Ramy Youssef has earned a Primetime Emmy Awards nomination for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series.
The Egyptian-American comedian, actor and filmmaker directed Honeydew, a standout episode of The Bear's second season focusing on the character Marcus, portrayed by actor Lionel Boyce.
Also nominated in the category are The Bear's series creator Christopher Storer for the episode Fishes, Guy Ritchie for The Gentlemen, Lucia Aniello for Hacks, Randall Einhorn for Abbott Elementary, and Mary Lou Belli for The Ms Pat Show.
This is the third Emmy nomination for Youssef and his second for directing, after earning a 2020 nomination for directing an episode of Ramy, which he created.
Youssef was nominated this year for a Director's Guild of America award for his episode of The Bear, which is available on Disney+ in the Middle East
While he has yet to win an Emmy, he did win a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy in 2020 for his series Ramy.
While Youssef did not create The Bear, the series may not exist without him, as Storer got his break as a director and producer on Ramy.
Honeydew, the fourth episode of The Bear season two, follows Marcus, played by Boyce, as he journeys to Copenhagen, Denmark to improve his skills as a pastry chef as his Chicago restaurant attempts to turn into a fine dining establishment.
Boyce praised Youssef's contributions to the episode recently, telling The National: “Ramy and I would meet up and walk around Copenhagen and just talk about relationships. Specifically, the relationships that Marcus has with everyone and everything around him.
“And all the time, there’s this mounting tension that’s palpable through the whole episode. There’s this terrible thing you expect to happen to Marcus at some point in the episode, but it never comes.
"The shoe doesn’t drop. And Ramy was really thoughtful about crafting that. He’s such a team player, always there to support us all.”
Youssef's HBO comedy special Ramy Youssef: More Feelings, which aired this year, also received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Picture Editing for Variety Programming for its editor Joanna Naugle.
This has been a busy year for Youssef. He co-starred in the film Poor Things, which won Four Academy Awards in March, and hosted the variety programme Saturday Night Live for the first time later that month.
The performer has also been an outspoken voice for peace, publicly advocating for a ceasefire to the ongoing Israel-Gaza War, which the Lancet medical journal estimates may have resulted in 186,000 deaths thus far.
He is also the co-creator of the coming series Golf with Will Ferrell and Josh Rabinowitz, and will star in the series with Ferrell.
The show is set to premiere on Netflix, with no date yet announced.
