Ramy Youssef had one of the biggest surprises at last year’s Golden Globes when he picked up the first award of the evening for his self-titled Hulu series “Ramy.” He was clearly shocked and remarked, “I know you guys haven’t seen my show. Everyone’s like, ‘Is this an editor?'” Now Youssef returns this year looking to capture his second trophy.
Youssef is facing off against four strong competitors for Best TV Comedy Actor: Don Cheadle (“Black Monday”), Nicholas Hoult (“The Great”), Eugene Levy (“Schitt’s Creek”) and Jason Sudeikis (“Ted Lasso”). All of Youssef’s fellow nominees are up for their first Globe except for Cheadle. This is Cheadle’s sixth career nomination, and he’s won twice: Best TV Supporting Actor for “The Rat Pack” in 1998 and Best TV Comedy Actor in 2012 for “House of Lies.”
SEE 2021 Golden Globes nominations list: Nominees for 78th annual ceremony
On the show, Youssef plays Ramy Hassan, a Arab-American Muslim from New Jersey in his late-20s, who’s attempting to reconcile his faith with the current landscape of his home country as well as figuring out his place in the world at-large. In the second season, Ramy begins to seek guidance from a different religious figure Sheikh Ali Malik (Mahershala Ali) while he also begins to develop strong feelings for the man’s daughter, Zainab (MaameYaa Boafo). As he becomes more serious with Zainab, he also finds unwelcome parts of his past coming back to haunt him.
While Youssef’s nomination is the only one the show received this year, it should not be counted out to win. Youssef was in the same situation last year and beat out three nominees who had their show up for Best Comedy Series: Michael Douglas (“The Kominsky Method”), Bill Hader (“Barry”) and Ben Platt (“The Politician”). This year Youssef faces another three nominees who have their show up for the series award — Levy, Sudeikis and Hoult — so it’s not unthinkable that he could do it again.
In addition to that, the Globes do love giving out repeat wins to TV performers from comedies. Over the course of the ceremony’s history, 16 actors/actresses have picked up multiple trophies for the same role. That’s double the number of people who have pulled that off on the drama side. Combine all of this with the show’s multi-cultural themes (which the HFPA can really gravitate towards) along with the extremely positive reviews that the show’s sophomore season received and Youssef looks to be in a very promising place to take home another Globe.
This article is a part of Gold Derby’s “Golden Globes nominee profile” series spotlighting the 2021 contenders in film and TV.
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