As someone who enjoys pop culture and the media, I try to keep up to date the best I can with new celebrities or projects. Though I do have a huge love from older media as well, like cheesy 80s horror or 90s Rom-coms, My TikTok or Instagram feeds will help me as well; with every passing month I feel as if there’s a new 20 something, average-looking man that everyone is obsessing over. Don’t get me wrong, I too have fallen under the spell of the Elordi’s and Chalamet’s of the industry, and definitely credit them to be talented as well. What excites me more though is when we can get a new and ambitious cool girl in the mix. To name-drop, I’ll give you a star who’s risen to fame within the past two years, the refreshing and magnetic: Ms. Ayo Edebiri, who I could definitely say grabbed my gaze since first seeing her.
Ayo Edebiri was born and raised in Boston; as an only child of immigrant parents, Edebriri had an inherent pressure to be successful, which she briefly explains in her monologue for Saturday Night Live which she hosted this past February. She had also shared some transparency with the audience about how though many of her cousins are doctors or successful lawyers–she chose the path of acting.
Immediately you could feel compassion as well as respect for Edebiri. Her honesty and cadence is why so many are attracted to her.
I did not know about Ayo Edebiri until 2022 when Hulu’s The Bear premiered. Alongside Shameless actor Jeremy Allen White, who plays the show’s protagonist Carmy Berzatto, Edebiri plays the young and hopeful Sydney Adamu. Sydney is one of the main characters of the show–an accomplished chef who early on joins Carmy to work on the flawed restaurant that he had inherited from his brother. Without spoiling much, the relationship between not only Sydney and Carmy, but Sydney and the audience grows throughout the show’s first and second season. As the show progresses, so do the audience’s opinions and feelings of the characters involved; like in season two, we see a more personal side of Sydney and a better sense of her home life. I’d say that’s one of the (many) things that I love about The Bear–its ability to personalize the characters and build a connection with the audience. Already, Ayo Edebiri has won both a Golden Globe award as well as a Primetime Emmy for her character, Sydney. The show as well as the cast, won 10 out of their 13 Emmy nominations in this past year of 2023.
After falling in fascination with Sydney Adamu from the beginning, I knew that I had to keep an eye out for Edebiri. It wouldn’t be until June 2023 when a trailer for an upcoming movie titled Bottoms would be posted on my feed, which starred (you guessed it) the Queen herself. Though it is hard to determine how objectively “good” a movie will be with just the trailer to decide, I thought that the film looked fun regardless. The entire vibe felt farcical and unserious– and from what I saw briefly, I got the impression right away that Edebiri’s character possessed the perfect amount of awkwardness to be comical. Along her side as one of the two main characters would be Rachel Sennott, previously adored in Shiva Baby (2020) and Bodies, Bodies, Bodies (2022). The trailer for Bottoms had come out a few weeks before the second season of The Bear was released, which completely reignited my admiration for Ayo. Once the new season of The Bear came out, it took my dad and I roughly two days to finish. I’d argue that it was better than the first season. Luckily over the years I have made it a rule to see movies with friends that share my taste, so you know once August rolled around the girls and I were sat for Bottoms opening weekend. The movie was hilarious and just fun, which is something that we need every once in a while. It can be tiring to constantly watch a film that will have you stressed, depressed, or looking for video essays afterward with the title “____: Explained.” Bottoms gave me just what I needed and had a stacked line up of performances. It was campy in all the right (and not so right) ways, and I couldn’t stop laughing. Edebiri’s character Josie felt so authentic to herself, or at least to how she is seen in my eyes. She reminds me of that one cool babysitter you had when you were young; like someone who you knew would let you break some rules while still caring for you. Whereas the internet would put it, she has also been known as ‘The People’s Princess.’ There aren’t many things that I love more than when an actor seems as if they aren’t acting at all, and rather appear as if they are just being recorded without knowing.
Acting aside, Edebiri has so much to offer her friends, coworkers, and the industry of media as a whole. Edebiri is as qualified off screen as she is on. Edebiri got her foot in the door with small projects like Comedy Central in the early 2010s. It was around that time when she began doing stand-up comedy. Additionally, she has worked as a television writer, joining the writing cast for Big Mouth: season 4 as well as work on other projects, and has even dabbled in voice acting. I already feel like she has captivated such a specific audience through her quirkiness and transparency. My favorite ongoing joke about her currently is her Irish background… if you know, you know. Not only is her humor gratifying, but her Letterboxd Top Four is above all (which if you don’t know is a platform where you can log and review movies). If you were wondering, her top four favorite movies are: The Good The Bad The Ugly, Notting Hill, Phantom Thread, and Babe–we love a queen with taste.
In between project breaks, you can picture me waiting impatiently for Edebiri to announce a new movie or the next show she will be in, or even just waiting for her to make a new Instagram post.