kristina shakht sarah ramos photo shoot editorial the bear autographs fame famous polyesterzine polyester zine — When Sarah Ramos was nine, she convinced her parents to take her on a Mary-Kate and Ashley cruise. “I was obsessed with celebrities, I was obsessed with the Olsen twins, and my parents were overly accommodating,” Ramos jokes as we speak over a Zoom call. The cruise provided Ramos with an opportunity – not only to meet the Olsen twins but also to take a photo with them, which sparked a lifelong love for Ramos – that of being a fan.
“I believe that everyone who is in the entertainment industry is there because they were once a fan of somebody,” Ramos explains, “There's no better conversation than when people get really animated and almost embarrassed about how excited they are.”

As soon as Ramos returned from the trip, she re-oriented her life around working in the media. Within a year and at the age of just 10, she’d booked her first pilot, and she’s continued to act ever since - including currently starring as Jessica in The Bear and Dr Caitlin Lenox in Chicago Med. Outside of acting, Ramos has directed short films, episodes of TV, and her screenplay Zaddy featured on 2024’s Black List – a collection of the year’s best unproduced scripts. Even though Ramos’s CV spans decades and crosses roles, she’s still underestimated in the industry. “My first short film that I co-wrote and directed won The Jury Prize for Comedic Storytelling at Sundance. And yet when I say that I have a project I'm going to direct, people are like ‘You could do that – you just have to practice with little videos first’”.

As a child, Ramos understood that to be famous was to be important in our society and felt the allure of celebrity deeply. “Culture and marketing are designed to connect to our basest desires because they're selling you something you don't need,” Ramos continues, “They’re selling you a fantasy and that the people who are most vulnerable to that are lonely people – and a lonely child even more so.” As a result of this, Ramos spent her youth finding celebrities and taking photos with them – at events, concerts, book signings – anywhere they might appear. “When I look at myself then, I can see how unimportant I felt, - I thought I have to stand next to these people and that will make me important by proxy,” says Ramos.

“In the entertainment world, appearances are everything and getting enthusiastic about people can sometimes get misinterpreted as weakness – as though I’m an outsider. And I'm like, no, no, I'm very much an insider looking out.”

Ramos’ obsession with celebrity photos came to a head in 2022, when she hosted an exhibition called Autograph Hound. All throughout the gallery were photos of Ramos from the age of nine all the way up to the present day, and always with her posing alongside celebrities. The first was taken with Mary-Kate and Ashley themselves on their cruise – with other shots including Christina Aguliera, Colin Farrell, Amanda Bynes, Hilary Duff, P!nk, Nicole Richie, and Kris Jenner. “It was an interesting experience, because it was supposed to be celebrating the embarrassing and saying: don’t be embarrassed,” Ramos reflects, “But two of my actor friends came and they were kind of mobbed the entire show. People were shaking, freaking out, and there was like a level that was missed in the message”.

One of the reasons that Ramos believes that she is underestimated is because of the openness with which she professes her love for the industry. “In the entertainment world, appearances are everything and getting enthusiastic about people can sometimes get misinterpreted as weakness – as though I’m an outsider,” Ramos outlines. “And I'm like, no, no, I'm very much an insider looking out.” Social media has given everyone the ability to create and cultivate an audience and Ramos believes this has only intensified the pressures on celebrities to curate an image of someone who is important and worthy of attention.

As Ramos reflects on her life as a fan she is matter of fact, not judging her younger self for indulging in her love for celebrities, but she does consider if fandom stunted her own becoming. “In some ways I think I hid behind being a fan, that's very much just what the self-esteem issue is – but now it's like a balance of how do I stand in my own power and say: Yes, I am relatable, but honey, I'm still a star,” Ramos laughs.

While the images projected by celebrities suggest complete perfection, as though their importance has caused all their problems to evaporate – the reality of making it in the media industry is much more unstable. For every role a performer takes on and is recognised for, they’re also expected to audition and have their work judged by faceless executives who are constantly judging their worth – an experience that detaches an artist from their audience and can feel personally isolating.

On the night before our Zoom call, Ramos attended Polyester’s E-Girl Summit in New York. She wore a black dress which had Nicole Kidman’s AMC speech rhinestoned across its body. “It actually explains loneliness and celebrity. Somehow heartbreak feels good in a place like this, you know, experiencing heartbreak but it's in a movie, and it's beautiful. Or it's in a pop song and a million people are singing along.” In the same way that the idea of celebrity provides the illusion of outward importance, the thought of being a celebrity could be used to imbue your own life with importance. “You think: ‘Oh, okay, that'll give this meaning,’” Ramos reveals. “It’s an immature way of looking at it, but you can see why it's seductive. It's like a siren call”

As our call comes to an end, Ramos reflects on the reasons that she got into acting. “I got into this industry for the wrong reasons, because I wanted people to make me feel good about myself. But being a star is really a service industry, it's about making others feel good.” Ramos points to the stories people tell about celebrities – almost everyone has heard about a celebrity interaction from a friend or a friend of a friend. Maybe they were lovely, or maybe they were rude – but in gossip their essence is boiled down to an interaction that may have only lasted a minute. “When we see a person we don't recognise from TV and another person that we do, then we suddenly expect something from that person because we’ve seen them before.”

From both the outside and the insider’s perspective – celebrity has been a core theme of Ramos' life, and so I have one question left to ask – does she enjoy being a celebrity? “Well, celebrity is in the eye of the beholder,” says Ramos with a wry smile. “So if you've seen The Bear, you know me, if you haven't, might not. But I definitely think being anonymous is a privilege too. I'm really grateful that I'm still able to look like shit when I walk outside and most of the time not be photographed”

Sarah Ramos on Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Hounding Autographs, and Celebrity as a Service Industry

“In the entertainment world, appearances are everything and getting enthusiastic about people can sometimes get misinterpreted as weakness – as though I’m an outsider. And I'm like, no, no, I'm very much an insider looking out.”

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