May Calamawy

May El Calamawy (: ; born October 28, 1986) is an Egyptian-Palestinian actress. Calamawy gained recognition for her portrayal of Layla El-Faouly / Scarlet Scarab in the Marvel Studios miniseries Moon Knight, marking the first Egyptian and Arab superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Born in Bahrain to an Egyptian father and a Palestinian-Jordanian mother, Calamawy was raised across Bahrain, Qatar, and the United States. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in theatre studies from Emerson College and later trained at the William Esper Studio in New York. Calamawy began her acting career in independent cinema, making her feature film debut in Thursday (2006), followed by a series of short films, followed by roles in the Hulu comedy-drama Ramy (2019–2022), Together Together (2021), The Actor (2025) and Lee Cronin's The Mummy (2026).

Early life May El Calamawy was born in Bahrain on October 28, 1986, to an Egyptian father who worked as a banker Raised mostly in Bahrain, she also spent six years living between Doha, Qatar, and Houston, Texas, before she was twelve years old.

Calamawy has stated that she was inspired to become an actress after watching the film Death Becomes Her (1992) when she was a child. She completed high school in Bahrain, because he wanted her to study something other than acting. Her hair started falling out due to stress at the same time as her mother's hair fell out due to chemotherapy. Her mother's death inspired her to focus on acting. After attending college, she participated in the New York Arab American Comedy Festival. From 2009 to 2014, she was dividing her time between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, acting in shorts and a TV pilot. In 2021, she appeared in the comedy film Together Together, with Ed Helms and Patti Harrison. where she portrayed Layla El-Faouly, an Egyptian archeologist and estranged wife of Marc Spector (portrayed by Oscar Isaac), who later becomes the Scarlet Scarab, the first Egyptian and first Arab superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Her character made her comic debut in September 2023 as the new Scarlet Scarab on Moon Knight Vol. 9 #25. 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.

In May 2023, Calamawy joined the cast of Ridley Scott's Gladiator II and it was originally announced that she would play an important character, 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.

In 2025, Calamawy played five different characters in Duke Johnson's thriller The Actor.

In 2026, she portrayed Detective Dalia Zaki in Lee Cronin's supernatural horror film The Mummy.

Upcoming projects In August 2025, Calamawy joined the cast of the upcoming Netflix series Mercenary: An Extraction Series, as executive Priscilla Ragab. In May 2026, she joined the cast of Reid Carolin's film Isle of Man.

Personal life In 2015, Calamawy moved to the United States where she lived until the 2020s.

She was diagnosed with the autoimmune disease alopecia areata at the age of 22.

Filmography

Feature films

Television

Video games