Kareem Rahma on His ‘SubwayTakes’ Emmy Breakthrough

Kareem Rahma always believed his talk show deserved an Emmy nomination.

He just didn’t believe the Television Academy would agree.

“On one hand, it felt inevitable because I know that the shows that I make are high-quality premium television,” says the host of YouTube’s SubwayTakes with Kareem Rahma. “Where it didn’t feel inevitable was the willingness and the openness of the Academy to actually recognize it as well. So that was surprising, and I’m just truly humbled to be one of the first non-studio-backed independent YouTube shows to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy.”

A first-time nominee this year in the outstanding short form comedy, drama or variety series category, Rahma’s SubwayTakes is shot entirely on the New York City subway and features the host interviewing everyone from A-list celebrities (Jennifer Lopez, Woody Harrelson, Jason Bateman and Charlize Theron) to everyday New Yorkers and asking them to defend a “take” — like Harrelson’s suggestion that airlines should board passengers strictly from back to front or Lopez’s belief that the only true New Yorkers are those who were born in one of the city’s five boroughs.

“It’s always been a talk show, and so it’s always been booked talent,” Rahma says. “I’ve never been a Billy on the Street sort of guy (like host Billy Eichner). I’ve never gone out there and just talked to random strangers. So from the onset, I knew that I wanted to book talent — independent comedians and musicians, authors and filmmakers and just cool people who were in my orbit.”

SubwayTakes launched in 2023, with Rahma looking for another way to use the television-quality video and sound equipment he had purchased with his credit card for an earlier series (Keep the Meter Running, a talk show where Rahma and a cab driver explore the city together and engage in a wide-ranging conversation, which is still producing new episodes). 

“I knew from day one that quality was super important to me. So there was never a world in which I was like, ‘We’ll just shoot it on an iPhone, or we’ll use wireless mics.’”

Rahma invested in wired mic packs that are used on professional sets and cinema-quality cameras approved by streaming services for their platforms. “I just wanted to make sure that whatever we were doing was going to be the best possible version of the idea and of the format,” he says, noting the fidelity to television-quality production values also ensured the best crew. “There’s no shortage of people who want to work in television. That’s also the greatest part of this gig is that I’m working with so many people who wanted television jobs, and now have a television job and feel like they’re working out.”

Rahma says the most stressful part of SubwayTakes is often the logistics of the New York City subway system — which trains are running and what cars have air conditioning. The sweet spot for the show, he notes, is to shoot during non-peak hours (after the morning rush hour and before the evening commute begins) and on trains heading from Manhattan to Brooklyn to reverse the typical commute. But he rarely sweats the interviews, whether it’s with a local New Yorker or Javier Bardem.

“I’m not a journalist; I’m not a researcher,” he says. “I’m genuinely trying to have a good time.” While he does very light research for guests, he adds, the overall goal is to be “super in the moment,” which lets him react spontaneously to whatever happens on the subway.

“In Bardem’s episode there was an interruption where people did ‘showtime’ on the train,” he says, a form of acrobatic dancing where a group of people — typically young men — jump and flip around the subway car. “Of course, I didn’t produce that. That just happened, which led to Javier having a really good time because he’d never seen it before. So then I get to experience that with him.”

Rahma loves those live moments that can’t be planned, he says, because it gets to the core of what makes SubwayTakes stand out. “There’s a lot in a world where we don’t even know what’s real on the internet anymore, genuinely — even I’m tricked by AI or by just slop,” he admits. “In a world where everything feels either too glossy and fake or like synthetic content, it’s nice to be a real person making a real show in a real place.”

That’s one reason he keeps all the blemishes intact in the final episodes, including shots of the camera crew or other passengers.

“It’s not trying to be fake; it’s not trying to be perfect even,” he says. “The show is perfect because of its imperfections.”