“I loved to argue when I was a child and a young man; I always found that to be my happy place,” Karim Rahma says with a slightly sly smile over Zoom. “I can sit in the middle of an argument and have a conversation about something I don’t care about for hours simply because it’s fun.”
This is what Rahma has been doing for the past three years as creator and host of the popular series Take the subwayin which ordinary people — and increasingly well-known figures — share their most controversial opinions on everything from social issues to Botox and fillers during a train ride with a Brooklyn resident, who holds a New York City subway card attached to a small microphone up to their mouth. Before chatting with THR Late Friday afternoon, he filmed 15 episodes from earlier in the day with guests who ranged from an indie musician, a podcaster, a climate activist, and “an old man I met.”
“nothing [criteria] Like, “Oh, they have this many followers.” “They’re working on this movie.” “You have to meet them because of this,” Rahma says of booking guests, which he does personally. “It’s: ‘Do I want to meet this person?’ That’s literally the test.”
The day before, Rahma was shot SNLColin Jost and Hacks star Hannah Einbinder, an indication of the show’s ever-increasing popularity since its launch in July 2023. The series has 2 million followers on Instagram and 945,000 subscribers on YouTube, with episodes typically around 15 minutes long, and has garnered hundreds of thousands of views — and more than a million in the case of Bill Burr’s opinion that billionaires, not immigrants, are to blame for low wages and Riz Ahmed’s position that it should be. The next James Bond.
Aside from hiring a bodyguard – just in case – for his appearances and increased guest personalities, episodes are shot exactly as they were on day one, from the crew to the $14,000 worth of camera equipment, including Sony FX3 cameras, in which Rahma has invested. “I didn’t even get new batteries. I bought it all on a credit card. And I said, ‘It’s no interest for a year.’ If it doesn’t work out, I can always sell these things.”
Even the shooting process still resembles a guerilla style encounter that a man in the street would encounter. “It’s a very small space,” says Rahma. “We take the train, and sometimes we have to wait for seats to open. Sometimes there’s a guy sleeping in the corner and I don’t want to disturb him. Sometimes we can’t sit because it’s too crowded, and sometimes the train is late. We don’t get special treatment.”
Staying hidden in his daily life is not easy these days for Rahma, who built… Take the subway From the success of his first show on TikTok, Keep the timer runningwhere he asks New York City taxi drivers to take him to their favorite place. “I feel like the mayor of the city,” he says. “Everyone knows me, which is great. I love New York. It wasn’t until I moved here that I felt like myself,” adds Zar’a, who was born in Cairo and grew up in a small suburb of Minneapolis.
“The little cultural differences that I noticed that were a really big deal for my parents weren’t a big deal for me, and they really allowed me to be a fly on the wall as well as the center of attention,” Rahma says of adjusting to the Midwest. “Being able to switch between those two when I felt like it — someone who was very observant, but then, right in the middle of it — is what pushed me to be a chameleon creatively.”
Rahma now hopes that the creativity will be recognized by the Television Academy when it is presented Take the subway In the categories of Short Comedy, Drama or Variety Series and Outstanding Performance in a Short Comedy or Drama Series.
“I applied for zero Webbys this year and the year before; I was done with Webbys,” says Rahma. “I work in the entertainment business. I’m not a creator, I’m not an influencer, I’m an artist. I’m a show creator, I’m a show producer, I’m a show writer, I’m a show talent,” he adds, noting that any recognition would be an “honor” and “a signal that the Emmys don’t hold their heads above themselves.”
Rahma concludes: “Award ceremonies are a way to navigate things and change, and I believe this is for the better. You cannot put the genie back in the bottle.”
This story first appeared in the June standalone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To obtain the magazine, click here to subscribe.
