Dave Chappelle and Mo Amer became close during the pandemic, when Chappelle managed to secure a COVID testing machine and created a bubble at his Ohio home to bring in comedians to perform. Amer was one of them. “We spent all the summer of 2020 together doing shows,” Chappelle says. “The best comedians in the world flew into Ohio, and we had a blast.”
Those early comedy shows were held in a cornfield, while the comedians were tested every day. But beyond that, Amer was mostly holed up in his Airbnb as he started writing Season 1 of “Mo,” his critically acclaimed Netflix series, which wrapped this year after two seasons.
“It was so nerve-racking because everything was so unsettling,” Amer recalls. “It was COVID; it was civil unrest; it was my own personal stuff. And every one of my writers was juggling things emotionally. It was really overwhelming. But you really saved my life. I’m sure that a lot of people felt that way, because we weren’t working — you gave us an outlet.”
When Amer was invited to participate in Actors on Actors, he suggested Chappelle as a conversation partner. And Chappelle — who hosted “SNL” this year and hasn’t given interviews since he became the subject of controversy for his jokes mocking transgender people in his 2021 Netflix special “The Closer” — agreed, flying to Los Angeles from Ohio. “As you know, I notoriously don’t like to do press,” Chappelle says. “But I wouldn’t have missed today, because it’s you.”
DAVE CHAPPELLE: This is the elephant in the room. You got a deal at Netflix to produce a show, and then right as you were starting production [on Season 2], Oct. 7 happened. And this is something that you were going to have to address, artistically or not. And what I was curious about is the process of going through that. By some weird accident, you found yourself being a solo Palestinian voice in a very critical time in human history.
MO AMER: I started writing [Season 2] in April 2023, and then [the Writers Guild] went on strike May 1. We came back on Oct. 1. Six days later, all hell breaks loose. And particularly my writing room, since the show is centered around a Palestinian family, this impacted it significantly; it caused us to have a tremendous amount of debate in the writing room itself. And then outside of the writing room, in my actual life, there was a deep concern for what’s going on globally. I was just getting all kinds of pressure like, “What are you going to say? What are you going to do?”
CHAPPELLE: Give me an example of where the pressure comes from — family, friends, artists, producers, execs?
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AMER: It was more so the fans and the public. Since I’m the only guy that’s Palestinian who has a show that’s centered around the Palestinian family, the pressure around that was immense: “What are you going to do to try to help to bring people together, for people to come to their senses and to get to a resolution?” I mean, my God, there was so many phone calls and people pressuring me to speak right away. This is literally Oct. 8.
CHAPPELLE: Oh, wow.
AMER: I noticed everyone was yelling at each other. No one was actually listening to one another. And I think it’s really important to understand what’s happening before you speak out. It’s really necessary to know what you’re talking about. And how you say it is everything. I’ve always seen my art form as [a] refuge, where it allows me to be myself and express myself. Outside of that feels unnatural to me at the moment.
CHAPPELLE: I know exactly what you mean.
AMER: I’m sure you know better than anybody else.
But in regards to the show, do you address Oct. 7? Do you not? Every time I started to implement it into the series, everything would get lost. It took over the entire narrative, and I felt like it did a massive disservice. Also, this idea of everything started on Oct. 7 is not accurate. So contextually, [in terms] of what’s been going on for the last 75 years, people need to know what life was like there.
CHAPPELLE: From a viewer’s standpoint, it looked like a miracle of timing. Your show reads like today’s paper. The issues it touches — Palestine, immigration itself — the world is wrestling with all these things, and all of a sudden there’s this cathartic piece of art that touches on all of that, humanizes all of that. And it’s funny, man.
AMER: I hope so. I mean, sometimes it didn’t feel like a comedy. There were some moments where I’m like, “Are we fucking making a comedy?” Because I’m emotionally exhausted. I’m tanked. But to your point, I’ve never seen a series touch upon all these things. I wanted to go into a detention center. I quite deliberately wanted my character at the end of Season 1 to get stuck in Mexico, to see what it takes to actually get back [into the United States]. And to show the absurdities of a detention center.
CHAPPELLE: I remember years ago being on a tour bus with you, and you described the whole sequence about what it was like fleeing Kuwait. And when I saw the first season of your show, it was exactly what you described on the tour bus, shot for shot. Do you remember this conversation?
AMER: Of course I remember this conversation. This whole series is your fault.
CHAPPELLE: How’s it my fault?
AMER: I was opening for you in Dallas at the House of Blues. I just got offstage, and you sat next to me. You said, “Mo.” You had a cigarette in your mouth, as usual.
CHAPPELLE: Always.
AMER: You were like, “Mo, have you ever thought about doing a short film in front of your stand-up special? And if you do it right, it could win an Emmy.” And you hit me in the shoulder. I was like, “Oh, shit.”
[After that], I was obsessed with this short film; I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It just all came into me. I was like, “Oh my God.” I started seeing my mom take the money — it was this real thing that happened when we were fleeing Kuwait — how she was getting the cash and hiding it in strategic locations in our suitcase. How she was sewing it up. I’d never seen this version of my mother.
Our life was very normal. And to see her be so tactful and grab a razor and cut behind the zipper and put equal amounts of money in the lining of the purse and then sewing it back up. I just started seeing little me wearing the Pelé soccer jersey as she was assembling it, putting everything together to get ready to leave, which was obviously changing our lives forever.
CHAPPELLE: But, boy, this second season. This punchline of “Mo” was everything. It was great. And that’s why I’m here. I hate doing media. Like, man, you guys have no fucking idea how amazing it is that I’m here right now.
AMER: When we were taking pictures next to each other, I looked over a couple times. I literally was thinking, “Bro, I know you hate this so much.” But also, “He must really love the show.”
CHAPPELLE: If this show sucked, and he asked me to do this, I’m not doing this shit. But, boy, by the time I got to the end of the season, it made me cry joyful tears.
AMER: Bro, you have the longest sets on “SNL.” I mean, to me, they’re the pinnacle of stand-up — watching a master at work at live stand-up. You’ve said that it’s a joke recital or whatnot, but you freestyle.
CHAPPELLE: The first one especially was winging it. But I’ve been doing it long enough that you’re never really winging it. Even if I don’t have jokes, I got experience enough. But on live television, it’s dangerous. You got to navigate standards and practices and all the rest of it. But to Lorne Michaels’ credit, he never knows what I’m going to say. As a tradition, I never do my actual monologue in rehearsal.
AMER: That’s great.
CHAPPELLE: For me, rehearsal is just “How’s the sound?” It’s so much pressure on live television. But the joy of doing that show for me is the monologue. What a gift for a stand-up to be able to do what he does on live television on such a revered platform like “SNL” is. It’s always exhilarating. It’s a little terrifying, but just a little. You never do as good as you think you’re going to do, but it’s never that bad. The hardest one was maybe the one when Biden got elected, because we didn’t know he was going to be president until Saturday morning. So I had a set for if Trump won, and I had a set for if Biden won.
AMER: As far as the monologues themselves from 2016, with so much going on in the world and the fact that Trump had won the election, from 2016 to now, how do you feel about that monologue?
CHAPPELLE: I haven’t watched it in a while, but I remember it fondly.
AMER: You spoke about giving him a chance.
CHAPPELLE: Oh, I remember that part. But you know what? I look at it like a photograph. That’s what it felt like in that moment. Now, if it ages well or not, I don’t get mad if I look at a picture because it’s not today. That’s what it was at that time. You might look at an old set and cringe, but you could just cringe because of how you were at that time.
AMER: You’re such a cultural lightning rod; everything you say encapsulates everything that’s going on in the zeitgeist.
CHAPPELLE: Complete accident.
AMER: Complete accident? Come on!
CHAPPELLE: No, I’m just kidding.
How did you know that your show would sound like today’s paper?
AMER: Yeah, I had no idea.
CHAPPELLE: When you filmed those scenes in the detention camp, you didn’t know El Salvador was going to happen.
AMER: Yeah, no.
CHAPPELLE: You just were doing what felt like was urgent to you, and it turns out that the world stage caught up to your writers’ room.
Production: BAUIE+RAD; Production Design: Francisco Vargas
From Variety US