Amer was born in Kuwait after his parents had been displaced from Palestine in the Nakba , in which around , Palestinians were expelled from their homeland in the creation of Israel.
It was gruelling β mentally, spiritually, physically. Early on, it was raised whether the series should reflect these new horrors, before Amer decided against it.
They share an affable, Texan charm so effusive you can feel it through the screen, like an arm slung over your shoulder. Both men wear a trucker cap and smoke in the same way β sharp inhales of breath and long exhales, slow as his Houston drawl. You cry, you laugh. That said, for Amer, making season two of Mo felt like a lot more crying. New subscribers only. Plan auto-renews until cancelled.
Logistically, too, the second series posed issues. The majority of the finale, which is set in Palestine, had to be filmed in Malta; a splinter crew was dispatched to Israel and the West Bank to capture the driving sequences, exteriors, and cutaways. How meta, I suggest, that a show about being Palestinian and not being able to return home is unable to be filmed in Palestine. After wrapping on season two, Amer and his family flew to Jordan.
I wanted to experience that, for him to know where he comes from and I had no ability to do that. It was really sad to be that close and yet so far. Even in its second outing, Mo is a show that continues to feel insistently fresh, no doubt partly because it is the first-ever Palestinian-led TV show in America. Amer, however, finds that so-called burden of representation to be anything but.
