Ayo Edebiri Is Taking Gen Z Energy Mainstream

By Raven Brunner Twitter @raventbrunner
Published June 21, 2023, 10:31 a.m. ET

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Ayo Edebiri

Ayo Edebiri is great. Ayo Edebiri has always been great. Yet despite turning in stand-out performances in Big Mouth and Dickinson, both of which she was also a writer on, Edebiri didn’t really break through until her role in 2022’s The Bear. And in the short time since? She has cemented her place in cultural history as a Gen Z icon.

Post-The Bear, Edebiri has starred in episodes of Abbott Elementary, I Think You Should Leave, and Black Mirror, all of which premiered this year. And she has many new works to come, like the buzzy comedies Bottoms and Theater Camp, a central voice role in Seth Rogen’s animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, and her Marvel debut in next year’s Thunderbolts.  Really, it’s Ayo’s world and we’re just living in it. 

But what is it about Edebiri that’s so fantastic? Firstly, there’s her immense talent, which we’ve finally been able to bear (no pun intended) witness to over the past few months in particular. She has accumulated enthusiastic and glowing press following her role in the FX series and is taking the front seat for this year’s promotion, snagging big-time profiles in The New Yorker and Rolling Stone. Jeremy Allen White might have been the face of The Bear‘s first season, but Edebiri is clearly the one to watch in Season 2.

While both interviews are meant to tee up her role in the upcoming season of The Bear, the Rolling Stone interview swerves from the regular rhythms of a celebrity profile and reminds us exactly why we love her: Edebiri is somehow both completely relatable, and a total mystery.

Ayo Edebiri on The Bear
Ayo Edebiri in The Bear. Photo: Everett Collection

Edebiri keeps her private life private and doesn’t take the Hollywood schtick too seriously. She doesn’t meet with interviewers with planned speeches and controlled angles, which is a rarity. At the top of her Rolling Stone interview, the journalist documents a snafu where Edebiri assumed they were meeting at a restaurant and not a pottery-making shop and asked to make a detour to Chipotle first. During the conversation, she avoids questions about her personal life and calls herself “boring.” She tells the interviewer, “You’re not going to get [a Jeremy Strong interview],” and explains that she isn’t “tortured by what she does.” A Jeremy Strong interview? Do you mean the same interview that Gen Z playfully roasted on Twitter until the actor’s celebrity friends — Aaron Sorkin and Jessica Chastain — jumped to give him a ringing endorsement? They obviously didn’t get it, but Edebiri does.

The actor also isn’t afraid to poke fun at the entertainment industry, and she avoids talking about herself as if she’s the next best thing since sliced bread. When asked about the trajectory of her career, she offers, “I would be a complete narcissist and insane if I was like, ‘Yeah, the next few months, probably going to be my big move. … Like, that’s not real. That’s not a real human being.”

Edebiri is nothing if not a real human being, and that was on full display when she presented at the 2022 Emmy Awards with her costar White. While introducing the award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series at the ceremony, she said, “Hi – Ayo Edebiri. I’m 5’6 and a half. I am vaccinated. I will do my own stunts … I am available from mid-October to December,” to the camera and audience. When White cut her off, she continued to insert flattering comments as they presented the award, calling the nominated directors “hot.” Edebiri referred to the moment as “basically the world’s biggest audition,” and her bit was met with laughter from the audience. Showing no shame about begging for a job on the biggest stage imaginable? That’s relatable Gen Z behavior right there.

This sort of effacing humor in the wake of self-recognition is the greatest, most admirable quality of Generation Z. That comes through in particular in her roles where she is playing a younger character: Sydney Adamu in The Bear, and Josie in Bottoms. Edebiri approaches both of these roles with a grounded and genuine nature, rather than as a caricature of a younger person. I would rather stab my eyes out than go to dinner with a single character from Bodies, Bodies, Bodies or The Sex Lives of College Girls, or even the real-life influencers of TwentySomethings. But set me up for one of those intimate dinners that Sydney had with Marcus in the first season of The Bear, and I’m sold. And, sure, part of this has to do with the specific roles, but that’s not all of it. There’s undeniably something so real about the roles Edebiri chooses to take, along with what she brings to them. 

For Sydney, it’s the dual feeling of hopefulness and hopelessness that she gets from working with Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (White) as a sous chef, along with the entitlement she feels as a skilled young person who yearns to get back every ounce of energy she’s putting into her new job. And for Josie in the upcoming teen comedy Bottoms, in which she and Sennott star as two high schoolers who create a fight club to win the affection of other girls in their school, it’s the opportunity to prove to her friend that settling for the long haul and taking it slow and steady with her crush will pay off after all. 

Beyond Edebiri’s too-cool-for-school attitude and excellent taste in roles, she is also outright hilarious. She is to Gen Z what Aubrey Plaza was to Millennials – an introduction to a new and fresh type of comedy that everybody can laugh along with, but younger people can feel inspired by. Whereas Plaza flourished in her cheeky interactions with the press, Edebiri shines through her wholesome, yet WTF approach to comedy. Both, however, fully commit to the bit. Following the release of the Bottoms trailer in early June, Twitter began blowing up with recollections of their favorite Edebiri moments: the time she explained to Stephen Colbert why she randomly tells people that she’s the showrunner of The Kominsky Method (“I just started saying that I was because I thought it’d be funny!”); and a SXSW interview where she slipped into an Irish accent while pretending to have played the infamous donkey Jenny in Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin. Both of these bits feel like they were derived from an inside joke that Edebiri is decidedly letting us all in on. It feels special, funny, and inclusive; almost the opposite of Plaza’s hilariously icy delivery.

Can’t get enough of The Bear Season 2? For more insight, analysis, GIFs, and close-ups of Carmy’s arms, check out all of Decider’s episodic recaps:

Through it all, rather than being cruelly dubbed as stilted or annoying, or a try-hard, like many young women in Hollywood, particularly in comedy, Edebiri continues to be appreciated for her laid laid-back charm and ability to pull genuine laughs. She is universally liked, which is seldom said for young women in the industry, and even less so for young Black women. Funny, cool, and talented, Edebiri is breaking barriers and defying the odds — and standing as an inspiration to an entire generation.

Want to see what Edebiri has cooking? The Bear Season 2 premieres June 22, 2023 on FX.