May Calamawy

May Calamawy is an Egyptian-Palestinian actress who gained recognition as Layla El-Faouly / Scarlet Scarab in the Marvel Studios miniseries Moon Knight (2022), the first Egyptian and Arab superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. ¹ Before that she was known as Dena Hassan in the Hulu comedy-drama Ramy (2019–2022). ¹ No source used for this record attests a personal religion for her, so her data record leaves her faith as unknown. ^{1 2}

May El Calamawy was born in Bahrain on 28 October 1986, to an Egyptian father who worked as a banker and a Palestinian-Jordanian mother; she has an older brother. ¹ Raised mostly in Bahrain, she also spent six years living between Doha, Qatar, and Houston, Texas, before she was twelve; she speaks English and Arabic and plays the piano. ¹ She has said she was inspired to become an actress after watching Death Becomes Her (1992) as a child. ¹ She completed high school in Bahrain and at 17 moved to Boston to study industrial design at her father's request; she applied to Emerson College — telling her parents, "If I get in, I'm going" — and earned a BA in theatre studies. ¹

In 2009 she moved to Dubai to help care for her mother, who was sick with stage 4 lung cancer; her own hair began falling out from stress as her mother's fell out from chemotherapy. ¹ After her mother's death, when Calamawy was 25, she tried a more stable job at her father's suggestion, managing a Dubai coffee shop in 2013–2014; her mother's death, the article records, inspired her to focus on acting. ¹ After five years in Dubai she moved back to the United States in 2015 and enrolled at the William Esper Studio in New York City. ¹

She began in short films, credited under her full name, and made her feature debut in Thursday (2006); her first major film role was in Tobe Hooper's Djinn (2013), the first horror film produced in the United Arab Emirates. ¹ In 2017 she had a recurring role in the National Geographic miniseries The Long Road Home and guest roles in The Brave and Madam Secretary, followed in 2018 by a guest role in FBI. ¹ In October 2018 she joined Ramy as a series regular, playing Ramy's sister Dena Hassan, and in 2020 she voiced Ellie Malik in the video game NBA 2K21. ¹ She appeared in the comedy Together Together (2021) with Ed Helms and Patti Harrison. ¹

In Moon Knight (2022) she played Layla El-Faouly, an Egyptian archaeologist and the estranged wife of Marc Spector, who becomes the Scarlet Scarab — the first Egyptian and first Arab superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe; the character later made her comics debut in 2023. ¹ She voiced a guest role in Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (2023). ¹ In 2025 she played five different characters in Duke Johnson's thriller The Actor, and in 2026 she portrayed Detective Dalia Zaki in Lee Cronin's The Mummy. ¹

Calamawy was diagnosed with the autoimmune disease alopecia areata at 22, and her alopecia was incorporated into Dena Hassan's storyline in the second season of Ramy. ¹ In May 2023 she joined the cast of Ridley Scott's Gladiator II in what was announced as an important role; the article records that her scenes were cut and she appeared only in an uncredited, non-speaking background role. ¹ In October 2023 she signed the Artists4Ceasefire open letter calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip during the Gaza war. ¹ As of 2026 she lives in London. ¹

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