On June 17th, outside a coffee shop in Rutherford, New Jersey, I had the privilege of sitting down with the stand-up comedian and actor, Steve Way. Steve Way co-starred in the Hulu TV series Ramy. Almost everyone who entered the coffee shop seemed to know or at least be familiar with Stevie; he got many smiles and greetings. As he sipped his iced chocolate, he was kind enough to answer some of my questions.
“I’ve been doing stand-up for almost thirteen years. My best friend, Ramy Youssef” (star of the television series Ramy) “, after we graduated high school, put on a comedy show in our hometown and about a month before he said “Steve, you should write a stand up show,”. So I wrote it and he read it and he said “Great, you’re going to perform it at the show,” So I didn’t really have a choice. But I’m glad. Because it was the push I needed to get up onstage and showcase this talent that I never really knew I had. I always enjoyed comedy and telling jokes. I would use comedy as a coping mechanism for my disability and I’ve been public speaking since I was nine so I pretty much combined the two and out came stand-up. And now I’m prepping to do my first hour special for HBO.”
Ramy ran for three seasons on Hulu, starting in 2019. Steve Way plays Steve, Ramy’s best friend on the show. “I like to think that I play an exaggerated version of myself. Ramy, the real life Ramy, and I have known each other for twenty-two years and we’ve been working together creatively since we were fourteen so over half our lives. We know each other so well so whenever we are acting together a lot of our lines are not on the script. We improvise a lot of them and I think it really shows. I like to think I’m the only person that makes Ramy break character
"The reception has been beyond anything what I expected. The disabled community has loved what I’ve done and I think mostly because not only is it one of the first times they see someone who looks like them on TV but it’s done in a way that’s not pandering and it’s not punching down, it’s not inauthentic. It’s real. It’s accurate. I’m telling my story. I’m not telling anyone else’s story because I can’t. It would be very disingenuous of me to try to tell someone else’s story. So Ramy knows me well enough and trusts me well enough, to tell my story the way I want to tell it and I think it really shows. The show Ramy has received countless awards and recognitions for accurate disability representation and I feel so honored and special and humbled that I had a big part in it”
Even though Ramy created the part of Steve with Steve Way in mind, Steve still had to audition for the part. “So Ramy wrote my part for his show and he showed he showed it to the producers, and the first thing they said was ‘Who’s going to play Steve?’ And Ramy said ‘Steve is going to play Steve’ And they said ‘Well, we are not so sure about that’ So on top of all the things I had to do in stand-up, I still had to audition for my own role. Thankfully I got it"
Steve’s favorite Ramy episode to film was the Atlantic City episode in Season 2. “I won’t give any spoilers but I’m honestly really proud of that episode because Ramy and I were really able to showcase something that was never on TV before. It made some people uncomfortable but the disabled community loved it and I had a lot of people with the same problem that I had reach out to me and thank me and tell me it basically made them comfortable enough to speak up about it and to try to get help for their problem. That’s basically the most rewarding feeling you can ever get: knowing you helped people and made them change their lives for the better. And I always felt if I did that for one person I had done my job. But to do that for an entire community is something I never fathomed”
Steve has lived his whole life with muscular dystrophy. “Muscular dystrophy is a degenerative neuromuscular disorder that basically affects the proteins in the muscles and prevents them from fully developing. With my specific case, I have more of a collagen disorder so that means my muscles and my skin are affected. So if I get a cut, it’ll take a really long time to heal. I was born with it, I was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy when I was four, I was diagnosed with Ullrich Congenital Muscular Dystrophy when I was 25. I’ve been using a wheelchair since I was ten. I don’t know how much worse it’ll get, but I’m just chilling right now.”
Steve is matter-of-fact when it comes to his illness. “I mean, I never thought I would live past eighteen. I never thought I would graduate high school, let alone college, and have a stand-up and acting career. When I stopped walking, I knew I would never walk again. I knew I would never get that strength back. I guess early on I learned what battles to fight and which battles I couldn’t win and I guess that helped me out a lot, especially when figuring out what I wanted to do. But again, I never thought I would live long. So, when I kept living I was just like f*** now I got to figure my life out. I was about to graduate high school. I was like “Oh my God, I’m alive. Now I got to figure out college” Then I was like, “Oh well, I’m not going to survive college” Then, I graduate college. “Oh my God, I’m alive. Now I got to get a job” So it taught me to be resourceful and it taught me how to adapt and just kind of figure out my life. I don’t know how I’m doing, but I got to be doing something right”
When I asked what Steve wished people knew about him, he had an interesting answer. “That I am as much of a douchebag as everybody else. Just because I’m disabled doesn’t mean I can’t be a dick to people (when it’s deserved of course). But don’t think that me going outside and grabbing a coffee is a miracle. I’m just living my life. I’m doing what I want and having fun. Life is short so why would I just stay in my room all day? Why would I not want to see people and get fresh air? You know, again, life is short so I get what I want.”
Although Steve uses a wheelchair and doesn’t have use of his hands and that does not look like it will change any time in the foreseeable future, every four months a person from the government comes to his house to make sure Steve is still disabled. I asked why that is. “Because our country sucks. Our government sucks. There’s a big myth that is perpetuated that the majority of people on government assistance are scamming the program and that they are faking. So because of that, they put all these rules in place that basically mean I have to prove I’m still disabled and that I’m ‘worthy’ of receiving government assistance. And I’m just like, why can’t we Facetime? Why can’t we just videochat? You know, I’m not getting better anytime soon so I’ll save you the trip. But I guess that’s not how it works.”
Steve has lived with muscular dystrophy all his life but it wasn’t until he was twenty-five that he was told what kind of muscular dystrophy he had. Between the ages of fourteen and twenty-five, he lived with a large amount of uncertainty. “It was hard, because that was the age [14] that I almost died so I felt like I was going to miss out on having my true identity. For eleven years, my doctors told me that if I got sick I wouldn’t survive it. So I lived my life believing that my death was always around the corner and that I was never going to get that last missing piece to my identity. It never affected my life in a logistical sense but I always felt a part of me was missing. So when I turned twenty-five, I finally got that piece of the puzzle. I finally found out what I had. It was also around the same time the doctors told me that I’m healthy and that I’m going to live a long time. And I was like ‘F***, like I’m not ready for this. You know, you’ve been telling me for the last decade that I’m going to die so I’m like okay why should I do anything?' So I now I got to figure out my entire life at twenty-five. I mean, I handled it. But it was still overwhelming”
When I asked Steve if he always wanted to be an actor, he replied “No, I wanted to be an astronomer. I loved space. When I was a child, my parents showed me Star Trek and it was the first time I saw a disabled character on TV and my parents explained to me that even though he is disabled he is still important. So that made me like, ‘Oh I can be important too’. And then my parents got me a telescope so I remembered being out in my backyard, looking up at the planets, the moon, stars, whatever and I just loved space. It gave me a feeling that our possibilities are endless. We can do whatever we want. You know it sounds cheesy but we can reach for the stars. And I think understanding that at a really young age made me who I am today”
What is on the horizon for Steve Way? “A lot of sleepless nights. A lot of anxiety. A lot of preparation. A lot of writing and stage time and changes” One thing is for sure (and this might be cheesy as well): Steve’s future is as bright as the stars in the sky.
Comentários