?post_type=articles&p=26626"},"modified":"2022-08-24T12:49:51","modified_gmt":"2022-08-24T08:49:51","slug":"mo-amer-palestinian-netflix-show","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/me\/articles\/mo-amer-palestinian-netflix-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Mo Amer On Finding Comedy In Tragedy: “The Funniest People I Know Are Palestinian”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mo Amer, Courtesy of Esquire Middle East\u00a0(Photo by Mohammad Adel Rashid\/ITP Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Seven years ago, Mo Amer wrote the opening scene to a TV series, folded it up, and put it in his back pocket. It was the story he knew he would always tell someday\u2014the story of a Palestinian boy born in Kuwait who moved to Texas on the cusp of becoming a teenager, a place he wouldn\u2019t feel was his home until he found himself on stage as a stand-up comedian in the years to come.<\/p>\n

He knew he had something. What he didn\u2019t know was whether he would ever actually turn it into a reality.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started pitching it to all my friends. I said, \u2018guys, I got this amazing idea!\u2019 I\u2019d start acting out the first two minutes of the series for them, this really cool way to tell that story of how we came to the States. All my friends were like, you need to save that. That is amazing. Don\u2019t drop it on a stand up special. You need to put it in a series,\u201d Amer tells\u00a0Esquire Middle East<\/em>.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Mo Amer, Courtesy of Esquire Middle East\u00a0(Photo by Mohammad Adel Rashid\/ITP Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWhen people ask me, \u2018what would you compare this to?\u2019 I have no answer. There\u2019s just never been a Palestinian family depicted like this on television before.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As the corners on that\u00a0script\u00a0began to fray, Amer\u2019s star continued to rise, and after a hugely-successful Netflix special,\u00a0The Vagabond<\/em>, he was contacted by\u00a0Ramy Youssef\u00a0for a lead role in his now-Golden Globe-winning A24-produced series,\u00a0Ramy<\/em>. It wasn\u2019t long into filming that Amer pitched Youssef the idea that he\u2019d been sitting on.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, you know what, you\u2019re making a show here with A24, and they want to make more. I\u2019ve got an idea, why don\u2019t we do this?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mo Amer\u2019s struggles on set<\/h2>\n

As we speak via Zoom, fresh off the release of his second Netflix special\u00a0Mohammed in Texas<\/em>,<\/a> Amer was on the set of the then-untitled series that he and Youssef have co-created, Mo<\/em>, which is now available to watch on Netflix<\/a>. He looked tired\u2014rightfully so. By his own admission, this is the hardest thing he\u2019s ever done in his life, not just because he\u2019s making his first series, but because he\u2019s making a show unlike any other.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lot of heavy lifting. There\u2019s no shortage of content but how do you put this together? I have so many stories from my life that can be used, but how do you put those together and engage the audience?\u201d<\/p>\n

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Mo Amer, Courtesy of Esquire Middle East (Photo by Mohammad Adel Rashid\/ITP Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While Amer has leaned on Youssef\u2019s support continually in answering those questions, he initially had a hard time getting his other collaborators to understand what he\u2019s going for.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time writers come in and try to help me with the story, they ask me, \u2018what would you compare this to?\u2019 There\u2019s really nothing to give them. There\u2019s no comps to this, and how I want to tell it in particular. How my mind works, and how I tell stories, is different. And more than that\u2014there\u2019s just never been a Palestinian family depicted on television before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes, either on set or in the writer\u2019s room, Mo is the only one that sees the humour in things. To be honest, he can understand why others might struggle with that bit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to remind people it\u2019s a comedy, because being Palestinian is pretty f***ing depressing sometimes. At the same time, some of the funniest people I know are Palestinian just because of how much pain they\u2019ve gone through.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Mo Amer, Courtesy of Esquire Middle East (Photo by Mohammad Adel Rashid\/ITP Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As he prepared to write the show, Amer started asking his mother certain questions in order to navigate the new world he was creating. To his relief, after some hesitation over the years, Amer\u2019s mother had finally reached a point where she understands what he\u2019s trying to accomplish in telling their stories in the way he does, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think she\u2019s at a place where she trusts me. She knows I\u2019m not going to do anything that\u2019s intended to harm us,\u201d says Amer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is TV, sure, but this is my life. There\u2019s stuff we\u2019re going to fictionalize, but it\u2019s heavily inspired by what\u2019s really happened. It\u2019s about tipping a hat to the ones that afforded me the opportunity to have a life in America, to have a dream, to pursue it, and be supported while doing it. It\u2019s a thank you. It\u2019s a love letter to Houston for raising me, a love letter to my family, to my ancestors. That\u2019s what it\u2019s really about.\u201d<\/p>\n

It may be a letter he\u2019s written in his own blood, sweat and tears, but through the entire process, the pain has felt better than anything he\u2019s felt before.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can tell you that it\u2019s been really cathartic. It\u2019s been really beautiful. I\u2019ve been filled with a sense of overwhelming joy in capturing Palestinian culture in Texas on camera. I keep saying to myself, \u2018well, we just did that\u2019,\u201d says Amer.<\/p>\n

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Mo Amer, Courtesy of Esquire Middle East (Photo by Mohammad Adel Rashid\/ITP Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On set, the many Palestinians both in front of and behind the camera continue approaching him as they watch production unfold, in awe of what they\u2019re seeing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re just like, \u2018bro, this is amazing!\u2019 Nobody ever thought we could do this, including myself. I had started to doubt whether I was ever going to be able to do it on television.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really exciting to be able to bring these stories to life, to share all these \u2018inside baseball\u2019 cultural experiences that I\u2019ve had my whole life and bringing them to the world is just so cool. It\u2019s just really, really cool,\u201d repeats Amer.<\/p>\n