Ramy Youssef is no stranger to awards, having been nominated for Lead Actor in a Comedy as well as Directing for his Hulu series Ramy ,for which he also won a Golden Globe. This year he goes behind the camera again to direct the episode “Honeydew” for The Bear. He was nominated for a DGA Award earlier this year for it, and now has been Emmy-nominated for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series as well.
Youssef is the only director The Bear has used who wasn’t already working there full time. It came about because of his past work with The Bear creator Christopher Storer on Ramy, and he was asked if he would like to do an episode. And it wasn’t just any episode but rather one in which Marcus (Lionel Boyce) travels to Denmark to learn how to make desserts from the crème de la crème in the trade, a pastry chef played by Will Poulter. Not only did Youssef receive an Emmy nomination for the episode, but Boyce and Poulter did as well. Youssef spent a couple of weeks just researching restaurants for the shoot in Europe, and he and Boyce also took over the kitchen of one of them, the Michelin star Noma, one of the world’s greatest.
Watch on Deadline
Related Stories
He talks about the whole experience of working on The Bear, shooting lots of desserts, coming on to an existing show and finding new creative freedom, plus all the other things he is up to including producing another series, Mo, and starting work with Will Ferrell on a new Netflix comedy. He also talks about the wild experience of making Poor Things opposite Oscar winner Emma Stone.
To watch our conversation and to go “Behind the Lens” with Ramy Youssef, just click on the link above.