The Emmy marks Ayo Edebiri’s latest honor, as she portrays sous chef Sydney Adamu on the FX comedy-drama starring Jeremy Allen White. Edebiri received a Golden Globe Award for her performance last week and a Critics’ Choice Award on January 14.
Who Is Ayo Edebiri?
Ayo Edebiri is most recognized for her TV performance as sous chef Sydney Adamu on the FX series The Bear, which earned her a 2024 Golden Globe Award and Primetime Emmy Award. Edebiri formerly worked as a stand-up comedian and writer for TV shows such as Dickinson (Apple TV+) and Big Mouth (Netflix). Edebiri’s first major acting role was as Missy’s voice. She recently starred in the 2023 adolescent comedy film Bottoms with her collegiate buddy and comic colleague, Rachel Sennott.
Early Life and Education
Ayo Edebiri was born on October 3, 1995, in Boston and raised in the city’s Dorchester area. Her parents are both immigrants to the United States, with her father hailing from Nigeria and her mother from Barbados.
Ayo, an only kid, was heavily affected by religion throughout his childhood. She attended a Pentecostal church with her family at least twice a week and told The New Yorker in June 2023 that the Bible inspired her passion in storytelling. She routinely wrote stories in her journal and, by the time she was 8 or 9 years old, had completed a fantasy novel about an orphan girl.
Her father introduced her to Western films like A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966), starring Clint Eastwood, which sparked her interest in visual storytelling. But in terms of her future, “I didn’t really think of acting as a job that I could do. I wanted a real job that would make me money,” she said. Still, she fulfilled her creative instincts by performing improv during middle and high school.
Edebiri attended mostly white schools and finished high school at Boston Latin School, which was founded in 1635 and is today the oldest public school in the US. Her parents urged her to study to be a teacher, so she enrolled at New York University. After two years, she started to contemplate her future. She changed her degree to dramatic writing and started performing stand-up comedy with the support of her friend Rachel Sennott. By the time Edebiri graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2017, she was set on pursuing a comedy career.
Early Comedy and TV Writing Career
After graduation, Edebiri stayed in New York City and continued to perform stand-up performances. She signed up for open mics and other events in Manhattan and Brooklyn, often performing numerous times in the same day.
In 2019, Edebiri told Forbes that she gave herself two years until her undergraduate teaching degree expired to pursue a career in comedy or return to school for a master’s degree. “I gave myself a little challenge and it turned out okay,” she said, as that same year she had a set featured on Comedy Central’s Up Next series.
Edebiri began to garner attention for her writing abilities after receiving notoriety for her stand-up performance. She relocated to Los Angeles and wrote for TV dramas like Sunnyside (NBC), What We Do in the Shadows (FX), and Dickinson (Apple TV+), starring Hailee Steinfeld as a fictitious Emily Dickinson.
Edebiri’s comedic sets attracted comic Nick Kroll, co-creator of the Netflix animated series Big Mouth, an adult coming-of-age comedy about teenagers experiencing adolescence. “She was, like, 24, and already so in control of her voice,” Kroll told The New Yorker. He encouraged Edebiri to interview for a spot in the show’s writing room. Edebiri accepted the position and began writing for the show’s fifth season when a chance for a larger part arose.
TV Shows
Edebiri made her acting debut in the fourth season of Big Mouth in 2020, portraying the character Missy. She took over the role from comedian Jenny Slate, who declared in June 2020 that she would no longer play Missy because the character was mixed but she is white. “Black characters on an animated show should be played by Black people,” Slate remarked on Instagram. The show’s makers also apologized for the initial casting decision.
According to show co-creator Andrew Goldberg, Edebiri was picked for the role after auditioning and receiving many callbacks from the production team. She brought “so much of herself” to the character and associated with it. “I was definitely a very uncomfortable child, so I think the show speaks to that and a lot of those feelings, which still resonate with me as an adult,” Edebiri remarked at the time. The New Yorker reported that the casting decision resulted in harassment of the performer and her parents, prompting Edebiri to erase family information from the internet.
Despite this, she has played Missy for 32 episodes and is slated to resume the role for Big Mouth’s eighth and final season in 2024. The release date has not been revealed.
Following the popularity of Big Mouth, Edebiri began making regular appearances on camera. In 2020, she co-starred with Rachel Sennott in the Comedy Central sketch miniseries “Ayo and Rachel are Single,” portraying themselves as imaginary characters. In 2021, she played Hattie in six episodes of Dickinson and appeared in the anthology series The Premise (2021) and the HBO chat show Pause with Sam Jay (2022). Edebiri was clearly on the rise and, by this point, was eyeing the job that would propel her to stardom.
Emmy and Golden Globe for The Bear
In 2021, Edebiri received an audition letter for The Bear, a new comedy-drama series about a genius chef (played by Jeremy Allen White) who returns to Chicago to take over his late brother’s failing sandwich restaurant. Series creator Christopher Storer, who had attended lunch with Edebiri in 2019 and vowed to collaborate someday, eventually offered her the role of aspiring sous chef Sydney Adamu.
Edebiri prepared by drawing on her previous experience working in New York City restaurants during the early stages of her comedic career. She trained with White at the Institute of Culinary Education in Pasadena, California, and has worked in Michelin-star restaurants, as reported by People. “It has to seem real. She told The New York Times, “If we’re practicing, it might as well taste real.”
Critics praised the writing and acting in The Bear, making it an immediate smash. The sitcom won Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy at the 2024 Golden Globes and was nominated for 13 Emmys, including Outstanding Comedy Series. Edebiri has garnered numerous honors, including Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Musical or Comedy TV Series at the Globes. She won Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series at the 75th Emmy Awards, which were delayed from 2023 due to writer and actor strikes.
Edebiri appears in several prominent TV shows in 2023, including the Netflix anthology series Black Mirror, the Max animated comedy Clone High, and the ABC sitcom Abbott Elementary.
Movies: Bottoms, Ninja Turtles, and Upcoming Projects
In November 2023, Deadline reported that Edebiri will star in the 2024 horror picture Opus, distributed by A24. She has an unnamed part in the next Marvel Studios film Thunderbolts, set for July 2025 release.
Personal Life
Edebiri has given little details regarding her personal life and dating past. In a September 2023 interview with Refinery29, she expressed her queer identity.
The actor is more candid about her pet, Gromit, a rescued chihuahua mix.In August 2023, she told People that she often brings her puppy to writers’ rooms and production scenes. “I’ve been lucky enough to be on sets where they know Gromit, and they love Gromit, like The Bear,” she said, adding the pooch often hangs out with showrunner Christopher Storer.
