When May Calamawy was approached to audition for Layla, the female lead on Marvel and Disney’s Moon Knight, she wasn’t anticipating a reachout through Instagram, but that’s exactly what happened. “I told my manager, and she said, wow, Instagram?” May said with a laugh. As it turns out the message was legit, and before long, May was auditioning for the part with Oscar Isaac. She was chosen for the role just days later.
While May has received some prior US attention with the recurring role of Dena on Ramy, she was well aware of the significance of scoring a lead role on a Marvel project. Initially she felt “really intimidated” by the prospect of working on such a big production and across from Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke, two very established stars who, as May put it, “don’t have to do anything unless they really want to do it.” Early on in filming she opened up to Isaac about her nervousness and found in him a willing and generous collaborator who said he’d be there for anything she needed.
I asked May about what it was like to be on a show that features talking hippos and alligators along with a main character with multiple personalities. As it turns out, she did have some concerns that the more fantastical elements of the show could take away from the serious issues in the show—namely those of mental illness and PTSD. She asked producer and director Mohamed Diab, “Is this going to work?” His reply was: “I don’t know.”
Most Marvel fans would probably consider Wanda/Vision to be the biggest outlier when it comes to Marvel productions, but, as I said to May, Moon Knight is even farther “out there” than Wanda/Vision. For May, the fact that Moon Knight was a “stand alone” held great appeal to her. “We could do anything and avoid being formulaic in any way at all,” May shared. “It felt like we were working on an indie version of a Marvel project. There was so much creative freedom to try things on this show. We weren’t doing things to try to please people.”
When I commented that Moon Knight is a superhero show that doesn’t have a lot of superhero in it (by which I mean “the suit” – as they call it in the series – doesn’t come out that often) May replied that she liked that about the show. She also pointed out, “This is an introduction to Moon Knight. I’m excited to see if he ends up in movies or in other productions moving forward. Moon Knight has its own vibe, which means we could go anywhere.”
During our chat, I revealed to May that I was a full-on Moon Knight nerd as a kid, that I had a complete collection of Moon Knight comics, and that I currently have a bust of Moon Knight sitting atop my desk. She laughed very sweetly and asked me what I thought of the production. The reality is, I never expected that this character—due to his relatively marginal nature in the Marvel world—would ever get a shot. So even though the series took a significant departure from the Batman-esque character of the comics, I was just happy the series was being made. I admitted that some of the more fantastical elements and leaning into Egyptian mythology gave me pause initially, but by the end of episode four, when Marc Spector (one of Moon Knight’s alter egos) wakes up in an asylum, I was absolutely along for the ride. May said that this “twist” was a shock for her as well, but that she was “so glad to see how people responded to it.”
May felt “really lucky” to have ended up with a part for an actress that had so much agency and power. “I wasn’t a love interest, or someone there to be saved,” she said. “I may have been part of Marc’s story, but I had my own arc as well. I get to be heroic and funny, and I even get to drive part of the story.” I told May that during the finale I said to my wife, “This episode is really being carried by Layla (May).” May replied, “I didn’t realize it at the time, because so many scenes are shot out of sequence. It was only when I watched it that I realized, oh, this is a lot of me,” she laughed.
In the final episode, Layla becomes a superhero herself—something May didn’t know was going to happen when she originally signed onto the show. She actually found out from the costume designer who fitted her for her superhero outfit. When May asked the designer about the suit, the reply she received was somewhat sheepish. “I’m not sure if I’m the person who’s supposed to tell you,” the costume designer said. So, May found out about her character’s transformation rather indirectly. May was very excited about the new development, though. “You watch these movies,” she began, “and you see people playing superheroes, and they look like they are having so much fun.” As enthusiastic as May was about getting to play Layla, she had told some friends, “I guess I’m not going to be a superhero, but I want the part, and this is better than nothing.” Little did she know she was going to get to be a superhero after all.
May did share that playing a superhero is not all glamor. “The suit is incredibly uncomfortable and we were filming the fight scene at 4AM, and it’s cold, but when you see it all put together, I’m really proud of it. I did as many stunts as they would let me, it was such fun.” I then brought up to May that Layla is the first major Marvel character of Arab descent and that Moon Knight was one of the first Jewish superheroes. But even so, the show wasn’t heavy-handed or overly obvious about presenting those aspects of the characters. “That was the best way to do it, right?” May said. “It just is. They just are.”
May also commented on how significant it was to so many people that her character has curly hair, “like most Arab women,” and the fact that her character didn’t straighten her hair resonated with many who watched the show and identified with her Egyptian character. May said, “I felt seen. So many of us love Hollywood films and shows, but we aren’t always represented, and that can make you feel like this isn’t for you. That there isn’t a place for people who look like you in that world. You can feel erased. It’s a step forward.”
There’s a very sweet moment near the end of the Moon Knight finale when a little girl turns to Layla in her superhero suit and asks her a question: “Are you a superhero?” To which Layla simply responds, “Yes.” It felt like a moment of great importance to me as a viewer of the show, and May agreed, although she did worry about how that moment would play. “I wondered if it was going to be too on the nose. But when I watched it, it was really moving. Especially that it was a little girl asking.”
May couldn’t share where Moon Knight will go from here. At this point, she “hasn’t been told anything, but we had so much fun, if they call us up, we will be there.” Something tells me that with the positive, cult-like response this off-kilter Marvel product has received, we’ll be seeing Oscar, Ethan, and May again before too long.
