May Calamawy

May El Calamawy (, , born October 28, 1986) is an Egyptian-Palestinian actress who has worked and resided in the United States since 2015. She is known for her roles in the American television series Ramy as Dena Hassan, and Moon Knight as Layla El-Faouly. Early life Calamawy was born on October 28, 1986, in Bahrain to an Egyptian father who worked as a banker, and a Palestinian-Jordanian mother. She has an older brother. Raised mostly in Bahrain, she also spent six years living between Doha, Qatar, and Houston, Texas, before she was twelve years old. Calamawy speaks English and Arabic. She was inspired to become an actress after watching the 1992 film Death Becomes Her when she was a child. Calamawy completed high school in Bahrain, and at 17 she moved to Boston, Massachusetts, to study industrial design, because her father wanted her to. She then lived in Dubai for five years before moving back to the United States to pursue an acting career.