On ‘The Bear,’ Ramy Youssef Found Stillness in Copenhagen

“I at all times say guest-directing on tv is like being a surrogate, you recognize?” says Ramy Youssef, the cocreator and star of the favored sequence Ramy, on which he additionally writes and directs.

It’s true: More often than not, when an outdoor director steps right into a present to helm one episode, it’s not their child. They must seamlessly match the venture’s current fashion and vibe, then be on their means. “[The parents] are like, ‘Eat this, do that, however now, the second you give beginning, give me the infant again.’ It can’t be actually that singularly artistic,” says Youssef.

However he had a really completely different expertise when he stepped in to direct The Bear’s season two episode “Honeydew,” an installment centered on Lionel Boyce’s Marcus as he heads to Copenhagen seeking coaching and inspiration for the Chicago eatery’s dessert menu. The episode sheds the sequence’ signature frenetic power and replaces it with a extra pensive, moodier tempo that matches Marcus’s character. It gave Youssef a possibility to embed himself and create one thing that felt completely distinctive compared to the remainder of the sequence.

“The meals scene is actually cool—I discovered a lot about how individuals sort of go on the market and discover their voice,” he tells Vainness Honest. “You’ve this character who had actually by no means been on a airplane, and he’s looking for himself exterior of the context of caring for his mom, exterior of his household. And I do suppose there’s a sure quiet in Copenhagen that permits you to have that vacant palette.”

It was additionally a quieter expertise for Youssef, who’s often juggling many hats as Ramy’s cocreator, author, director, and star. For the primary time, Youssef—now nominated for the best-director Emmy for his work on The Bear—shares among the images he took whereas spending two weeks in Copenhagen to organize for the shoot, and divulges how the expertise left an enduring impression on him.

Vainness Honest: How would you describe the temper and the aesthetic of Copenhagen and the way that influenced Marcus’s story?

Ramy Youssef: Quite a lot of what we talked about was that the colours of the place he’s strolling, these are additionally actually influencing the colours of the dishes. It’s simply sort of how inspiration is. If you’ll be able to be in an open thoughts, and in an open place, you’re consistently being impressed. So he’s strolling by these timber, this park, these vegetation. He’s at Noma; he’s these greens, he’s all these items, after which these issues all sort of discover themselves within the shade of those desserts. I had a enjoyable time getting to essentially concentrate on these nuances from a directing perspective.

Inform me about discovering the houseboat that Marcus stays on throughout his go to.

That got here out of a dialog that I had with Tyson Bidner, the road producer, who is also our line producer on Ramy. Once we shot in Cairo for Ramy, we shot on a houseboat, after which we have been sort of joking that we acquired to increase our worldwide houseboat motif.

We had these scenes in an house, after which we’re sort of strolling in Copenhagen and realizing, Oh wait, these are actually cool locations to be and to stay. And once more, it creates that privateness, that intimacy, that generally that may appear like loneliness however really isn’t.

This episode is an actual wonderful line between loneliness and quiet. And I feel that the houseboat felt so quiet on this actually cool means. There’s even the aspect of floating—being untethered can both be scary or it may be liberating.

Boyce on the houseboat. “He will get to return house with this new piece of himself,” says Youssef of Marcus’ journey.

What did you be taught on the restaurant Poulette, as a result of Lionel additionally talked about Poulette after I interviewed him?