Actor Riz Ahmed Remakes the Leading Man

For the better part of two decades, Emmy and Oscar-winning actor Riz Ahmed has moved seamlessly between worlds: indies, blockbusters, prestige TV, writing, rapping.We discuss the long road to his new TV series Bait (3:45), what the character of James Bond symbolizes (6:00), and how the show connects to his own 80s upbringing in Wembley, England (18:40). Then, Riz describes how code-switching (inadvertently) led to acting (22:00), the childhood films he first made in his mind (26:25), the piece of advice from Idris Elba that changed his course (38:30), and how he broke out in Hollywood starring opposite Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler (40:50).On the back-half, Riz talks performing on stage with classmate (now Zeteo journalist) Mehdi Hasan (44:20), a frenetic audition for Slumdog Millionaire (45:28), nightmares from The Night Of (49:25), his upcoming project opposite Tom Cruise (53:45), the Swet Shop Boys’ hit song “Half Moghul Half Mowgli” (1:00:45), how life imitated art while shooting Relay (1:09:05), and the challenge—and freedom—of representing himself, anew, in Bait (1:13:20).Clips from Bait courtesy of Prime Video. Subscribe to our new YouTube channel.As always, our email: [email protected] Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.