RAMY YOUSSEF ISN'T JOKING

Ramy Youssef is a Muslim-American stand-up comic with his own raunchy HBO special, a Golden Globe-winning TV show, and a new production deal with A24. And it turns out that the road to his barrier-shattering success all started with a surprising case of Bell’s palsy

- Kevin Nguyen

ONE MORNING 10 YEARS AGO, Ramy Youssef woke up to brush his teeth and found that something was severely wrong with his face. As minty saliva dribbled down his chin, he inspected himself more closely in the mirror. His features were drooping and his mouth wasn’t moving. So he googled “mouth not moving”, which gave him the answer before a doctor could diagnose him: Bell’s palsy, or temporary weakness or paralysis of the facial muscles. How temporary was unclear. It could last a few days, three weeks, half a year. If I get better, then I need to really just step into what I want to do, he thought.

Youssef was 19 and living in the US state of New Jersey, and his life was stuck in a seemingly endless loop: in the mornings he attended lectures at Rutgers University, where he was studying political science and economics. Then he’d take a train into Manhattan, where he worked at the Apple Store, fetching people MacBooks and iPhones. Then there were acting classes at night at the William Esper Studio, each one three hours long, after which Youssef would hop on a train back to New Jersey, get into bed at around 1am, and do the whole thing all over again.