‘Ramy’ Star May Calamawy on Learning How to Embrace Her Own Vulnerabilities to Explore Dena on a Deeper Level

Speaking with Awards Daily, May Calamawy of Ramy details how she embraced her own insecurities, working with Youssef to insert her own experiences into Dena’s story.

No other show on television highlights its core ensemble quite like Ramy, which is all the more surprising given its title. In fact, some of each season’s most talked about moments are the standalone episodes dedicated to a different member of the Hassan family. The first season saw Ramy’s sister Dena, played by May Calamawy, as she navigates dating life only to nearly lose her virginity to a man who desperately tries to fetishize her Egyptian and Muslim identity in any way he can. It was an experience that many Muslim-Americans related to but one that Calamawy had never experienced herself.

In the show’s second season, May Calamawy took a huge risk by allowing the most vulnerable aspects of her own life to be interwoven into Dena’s journey. In the season’s fifth episode, “3riana grande,” audiences watched as Dena rapidly experiences the seven stages of grief as she discovers she has alopecia – a disorder Calamawy herself was living with at the time. It was a creative direction she was reluctant to go in, but one that she was ultimately convinced of by Ramy Youssef and his own journey of tackling his own fears through the show.

Speaking with Awards Daily May Calamawy detailed how that experience changed the way she engages with material in the future, how instead she wants to be able to harness that ability to transform the parts of herself that she is most ashamed of to create a dialogue with audiences. As Ramy grows in popularity, she also touches on the unattainable expectations of being one of the only representations of Muslim-American life in the media, what it was like working with Oscar winner Mahershala Ali, and what she hopes to explore through Dena in a potential in the future.

Awards Daily: Over the past year Ramy has become a huge hit with audiences and critics, even taking home a Golden Globe. What has the audience been like for you?

May Calamawy: My experience has been very positive, both over here and in the Middle East, which I was always nervous about. I always thought we would be received well on one side of the world while the other reacts differently, but it’s been great to see it well-received on both sides.

People all over were excited to see these people portrayed. I can speak to my character and say that I felt very lucky to be able to portray someone we haven’t really seen online. People have felt well-represented through all of the characters in a way that they haven’t before. For me, that is what stood out the most.

AD: I want to go back to the first season for a moment. When the show first premiered, there was an article in The Atlantic that called the show out for not painting a broad enough brush when portraying Muslim Americans, specifically Muslim women. I’m curious as to how you feel about these conversations (because they’ve happened to a lot of shows) where they put this unneeded pressure on a show about any minority group to represent an entire culture as opposed to a specific person and story?    

MC: For me personally, I was able to let that slide. The show is called Ramy – it’s about a specific character and his family. He doesn’t represent an entire culture. My character is not the lead; the show isn’t told through her point of view, but it’s really cool to see her standalone episodes each season, especially when they target specific situations that might seem small in scope. For me, that was huge.

When I read that people felt like the women weren’t well represented, I saw that as the audience wanting more from the sister and mother. It excited me that there was this excitement to see more from them. Of course, there is going to be pressure because it’s the first time a show like this is being made. While we want to share all these stories, it’s going to be a slow reveal. We don’t want to cram it all into one season. If anything, it’s proof that more needs to be made.

AD: Speaking of those standalone episodes, I read that Dena’s story was actually more personal to you and something you yourself had experienced. How did your experience become a part of Dena’s story? What was that creative process like, getting your story onscreen?

MC: I was going through alopecia at the time and I was trying hard to hide it. I had told hair and makeup, and a month and a half into filming Ramy approached me about it. He had already written a different story for Dena, but he asked me if I wanted to address it. At first I wasn’t excited about the idea but I’ll never forget what he said to me: “If this is something that scares you, we should definitely do it.” I realized that’s what he does in every single episode. His work is all personal and it is all a risk. You get really vulnerable and you have no idea how it will be received.

AD: After going through all of that, what was it like watching your story unfold onscreen? Has it inspired you at all to pursue more writing?

MC: Yes, 100%. I remember before we started shooting, I asked myself why I was trying to hide this part of me that I find ugly and these parts of me that will help me connect with people? There is going to be someone out there who feels just as lonely. What about that am I trying to hide? I realized in that moment what I want to do with my acting is to transform these parts of ourselves that we are ashamed of.

For me that’s not just necessarily from doing the work, it also comes from the response I get from people who are having similar experiences. It changed my perspective on what I was going through and made me realize how much more I want to work in that manner. Now when I pick roles I look for that transformation. The response has been so supportive. I’ve had both men and women reach out about their hair and the stress they go through. It feels so simple, and it’s not the biggest problem when you look at what is happening around the world, but it affects people on a visceral level. That is so rewarding and it opened the door for me.

AD: The other aspect of the episode I found really interesting was that it is really the first time we see Dena explore her own relationship with Islam. Everyone on the show explores their faith in their own way, but up until this point, Dena has been less obvious about that. What was that like to explore?

MC: It almost felt like she got cornered into it. I don’t think turning to her faith would have been her first initial response, but because of the influence of her family, it guided her. It is almost like a hopeless, desperate last call for help. Faith is so personal and it’s not something she has felt comfortable sharing with anyone including her own family. They are probably the last people she felt she could turn to.

I wouldn’t say she found God or that she is now turning to a higher power. It’s out of desperation, a call-out for help. It’s the beginning of her going down that path and I’m excited to see where it goes.

AD: I want to go back to Dena’s standalone episode from the first season. She meets a white guy on campus (played by Jake Lacey) that she eventually hooks up with that ends in him fetishizing her in this incredibly inappropriate way. It was an episode I related to and I am sure a lot of other Muslim Americans can relate to as well. What was that episode like for you?

MC: It was weird because I have never experienced something like that. The character they had written was initially charming and intelligent, which made the episode almost seem farcical. You’re watching the episode and really rooting for her to have this win. When the ending happens, it is this combination of frustration and asking yourself just “What?!?”

Taking myself out of it, I can’t believe it’s something that others have experienced. It made me feel bad to see someone craving a connection only to be met with that. It was yet another place where she didn’t feel truly seen.

AD: In the second season it was really fun to see Dena act as a sort of cultural translator for her parents, especially for her mom. She is the one that sits them down and has to explain how times have changed, things can’t be said, etc. What was that like? It’s an experience I think that is universal both across immigrant families as well as any younger generation interacting with an older one.

MC: I related to that. I have moments like that with my dad all of the time. I look at my dad with compassion because I see where and how he grew up and I am trying to educate him. It can be frustrating because I am met with stubbornness. With Dena and Maysa, Dena has so much pent up frustration already and it comes out on her mom. Maysa is ready to learn and wants to be corrected but Dena just doesn’t have that patience. It kind of shows up in all aspects of their relationship.

AD: Did you have a favorite moment from the second season?

MC: It’s funny because there’s a big difference between my favorite acting scenes and the ones I go back and rewatch. I love the scene where Ramy is introducing Zainab to the family. It’s funny because I was hardly in that scene but shooting it was so much fun. I think that was actually when I met Mahershala for the first time.

AD: What was working with Mahershala Ali like? I remember it being a big deal when the news broke.

MC: Yeah! No one knew what to expect. He was so humble and so friendly. He immediately felt familiar. We were all intimidated by him and we kind of turned the idea of him into this god, but he was so human. He taught me a lot and he was accessible the entire time. He wanted to be there even when the camera wasn’t on him.

AD: I’ve noticed that with shows like Ramy audiences often conflate the character and the actor. I’m curious where you and Dena share the most similarities and what are your biggest differences?

MC: We share that relation with the culture. I have an older brother, I have parents that smother. As tiring as it is, it’s out of love. Another similarity is that I am still discovering myself. What does it mean to be a woman, especially a Middle Eastern woman living in America?

The difference there is that I grew up in the Middle East while Dena grew up in New Jersey. For me, having a curfew was completely understandable. My friends and I were coming home at a certain time while my brother was out until 6 a.m. For Dena that feels foreign; her friends are doing whatever they want while she is balancing that and playing house with her family. I understand that frustration and I think she is still working on that agency within herself.

AD: Assuming Ramy is renewed for a third season, what aspects of Dena are you excited to explore even further?  

MC: I want to see her explore her identity, especially in terms of her spirituality. I want to see her move out and find out who she is without anyone else’s voice in her head. That sounds simple but it would be huge for her because it would dictate the rest of her life.

The second season of Ramy is currently available to stream on Hulu.