Ayo Edebiri has made Emmy history by becoming the youngest Black woman to receive three Emmy acting nominations. The 29-year-old Nigerian American is also the first Black woman to be nominated for acting and directing in the comedy categories in the same year, according to Variety.
Edebiri earned the nominations for her work on the hit comedy-drama TV series, The Bear. She earned a nomination in the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series category for her role as Sydney Adamu in season three of The Bear before grabbing her first-ever directing nomination for the episode “Napkins,” which also marked her directorial debut.
Edebiri is now only the second Black woman to be nominated for comedy directing after Millicent Shelton for “30 Rock” in 2009.
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In all, Edebiri’s The Bear has a total of 49 Emmy nominations across three seasons. For the first two seasons, it has won 21 Emmys.
Born in Boston in 1995 to a Barbadian mother and a Nigerian father, who immigrated to the United States, Edebiri was raised in a Pentecostal home. She took to comedy at an early age when she was in middle school.
This would later influence her study choice in the university. After graduating from Boston Latin School in 2013, she went to New York University to continue her education with a focus on teaching. However, her growing interest in comedy compelled her to transition to Dramatic Writing.
Subsequently, her passion for stand-up comedy was ignited after an internship at Upright Citizens Brigade in her junior year. Her breakthrough came in the year 2000 as a writer and voice actress for the animated comedy series “Big Mouth.” In 2014, she acted in an episode of the series Defectives.
However, the Dorchester native started her career as a stand-up comedian and performed a stand-up set on Comedy Central’s Up Next. Her digital series Ayo and Rachel Are Single, which she co-wrote and co-starred with fellow comedian Rachel Sennott, began airing on the network in May 2020, according to Premium Times Nigeria.
She made a debut movie appearance in the 2020 comedy-drama Shithouse in an uncredited role before landing a role in the movie “The Bear” as Sydney Adamu in 2022. The movie would win her an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.
She became the third Black woman to win her category for her performance in The Bear. Past Black winners include Jackee Harry in 1987 and Sheryl Lee Ralph in 2022.
Edebiri recently won her first Golden Globe for the same role.
In addition to acting, Edebiri has written for shows like “Dickinson,” “What We Do in the Shadows,” and “Craig of the Creek. What is more, the co-host of the popular podcast “Iconography” has also provided voice work for the Netflix animated series “Big Mouth,” the Oscar-nominated “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem.” She also appeared in the hit ABC sitcom “Abbott Elementary,” the lesbian fight club movie “Bottoms” and “Theater Camp”.
The 77th Emmy Awards will air September 14.
