After seeing stand-up comedy live for the first time at the age of 10, Mo Amer immediately knew that’s what he wanted to do. The comedian started his journey at 14-years-old on his high school stage until he walked into The Laff Stop Comedy Club in Houston, Texas which sent him over to The Comedy Showcase with Danny Martinez who became his mentor and taught him the ins and outs of the industry. Amer started touring the world at 18 without a passport and is now the writer and actor in Netflix’s recent hit series, Mo
Mo is Netflix‘s straddles the line between two cultures while following the life of Mo Najjar, a Palestinian refugee trying to make ends meet in the United States.
Hypebeast caught up with stand-up comedian, writer and actor, Mo Amer to discuss the series’ concept, autobiographical messaging as well as the importance of taking control of the narrative as an Arab creative.
Hypebeast: How did you start the project and concept behind Mo?
Mo Amer: The series has always been in the background. I knew I was going to do a television show at some point, I just didn’t know how and what or what it was going to look like. I wanted it to be very cinematic and I wanted to do it as a two-part movie – where the first four episodes are the first part of the film and then episodes 5, 6, 7 and 8 fly by because it’s really intense and keeps piling on.
The series is something that just came about when my suggested friend I work on a short film then I couldn’t sleep and then I wrote it, put it together and shared it with a lot of my artist friends and they were blown away by it. Then, I just started accumulating stories and digging deeper into my family history and tapping into the emotionality of it all, not just the comedy, and just holding on to it for the right moment.
What inspired you to keep your nickname as the title?
It’s very tricky to name a series after yourself and after the main character. I think “Mo” is a perfect title for the show. What would a “Mohammed” assimilating in America go by? They would go by “Mo”. It’s kind of a perfect balance that shows immediately what this character is going through by the name that he goes by. “Mohammed” comes with a lot of responsibilities and we can stop pretending like we don’t have nicknames for it within our culture. It’s out of respect for the name. It was just perfect for somebody who is trying to ingratiate himself in American or western culture.
How has the transition been going from Mo on stage to Mo in production?
I just did Black Adam before that and that was a great warm up. There was so much heavy lifting there. Obviously, it wasn’t like rewriting every page and working on dialogue and making sure the story is there. We have a creative responsibility as well when creating a show, but this was very different.
It was so much fun because sometimes you get on a movie or television set and you have so much waiting time because it’s not necessarily your responsibility for the entire show, but more for the character. In my case, I had responsibilities all around – each individual character from what they wore, how they spoke, their storylines, what they looked like and the accuracy of their accents and words. All these things were very heavy to lift and it kept me really focused and very busy, so I wasn’t thinking about anything else but my responsibility and the integrity of the show.
Was it challenging or even possibly scary to allow yourself the space to shed light on what’s going on and what it’s like to be a Palestinian while thinking of the reaction of viewers watching on a global platform?
Whenever you’re feeling nervous about a particular storyline or subject matter then you’re probably on the right track. In the end, this is a story about belonging, feeling seen, feeling equal to the person next to you and that’s a very universal story. Somebody who is trying to take care of his family and working under the table. So, it’s a highly relatable one which is something I really wanted to make sure it was.
I didn’t want people to watch this and think this is just for Palestinians or just for Arabs, no, this is for everyone. This was a great opportunity to do that and I didn’t want to squander it. It’s a heavy thing to lift but to be authentic in everything we did is really just exciting and makes me feel at peace. There’s nothing worse than putting out something and feeling like I could’ve done more. I feel really blessed.
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