The Undeniable and Irresistible Rise of Ayo Edebiri

Everyone loves Ayo Edebiri. The actress, writer, and comedian has exploded in popularity in the space of only two years. She’s everywhere, and wherever she goes, she receives applause and awards. For her role as chef Sydney Adamu in FX’s The Bear, she has won an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and a SAG Award. If that wasn’t enough, she’s also a prolific voice actor in films and series like Big Mouth and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Her writing credits include Dickinson and What We Do in the Shadows. She’s guest-hosted SNL, headlined an indie box office hit or two, and had a film premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. James L. Brooks cast her in his first film in over 14 years. A24 is knocking on her door. Her latest big-screen project, Pixar’s Inside Out 2, where she voices Envy, is the highest-grossing film of 2024 so far. In the third season of The Bear, she makes her directorial debut. And through it all, she’s got everyone rooting for her.

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It’s remarkable how ubiquitous Edebiri has become in such a short amount of time. It seems as though she evolved into an undeniable figure in the entertainment world in only a couple of years. We’re used to star-making narratives, those old rags-to-riches tales where icons are seemingly plucked from obscurity and shoved into the spotlight. Hollywood is built on those fairy tales, from Lana Turner drinking a milkshake at the drugstore to Charlize Theron yelling in the bank. Where Edebiri’s story differs is in how she defined herself as a multi-pronged talent from the get-go, and how she’s maintained that even when it could have benefitted her to streamline her image.

Edebiri is only 28, but her work speaks for itself. Before The Bear, she was in what she described to Vanity Fair as ‘hard, hard comedy land.’ That meant stand-up gigs, writing for shows like Big Mouth, and small supporting roles in whatever came her way. While The Bear is ostensibly marketed as a comedy, any fan will tell you it’s far more tangled in its genre conventions. As the most anxiety-inducing series on TV, its head-first dive into the world of kitchens and culinary tensions shares more DNA with the workplace drama than the sitcom.

As Sydney, the ambitious new hire to a struggling sandwich shop run by Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), Edebiri is key to the series’ success. Sydney is itching to push boundaries and be a celebrated chef, but she’s also a lone Black woman in an industry dominated by screaming white dudes who think a cleaver is a suitable substitute for a d*ck. She’s up for the challenge but she also stumbles, and Edebiri makes Sydney’s fragility and tenacity so easy to empathize with. The relationship she develops with Carmy is one of the best portrayals of a platonic love between a man and a woman I’ve seen on TV in years. some fans clamour for them to pair up but their friction is more like that of siblings with intense professional devotion to their chosen craft. It’s simultaneously sturdy yet balancing atop troubled foundations. You know that there’s very little difference between just another kitchen blow-up and the fight that could end it all. Edebiri has won practically every award available for her work as Syndey and she deserves it all.

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At her heart, Edebiri is a prime millennial success, one that is candid and chaotic but also filled to the brim with ambition. She can do it all but also excels in the specifics. There’s a reason she’s the go-to woman for spiky awkwardness, for that kind of geek girl who is halfway between wallflower and chaos gremlin. One wonders why she wasn’t always voicing Missy on Big Mouth given that the character seemed made just for her. That she has her fingers in so many pies is partly what makes her both so ubiquitous but also relatable. What tired millennial here doesn’t have to juggle a ton of side-gigs? She makes it seem cool but not effortless. Her talent is evident but so is the hustle.

With her millennial flair has come a savvy understanding of how to navigate modern celebrity. She’s funny and knows that being in her current position is totally ridiculous, and she’s not above self-deprecation or moments of perennially online silliness. Her Letterboxd reviews embody the flippant yet enthusiastic rhetoric of a generation who made movies their life (‘I am simply too seated.’) She made a joke about being Irish and everyone ran with it, including the entire population of the Republic of Ireland. It’s much harder to embrace your meme status than Edebiri makes it look.

There are moments where her word-vomit charm has caught up with her. Her jokes about Jennifer Lopez on the podcast Scam Goddess came to the forefront when she was paired up with the singer on SNL. Candour can be inconvenient and expensive, as Tina Fey told the Las Culturistas boys. While Edebiri apologized and the matter was dealt with, it only made her seem more intriguing and familiar to us all. It was a total non-controversy but one that showed how fine the line is between minor celebrity honesty and mega-star polish. What’s more millennial than your celeb smack-talk catching up with you?

I dearly hope that the inevitable backlash that befalls any quickly famous person bypasses Ayo Edebiri. How many multi-talented cool Black queer nerd girls do we get? How often do we get to see someone this talented and this effervescent succeed on multiple platforms and be so joyous about it in the process? It’s rare that it feels like everyone is rooting for one celebrity without any irony or skepticism, but Edebiri’s success is a testament to that phenomenon. Of course, she’s good enough that she doesn’t need any of our cheerleading to make it happen. Her future is as bright as she is.

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