Ayo Edebiri: ‘I’ve told my parents to get copies of all their documents. That’s not something that I would have ever wished’

When Ayo Edebiri, 29, became a massive international star, she was already well-acquainted with the ins and outs of show business. Still shy of 30, she had experience in nearly every role possible, having gotten her start as a production intern and as a stand-out writer for Comedy Central, in addition to racking up co-signs from some of the biggest names in U.S. stand-up. It was much to her surprise that her promising career’s real glow-up came not thanks to her acidic feminist and anti-racist jokes, but rather, a drama about two career chefs obsessed with the pursuit of excellence. In her role on FX’s The Bear alongside co-star Jeremy Allen White, Edebiri brought home the laboral and personal travails of a cook at a small Chicago restaurant. In so doing, she racked up nearly every recognition an actress could hope for. She won an Emmy, a Golden Globe, a Critic’s Choice and a SAG Award. The unanimous admiration for her work placed her in the tiny group of people who had arrived at Hollywood’s highest heights. From then on, her phone hasn’t stopped ringing. Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt is one of her most recent projects to see the light of day, and she also just wrapped filming on the latest installation of The Bear.

“I’m starting to prepare for press for season four [which will be available on Hulu starting June 25]. I’m writing and preparing for the Met Gala [around the corner, at the time of this interview]. That’s been taking up a lot of time, but in an exciting way,” she says, in explanation for having moved the date of the video call several times.

Question. Did you ever imagine that being a star would be so exhausting?

Answer. I don’t know if I did — I mean, maybe I did a little bit, I never imagined doing this. I really thought I was going to be a writer, though I’ve always loved performing. I did a lot of improv in theater throughout middle and high school. I just never anticipated that it would be to this degree. I never thought I would be getting to do work as diverse as I’ve been able to do. I definitely thought it would be solely comedy, and it’s been really interesting the past few years that I’ve been getting to do different types of things, especially with After The Hunt about to come out.

Q. What was it like working on that film with Luca Guadagnino?

A. It was amazing. It was such a beautiful and freeing experience, I just felt like I was learning something new every day. He allowed all of our performances to grow, because of how beautifully the set was run, how amazing and collaborative it was, from every department, hair and makeup and costume and camera. It created an environment where we were able to go to some really exciting and complicated places together.

Q. The director has said that you’re “funny and extremely beautiful — and that is a very rare combination.” Do you think that’s the key to your success?

A. Well, first of all, I paid him to say that [laughs]. I don’t know. I think I’m a very fortunate person. I have no idea what the key to anything is. He’s one of the many people that I’m just fortunate to be around. I think if there is any key, it’s the people who are around me who are generous with their time, with their energy, with their knowledge. They show things to me, and that gives me new goals to set for myself, places where I want to grow.

Q. You say you are a product of Boston Public Schools.

A. I grew up going to public schools. As a country right now, we’re in a very interesting moment as far as public services. I am the child of two immigrants, and if I hadn’t gone to well-funded public schools that were diverse, had people of different ethnic and religious and political backgrounds, I would not be who I am today. If I didn’t go to a school that cared just as much about arts and the humanities as it did about STEM, I would not be who I am today, as open as I am as a person. The world is a more compassionate place when you fund public education.

Q. Later in college, you had to work while you were going to school.

A. Absolutely, I had to pay rent. I went to NYU, which is a very interesting school because it doesn’t really have a campus. At my jobs, there were other artists who had been doing theater, TV, music. I was able to learn from them about how I could get an internship at a production company, and turn that internship into a production assistant job, and that PA job into a writer assistant job.

Q. If you had a magic wand to change something in Hollywood, what would you change?

A. I would make it so there would be more movies in theaters for longer amounts of time, and that studio heads really prioritized that and cared about that. Some of the most formative experiences of my life have been in communal spaces, there is a magic that happens when you see movies as they’re supposed to be seen, with people in a theater. It is really gutting when there’s a movie that changed your life and it’s in one theater for one week. All of our attention spans are getting shot by the day. [The theater is] a really sacred space where you get to be off your phone, away from all the distractions.

Q. After your role in the movie Bottoms, you became a queer icon. Do you like being a reference for the LGBTQ+ community?

A. Like, that’s a blessing to me. I think, one of the greatest compliments that we get about this movie. That was our intention making it, that it feel like a movie people wish they had when they were younger. I think any project that people feel is a space of expression and freedom — we were all saying the things that we wanted to say, and we were going as far out as we wanted to go. That is very, very, very special.

Q. The Bear has made you an international star. Do people still say “Yes, Chef” to you when you’re walking down the street?

A. Sometimes, yeah [laughs]. Mostly like, if I’m in a restaurant or something, or if somebody like, passes by, they’ll say it. It’s cute. Last year, I went to a friend’s wedding in Mexico City and I was surprised how much it happened there. That was really when I realized that the series was an international success.

Q. On The Bear, we’ve seen you cook a lot. Are you a cook?

A. Yeah, I love to cook. I’m from a really big family, so that’s how we communicate and how we connect — big gatherings, lots of food. I definitely think the show has increased my interest in food and food knowledge. It’s made me more adventurous when I cook for myself at home, which has been really fun.

Q. What can we expect from season four?

A. I’m never allowed to say anything, but I was really excited by the journey that [my character] Sydney gets to go on in this season. There’s a lot of dimensionality and change that she gets confronted with. For season three, I got to direct an episode, and on season four, I got to write one. That was a really exciting and rewarding challenge, and as with most challenges, equally terrifying and exciting.

Q. When you won the Golden Globe, you thanked your managers’ and agents’ assistants, as you said, “the people who answer my emails.”

A. I’ve done that job before. It’s very hard work and often, thankless. It just came into my head, I felt like it was true.

Q. You’ve been the host of Saturday Night Live. How does an actress prepare for something so big?

A. I asked a lot of friends’ advice who have hosted the show, what they’ve enjoyed, if there was anything that they wish they had done or known. Because of my history with comedy and stand-up, I have friends who work on the show presently or have before, so I asked them. And then I just tried my best to listen and then — in the best way — forget it and be open to my own experience and have fun.

Q. You come across as a very confident person. Have you had to work on it, or does it come naturally?

A. It’s one of those hard things to answer, because sometimes you have a different memory of yourself. I remember myself as like, ‘Oh, I’m so young and shy and nervous’ and then I hear from other people like, ‘You’ve always been funny,’ which to me is crazy. I did go to my high school recently and one of my teachers was like, ‘You were always inquisitive.’ That trait has definitely been a throughline. I think also, this industry can be so volatile, and when you make art, which is such a personal thing, you have to work on your confidence. When people respond positively, it’s a reflection of you and the choices you’ve made. But when they respond negatively, it can feel twice as tough. You do have to have a sense of belief, and to a certain extent, a sense of delusion, to carry you through. I think it’s important to check in with the voice in your head that doubts, even if it’s just to prove that voice wrong.

Q. You can see that confidence on the red carpet. How have you built a style with so much personality?

A. I have amazing collaborators in my stylist, Danielle Goldberg, and everyone who does hair, makeup, nails. I love clothes. My mom is an incredibly fashionable woman. I grew up going to a Pentecostal church where everybody wore their Sunday best. There were a lot of things that I couldn’t wear, and I fantasized about when I was young. Now I’m at this place where I can wear whatever, so I think it’s like, let’s do it. Let’s have fun.

Q. Do you like working with brands like LOEWE?

A. Definitely. Also like, Jonathan (JW Anderson) is a visionary. To be able to work with somebody and with a team of people who are thinking in a 4-D way, it’s just a blast.

Q. Changing the subject now: The world is a bit perplexed with Trump’s way of doing politics. It must be hard to listen to his racist and xenophobic rhetoric.

A. My hope is that this awakens people, that we don’t grow complacent. There are very real threats to our industry right now, like China saying that they might not import our movies, when they’re a large fraction of the money we make. I just hope that people start to think about whose best interests they’re operating in, and not just post about wanting change, but actually do things. It’s a strange, worrying time, that makes you go ‘I’m an actor, I’m one person, what can I do?’ But I’ve been trying to stop myself because when everybody thinks that way, then the choice that we make is to do nothing, actually. But I’ve also been seeing very beautiful things, people gathering. It might not be the type of thing that you see on social media or on the news, but people are connecting, they’re seeking change and working to make it happen.

Q. You are the daughter of immigrants and Trump is being very hard on them.

A. I’ve told my parents to get copies of all their documents. That’s not something that I would have ever wished, I hate that sometimes I’m careful about how much I say, because it’s scary to think of any retaliation of any sort. I think everybody sort of feels that way. I’m a person whose parents were not born here, and came here legally and did all the work. You can see on the news that there are people who have done that, and they’re still not allowed back in our country. I think about the world that I grew up in, I had friends whose parents were Republicans. We had different beliefs, but it felt like there was still a universal truth and a universal hope for this planet being a better place where we could all live equally.

Q. Even with all the bad things that are happening, are you optimistic?

A. I think I have to be to some extent, because if I can’t imagine the world I want to live in, what’s the point? I have to have hope, and continue to create my own work and produce, it’s like speaking to futures that I want to see.

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