OVER statements

The season's sharpest coats worn by one of Hollywood's liveliest and most creative minds, comedian Ramy Youssef. The Ramy star has a regular backand-forth with his friend and frequent collaborator Christopher Storer, creator of The Bear. Here they let us listen in as they talk about style, directing, walking a tightrope onstage, and why Youssef wears a women's watch.

RAMY YOUSSEF has spent the last several months of 2023 on a global stand-up tour, which is ending its U. S. leg just as he hits the big screen in one of the buzziest films of the year, Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things. It’s a movie, and a performance, that will change the way people talk about him. In between stand-up dates, Esquire photographed the 32-year-old in New York, wearing this winter’s smartest overcoats. Then we asked his close friend and collaborator, The Bear creator Christopher Storer, to have a series of conversations with him and send us the recordings. Storer is a producer and director on Youssef’s award winning Hulu show, Ramy, and Youssef is the only person other than Storer and his co-showrunner, Joanna Calo, who has directed an episode (episode 4, “Honeydew,” which takes place in Copenhagen) of The Bear, also on Hulu. Their first attempt at sending us a tape failed. Thankfully, these two very creative men persevered. What you’ll find here are two conversations that happened in Chicago in October—one in the back of an Uber, the other backstage at Youssef’s show—combined, edited, and condensed for clarity. —the Editors

Ramy Youssef: Hold it like you’re interviewing me. That’s it. The mic’s up here in the top.

Christopher Storer: What do I press?

RY: Nothing. It’s rolling right now.

CS: Hi, buddy. This is take two. Yesterday was a tech fail, or a Chris fail.