The stand-up comedian’s show, inspired by his own experience, brings a nuanced portrait of immigrant life to the small screen.
So what does the real Mo Amer look for in olive oil? “I look out for the flakes. If it has olive flakes in it, then that’s the real deal. If it’s super clear, more bright yellow than dark green, then I’m usually out. I’ll cook with that stuff.”
The problem with faith, as many immigrants or refugees like Amer can tell you, is that it can set you up for crushing disappointment. That’s whereshines. Sometimes it’s a joke during a particularly heavy moment, but it’s also in subtle little bits — like when Mo interviews for a security job at a strip club. “You won’t be our first illegal,” the owner says, and without a hint of irony adds, “but you’d be our first Arab. That would be a historic hire here at Dreams.
Amer deals with sadness in real life, and in creating his show, by making people laugh. Comedy and tragedy are supposedly one and the same, but putting them together can be like mixing water with olive oil. “It has so much,” says Amer of the series. “Trying to unpackage everything and then be like, ‘Whoa, is this still a comedy?’ Because there is some very sad stuff there, and we’ve got to make sure it’s balanced.”as an exercise in comedic catharsis.
“Parsing out the emotions was probably one of the hardest things we did,” he says of sketching out how the show would work. The whole experience of making the show was an emotional one for Amer. When he starts talking about a scene in which Mo’s mother — played by the scene-stealing Farah Bsieso — makes oil out of olives her son brought her, Amer begins to get choked up..
This story first appeared in a November stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine,
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