May Calamawy

May El Calamawy^[1][8][9] was born in Bahrain on October 28, 1986,^[8][3][10] to an Egyptian father who worked as a banker^[8] and a Palestinian-Jordanian mother.^[8][3] She has an older brother.^[11] Raised mostly in Bahrain, she also spent six years living between Doha, Qatar, and Houston, Texas, before she was twelve years old.^[8][5][3] Calamawy speaks English and Arabic^[8] and also plays the piano.^[12]

Calamawy has stated that she was inspired to become an actress after watching the film Death Becomes Her (1992) when she was a child.^[3][13] She completed high school in Bahrain,^[8] and at 17 she moved to Boston, Massachusetts, to study industrial design^[12] at her father's request,^[14] because he wanted her to study something other than acting.^[8] At first, her parents did not feel comfortable about sending her to the United States to study acting, because they wanted a degree that was more specialized and would guarantee a career.^[12] She applied to Emerson College and told her parents, "If I get in, I'm going."^[8] She was accepted and earned a B.A. in theatre studies.^[5] Calamawy's mother started accepting the idea of her acting career after college and became her main champion.^[14]

She moved to Dubai in 2009^[8] to help care for her mother,^[14][11] who was sick with stage 4 lung cancer.^[14][15] Her hair started falling out due to stress at the same time as her mother's hair fell out due to chemotherapy.^[5] Following her mother's death when Calamawy was 25,^[15] her father suggested her to focus on a more stable job, which she tried for two years.^[14] From 2013 to 2014, she was the manager of the coffee shop The Magazine Shop in Dubai.^[16][17] Her mother's death inspired her to focus on acting.^[15] After living in Dubai for five years, she moved back to the United States in 2015 to pursue an acting career and enrolled at the William Esper Studio in New York City.^[18][11][5]

Calamawy started her career acting in short films and used to be credited with her full name, May El Calamawy.^[8][1] She later shortened her stage name to May Calamawy.^[19] After attending college, she participated in the New York Arab American Comedy Festival.^[8]

In 2006, she made her feature film debut in Thursday, directed by Thadd Williams.^[20] From 2009 to 2014, she was dividing her time between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, acting in shorts and a TV pilot.^[8] Her first major film role was in Tobe Hooper's 2013 supernatural horror film Djinn, the first horror film to be produced in the United Arab Emirates.^[8]

In 2017, she had a recurring role in the National Geographic miniseries The Long Road Home, and guest-starring roles in The Brave and Madam Secretary.^[19] The following year, she guest-starred in the CBS crime drama television series FBI.^[19] In October 2018, it was announced that she would have a recurring role in the Hulu comedy-drama series Ramy, playing Ramy's sister, Dena Hassan.^[19] In 2020, she voiced Ellie Malik in the video game NBA 2K21.^[21] In 2021, she appeared in the comedy film Together Together, with Ed Helms and Patti Harrison.^[22]

In 2022, Calamawy starred in the Disney+ miniseries Moon Knight, based on the Marvel Comics featuring the character of the same name,^[22][23] where she portrayed Layla El-Faouly, an Egyptian archeologist and estranged wife of Marc Spector (portrayed by Oscar Isaac),^[24] who later becomes the Scarlet Scarab, the first Egyptian and first Arab superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.^[25][26] Her character made her comic debut in September 2023 as the new Scarlet Scarab on Moon Knight Vol. 9 #25.^[27]

In July 2022, she joined the voice cast of the animated television series Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur as a guest star. The show premiered on Disney Channel and Disney+ in 2023.^[28] In May 2023,^[29] Calamawy joined the cast of Ridley Scott's Gladiator II and it was originally announced that she would play an important character,^[30] but her scenes were cut and she only appeared in an uncredited non-speaking background role as a companion of Denzel Washington's character in a few scenes.^[31][32]

In 2025, Calamawy played five different characters in Duke Johnson's thriller The Actor.^[33][34] In August 2025, she joined the cast of the upcoming Netflix series Mercenary: An Extraction Series, as executive Priscilla Ragab.^[35]

In 2026, she portrayed Detective Dalia Zaki in Lee Cronin's supernatural horror film The Mummy.^[36][37]

In 2015, Calamawy moved to the United States where she lived until the 2020s.^[11][3] As of 2026, she lives in London, England.^[38]

She was diagnosed with the autoimmune disease alopecia areata at the age of 22.^[5] Her alopecia was incorporated into the storyline of her character Dena Hassan in Ramy during the show's second season.^[5][11]

In October 2023, she signed an open letter for the Artists4Ceasefire campaign calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip during the Gaza war.^[39]