Mo Amer on Palestine, Trump and the return of his Netflix hit: ‘It was gruelling – mentally, spiritually, physically’
Mo Amer on Palestine, Trump and the return of his Netflix hit: ‘It was gruelling – mentally, spiritually, physically’
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The first season of ‘Mo’ became a word-of-mouth hit thanks to its hilarious, nuanced portrayal of life as a Palestinian immigrant in Texas. As the second season arrives on Netflix, amid Donald Trump’s inauguration and a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, its creator sits down with Annabel Nugent to talk about its return.
![[Farah Bsieso and Mo Amer as as Yusra and Mo in season two of ‘Mo’]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/28/14/MO_207_Unit_00366RC.jpg)
It’s a confusing time to be Mohammed Amer, the Palestinian-American comedian known to his friends and fans as Mo. This week, he will release the second season of his groundbreaking Netflix comedy-drama Mo – a semi-autobiographical series about his family’s life as refugees living in Houston, Texas. For Amer, who writes and stars in the show, it’s a huge moment – but any joy he feels is offset by the unimaginable tragedy unfolding back in Palestine.
![[Mo Amer’s stand-up revolves around similar themes as his groundbreaking series ‘Mo’]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/28/14/MoAmer_TheVagabond_7.jpg)
Mo’s first season, released in 2022, saw Amer play a lightly fictionalised version of himself: an immigrant without documentation, trying his best to support his mum and brother by selling fake Gucci bags and Rolexes out of the trunk of his car – something Amer also did in the decades he spent awaiting asylum after emigrating from Kuwait at age nine. Amer was born in Kuwait after his parents had been displaced from Palestine in the 1948 Nakba, in which around 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homeland in the creation of Israel.
![[Mo Amer and Teresa Ruiz behind the scenes on the set of ‘Mo’ season two]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/28/15/MO_EC_FILM_042224_00155.jpg)
Mo became a word-of-mouth hit, earning critical acclaim and a rare 100 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, making this second season one of the year’s most anticipated releases. It is without a doubt a career watermark for Amer – hilarious and full of heart, it is the result of much hard work and love, but also immense pain, written in the wake of Hamas’s brutal massacre of more than 1,400 Israelis on 7 October and Israel’s resulting military campaign in Gaza, killing more than 45,000 people, according to the Gaza health ministry.
![[Mo Amer and Eric Trump in a chance encounter on a flight to Glasgow in 2016]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/28/14/Mo-Amer-Eric-Trump.jpg)
