
Nobody really understands the depth that Houston has. It has a lot to offer and it’s exported of some of the best music in the world. There are people who are struggling to take care of their families, living paycheck to paycheck, people who have to take odd jobs under the table even though they are American citizens.Īlso, I want people to take away that Houston (where the show largely takes place and was filmed) is an incredibly diverse city. I think that just relates universally to everyone, not just immigrants and refugees. This is a show about somebody who just wants to feel like he’s part of something. This is a show about identity and wanting to be seen. She’s so excited to have these stories being shared.įor people who aren’t related to you, or who are not as familiar with the Palestinian experience, what do you hope they’ll see when they watch the show? To see these scenarios from my life recreated, it was incredibly emotional for my mom, but she’s also very happy. Has your family had a chance to see the show? What did they think? Sometimes there were two days in a row where I slept an hour.
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I can’t tell you how many times I had 20-hour plus days. How do you handle that? How do you balance out all the stories that I’ve accumulated? We had an embarrassment of riches because it was based off of my life, and fortunately and unfortunately, it was a lot that we went through. This is the first-ever (American) show starring a Palestinian with a Palestinian family fleeing war. And I was going through a divorce.Īnd then there was the weight of the story. It was incredibly difficult to work through that. The emotionality that was involved in it and the roller coaster rides that everybody was going through, my writers, everybody was having so many issues.


And then not only do we have a global pandemic where everybody was at home, we also had civil unrest and George Floyd’s murder. We were one of the first shows that was greenlit to have a Zoom (writers’) room. So much was going on when the show got picked up.

You’ve said making this show was the hardest thing you’ve ever done. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. And as Netflix says in its summary of the show, along the way he “straddles the line between two cultures, three languages and a ton of bullshit.”Īmer, 41, spoke with CNN about how he finds the humor in bleak situations, what he hopes viewers of his show will see, why language and authenticity were so important to him while making it and one key thing he has in common with his character. His character on the show, Mo Najjar, is still on a long journey fighting for asylum in the United States.
