Riz Ahmed

Summary

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Podcrushed: Riz Ahmed

Hosts: Penn Badgley, Nava Kavelin, Sophie Ansari
Guest: Riz Ahmed
Date: August 27, 2025

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Overview

This episode of Podcrushed features actor, rapper, and storyteller Riz Ahmed. The conversation explores Riz’s formative years, particularly his middle school experiences and the challenges of code-switching and identity. The conversation ranges from his mischievous adolescence and navigating between cultures, to professional breakouts, career milestones, creative process, and what it really means to find acceptance and trust—in oneself and in the world. Together with the hosts, Riz delves into meaningful moments of vulnerability, resilience, and self-discovery—capturing the heart of what it means to grow up different, and how those differences translate into his art.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dual Identity and Code-Switching

[07:10–11:12] Riz's World at 12

• Riz grew up in a British Pakistani immigrant neighborhood, immersed in South Asian culture and then moved to a posh private school hours away.
• He was a “scholarship kid,” navigating between two vastly different worlds—at home “Golu” with his community, at school “Ahmed,” blending in with elite British traditions.
• Felt constant tension and “cognitive dissonance” between home and school cultures:
  • “At home, I was the kid from the posh school. At school, I was the alien.” (Riz Ahmed, 09:10)
• Clothing and language shifts were part of daily “costume changes.”
• “You know, I would go to school with a costume change in my bag.” (Riz Ahmed, 10:36)

Hosts Reflect on Code Switching

• Nava deeply relates: “Trying to, like, go between worlds and trying to figure out which one you fit into.” (Nava, 02:10)

2. Embracing Multiplicity through Acting

[12:33–14:48] Acting as Survival & Self-Expression

• Worlds began blending as he got older, but confusion remained.
• Acting helped make sense of shifting identities:
  • “That was my sanity... Rather than getting a detention, get a round of applause.” (Riz Ahmed, 13:41)
• Struggled with discipline but found a constructive outlet in performing.

3. The Power and Evolution of Names

[14:48–17:05] Riz, Rizwan, and Belonging

• Different names (“Golu,” “Ahmed,” “Rizwan,” then “Riz”) for different contexts—each representing a facet of self.
• “Only very recently have I started thinking of what if I think of myself as Rizwan? What is that?” (Riz Ahmed, 16:49)
• Becoming a father made him reflect more on the “power of names.”

4. Mischievous Adolescence

[18:19–21:59] Shaytun Moments

• Hosts and Riz discuss the word "shaytun" for sweet mischievousness.
• Anecdotes:
  • “We just all looked at each other, looked to the wall, and just kicked in the whole wall.” (Riz Ahmed, 20:06)
  • “I threw a chair at them. They went through the window.” (Riz Ahmed, 21:10)
• Frequently in trouble—reflects restless energy and a need for movement.

5. Crushes and First Loves

[22:14–25:58]

• First “crush” came from the affection of older students during a school play; more about wanting to belong and be doted on than any one person.

6. Heartbreak and Cultural Boundaries

[25:58–26:53]

• Riz was a “late bloomer” regarding dating, reflective of traditional upbringing and community expectations.
• “There was just a gravity attached to romantic relationships in our minds... things you have to take very seriously.” (Riz Ahmed, 26:24)

7. Breaking into the Arts Professionally

[27:08–30:55] The Unconventional Path

• First paid role: script reading at Hampstead Theatre for £100.
• Breakthrough came with The Road to Guantanamo, a part he landed “by accident” due to a bad haircut—a literal case of “right place, right look.”
• Did not initially think a career in acting was viable because of how few people “who looked like me” he saw on screen.

8. Professional Doubt and Turning Points

[36:38–39:40]

• Saw art as a way to do something meaningful while supporting family; parents were “quietly supportive and quietly terrified.”
• “At every turn I was like, well, okay, it was a good run... I was constantly looking for the moment where the other shoe would drop.” (Riz Ahmed, 39:01)
• True career turning point: landing and filming The Night Of (HBO) after almost a decade of uncertainty.

9. The Making of Sound of Metal: Loss, Grief, and Acceptance

[41:27–52:59]

• Sophie and Penn express deep personal connection to the film.
• Riz shares he had experienced personal health crises just before the film, leading to grief, fear, and eventual acceptance:
  • “When you're brought to your knees, you're halfway towards praying... when you're humbled, you become acutely aware of everything you have.” (Riz Ahmed, 44:35)
• Preparation included learning drums and American Sign Language.
• Profound learning from Deaf community:
  • “We think you guys [hearing people] are emotionally repressed... We communicate with our entire bodies.” (Riz Ahmed, 50:14)
  • Deaf culture taught him about true embodied listening.

10. On Trust, Surrender, and Roles in Relay

[58:23–65:43]

• Relay’s protagonist (as with Sound of Metal’s) wrestles with control, trust, and faith—mirroring Riz’s own journey and interests.
• “The hardest thing for this character... is surrendering control, believing in something bigger... The words ‘give up’ have such a negative connotation, but there’s such a power in those things.” (Riz Ahmed, 64:48)
• The film also features elements of deaf culture in subtle ways.

11. Tension and Atmosphere in Filmmaking

[65:43–68:03]

• David McKenzie (director, Relay) is “chaotic and freewheeling”—no closed sets, frenetic shooting, real public spaces, leading to authentic tension and energy.

12. Blueprint for Muslim Inclusion

[68:03–70:54]

• Riz discusses his production company (Left Handed) and the Blueprint for Muslim Inclusion initiative with Pillars, supporting up-and-coming Muslim filmmakers with funding, mentorship, and most importantly—community.
• “If you have a lone voice in a room, you’re much more likely to bite your tongue. But if your point of view is validated by those around you... you go a bit further.” (Riz Ahmed, 70:07)

13. If You Could Go Back to 12...

[71:09–72:38]

• “Stop drinking cola... Let me tell you about this thing called meditation.” (Riz Ahmed, 71:09)
• Importance of having someone believe in you:
  • A teacher who “helped me find myself” and “allowed me to feel like... the place where you think you don’t belong is the place you needed most.”
  • “Meeting that right person at the right time—just.” (Riz Ahmed, 72:25)

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Notable Quotes

• “At home, I was the kid from the posh school. At school, I was the alien.” (Riz Ahmed, 09:10)
• “That was my sanity — that was how I could make sense of these shifting identities.” (Riz Ahmed, 13:41)
• “There was a lot of cognitive dissonance... A lot of misfit stuff going on in both worlds.” (Riz Ahmed, 09:10)
• “When you’re brought to your knees, you’re halfway towards praying.” (Riz Ahmed, 44:35)
• “The gift and the curse are always the same.” (Riz Ahmed, 52:59)
• “The hardest thing... is surrendering control, believing in something bigger... You get what you need, not what you want.” (Riz Ahmed, 64:48)
• “If you have a lone voice in a room, you’re much more likely to bite your tongue. But if your point of view is validated by those around you, it encourages you to go a bit further.” (Riz Ahmed, 70:07)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [07:10] Riz at age 12: Navigating elite school and immigrant community
• [14:48] “Golu,” “Ahmed,” “Rizwan,” and the journey to “Riz”
• [18:19] Mischievous stories (“Lord of the Flies” wall destruction, thrown chair)
• [22:14] First crushes and wanting to belong
• [27:08] Early professional breaks and doubts
• [36:38] Turning points: The Night Of, family reactions
• [41:27] Sound of Metal, deaf culture, and embodied listening
• [58:23] Relay and spiritual themes of trust, surrender
• [68:03] Blueprint for Muslim Inclusion initiative
• [71:09] Advice to 12-year-old self and the power of mentorship

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Memorable Moments

• Nava gets emotional discussing food, code-switching, and her own essay tied to the themes Riz describes.
• Riz’s mischievous tales—destroying a classroom wall—elicits laughter and empathy from the hosts.
• Sophie’s personal attachment to Sound of Metal, and Riz’s candid sharing of his health crisis and acceptance.
• Deaf community’s perspective: “We think you guys are emotionally repressed.”
• Celebration of finding community—through Blueprint for Muslim Inclusion’s work.

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Conclusion

This episode delivers an honest, playful, and deeply resonant conversation about growing up between worlds, the pain and beauty of multiple identities, and the ongoing effort to find artistic and personal grounding. Riz Ahmed’s journey from “mischievous Golu” to acclaimed artist is grounded in vulnerability, humor, and the meaningful drive to create spaces for others, always emphasizing the power of acceptance and belonging.

Transcript

[Nava Kavilan]

Lemonade.

[Riz Ahmed]

We were playing, like, football or, you know, something, and someone kicked the ball in the classroom, and he made a little dent in the wall. And for some reason, pure Lord of the flies style, mindless, 13, 14 year old savagery vibes. We just all looked at each other, looked to the wall, and just kicked in the whole wa.

[Penn Badgley]

Welcome to Pod Crushed. We're your hosts. I'm Penn.

[Sophie Ansari]

I'm Sophie.

[Nava Kavilan]

And I'm Nava. And I think we would have been your middle school besties.

[Sophie Ansari]

You know, just rapping with your pals.

[Riz Ahmed]

After school, ciphering with your boys in South Kins.

[Penn Badgley]

Welcome to podcrust. I'm joined by my co hosts, Sophie Ansari and Nava Cavlin. Welcome, welcome.

[Nava Kavilan]

Can we do a temperature check? Sophie, Riz Ahmed has been your dream guest since season one. Favorite actor. How are you feeling?

[Sophie Ansari]

I said at the end of the episode, I said, meet your heroes. He was better than I could have ever hoped for. He was so warm, and I'm just like, I've melted. I'm a little puddle.

[Riz Ahmed]

Aw.

[Sophie Ansari]

It was so nice.

[Penn Badgley]

It was extremely charming.

[Nava Kavilan]

Really charming. Really wonderful. He didn't use this phrase, but an idea that I felt like did come up in our conversation is this idea of code switching. So of, like, shifting identities, and you're from one world, you're in another world, you're kind of trying to fit into them. And not to so blatantly plug our book, but we do have a book coming out, but go ahead. And I see you in a couple weeks in. In more than a couple weeks called Crushmore. And one of the essays. One of the essays that I wrote kind of deals with this topic. It was an essay that I didn't expect to be so emotional, but it has to do with food. And food was like, really? It was like one of my mom's love languages was the kind of food that she made. But I also have really traumatic memories around food because it was like Persian food visually looks really different than Puerto Rican food. And it's like, some of it is, like, really green. And I just have, like, really vivid memories of kids making fun of the food that I would eat. Oh, my gosh. Even talking about now is gonna make me emotional. Anyway, there's an essay in the book called A Family Recipe, and it was a really emotional essay to write and a really emotional essay to read back, and I'm excited for you all to read it, and that kind of details some of my experiences with code switching. So while Riz was sharing his stories, I was kind of thinking about, like, how much that really resonated with me, this idea of trying to, like, go between worlds and trying to figure out which one you fit into.

[Sophie Ansari]

And just a little tidbit is that it kind of very nearly didn't make it into the book. But I read it and it's one of my favorite essays in the book. And it doesn't really have a resolution, which is one of my favorite parts about it. Like, it just.

[Penn Badgley]

I agree.

[Sophie Ansari]

It ends on a note where it's like, yeah, it's wistful, I guess.

[Nava Kavilan]

Yes. I owe Sophie a debt of gratitude. Cause Sophie helped me advocate for keeping that essay in the book. Thank you.

[Sophie Ansari]

Sophie, of course, can't wait to.

[Penn Badgley]

And I advocate for both of these two very talented writers alongside me. I want people to read this thing. Come on. We put our blood, sweat and tears into this book.

[Nava Kavilan]

Yes.

[Penn Badgley]

It's true though. It's true, though. And it's really full of really vulnerable stories and funny stories and any kind of story you might so desire to read.

[Nava Kavilan]

And our guest today is incredible and such a great storyteller. And you're gonna love our conversation, truly.

[Penn Badgley]

That's true. So we have today somebody that we've wanted since season one. The rest of them never. That's not true.

[Sophie Ansari]

The whole podcast has been for Riz.

[Nava Kavilan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Penn Badgley]

Today we have the lovely and talented Riz Ahmed, the Oscar nominated, an Emmy winning actor from HBO's the Night of films like Sound of Metal, Rogue One, Wes Anderson's latest the Phoenician Scheme. But he was here today for his latest film called Relay. Outside of Film tv, Riz is part of the rap group Sweatshop Boys, which happens to be David, our lovely producer and husband, David. He's all of our husband, David. Sweatshop Boys is one of his favorite groups of all time. That's, that's no joke. We absolutely loved having Riz. Everybody really did, by the way, really love having him on. You're, you're going to like this one. Stick around.

[Nava Kavilan]

August 2025 marks 20 years since Hurricane Katrina changed New Orleans forever. There have been many accounts of the storm's devastation and what it took to rebuild. But behind those headlines is another story, one that impacted the lives of thousands of children. Where the Schools Went is a new five part podcast series about what happened to the city schools after the levies broke and how it led to the most radical education experiment in American history. Hosted by Ravi Gupta, a former school principal, where the Schools Went traces the decades of dysfunction before Katrina and how the high stakes decisions that followed transformed the city's school system. You'll hear from the voices of the people who lived it. From veteran educators who lost their jobs to the idealists and outsiders who rushed in, to the students and families who lived through it all. Whether you're a parent, an educator, or someone who cares about how communities and public systems can work together, where the Schools Went is a story you need to hear from the branch in partnership with the 74 and Midas touch. Where the Schools Went is out now. Find it wherever you get your podcasts and start listening.

[Sophie Ansari]

Today a 15 year old girl who chewed through a rope to escape a serial killer.

[Riz Ahmed]

I used my front teeth to saw on the rope in my mouth.

[Sophie Ansari]

He's been convicted of murdering two young women, but suspected of many more.

[Riz Ahmed]

Maybe there's another one in that area.

[Sophie Ansari]

And now new leads that could solve these cold cases.

[Riz Ahmed]

They could be a victim that we.

[Penn Badgley]

Have no idea he killed.

[Sophie Ansari]

Stolen Voices of Dole Valley breaks the.

[Nava Kavilan]

Silence on August 19th.

[Sophie Ansari]

Follow us now so you don't miss an episode.

[Nava Kavilan]

Riz, we're so excited to have you on. You have been on our dream list. We have like a list of dream guests. You've been on our list in season one. So we're really excited you're here.

[Riz Ahmed]

Thank you, thank you. Thanks for having me. It's such a beautiful, cool podcast. I love. So thanks for having me.

[Penn Badgley]

I don't know if you're, if anybody prepped you, but we start at 12. That's the idea here. We start at, we start in adolescence as a formative period for everybody. The arts play a huge role in development. You seem like a prime example of that. So, you know, just start with a snapshot of Riz at 12. How was he seeing the world? You know, what was the world like day to day?

[Riz Ahmed]

I'm sorry, I need a moment. Well, so listen, 12 years old, I've just started a quite a posh private school which is about an hour and a half away from where I grew up. And it's kind of a different world. And there's a handful of kids that I guess are like scholarship kids or, you know, I was in a government assisted place as this kind of government program where if you like do well in the test scores, they pay for you to go to a private school. And so I'm kind of living between these different worlds. You know, there's a neighborhood that I've grown up in my family, my community, British Pakistani community of kind of, you know, immigrant parents. And you know, the, the neighborhood wasn't the roughest, it also wasn't the poshest, you know what I mean? It was kind of a little bit edgy but also just like a vibe community, you know, like psychedelic colored storefronts of like Indian sweet shops and like places where you go in to get the little cassette tapes of the latest hip hop and Bollywood mixtape. And the parties were called daytimer parties because South Asian girls weren't allowed out at night. And so we'd have a lot of raves and parties in the daytime. And it was just 90s, you know, it was a very particular kind of vibe.

[Nava Kavilan]

Wow.

[Riz Ahmed]

And then stepping out of my, you know, green and white Adidas Firebird tracksuit, there'd be the school uniform. Yeah. And it'd be the school tie and the school tie and you know, it was like Hogwarts where you're in members of different houses. But it wasn't Slytherin and Gryffindor. The house that I was a member of was called Clive House. And Clive House was actually named after the guy who colonized India. Literally.

[Penn Badgley]

Wow.

[Riz Ahmed]

Wow. India. The guy who like did it, who got it over the line for, you know, for the, for the crown. So there was a lot of kind of like cognitive dissonance and cultural kind of like misfit stuff going on in both worlds. You know, I suddenly became the kid from the posh school at home and I became the like this alien at the school I was at. And in a way that's when I started acting. I started coach, which I started playing these characters and I don't think I ever really fully, I would say betrayed or abandoned myself fully in, you know, in one context or another. But I definitely had to adapt, you know, but like turning up at school and speaking in certain slang and people in dining table just laughing like what is he saying? And, and so, you know, I kind of would go to school with a costume change in my bag. You know, I would change the uniform when I'm going back on a, on a school bus to go back to the neighborhood. And I, you know, I was called a different name. You know, everyone in my community, I just had this nickname that stuck. So even as a teenager, as a young teenager and throughout my teenage years, even now, people in my community refer to me as completely random. Nickname of Golu. Golu means roundo, round one at a spherical head as a small child but you know, we were that close knit community where it's like your cousins are like your siblings and your Family friends are like your cousins. And I was Golu, you know, I was like loudmouth Golu. And then at the school, I'm Ahmed, you know, I'm Ahmed in Clive House. And so that's setting the stage in the context, a little bit of at least the setup of what my world was like. And there was definitely a bit of a bumpy ride. But looking back, as is often the case, it kind of makes you who you are, and it's kind of enriching.

[Sophie Ansari]

On balance, hearing you say that you changed your clothes even before you got back to the neighborhood. Like, you made sure that those two worlds kind of didn't interact, it sounds like. But I'm curious if there ever was a time where there was a meeting of those two sides of you.

[Riz Ahmed]

Yeah, it's interesting. I think it start. They started meeting more as you got a little bit older. Because what happens is when you start coming, you know, 13, 14, 15, 16, it's like everyone in the posh school wants to be hanging out in places like where I'm from anyway. You know what I mean?

[Sophie Ansari]

Yeah.

[Riz Ahmed]

Then the whole. The world start blending and combining a little bit. And when you, you know, at 12, you're not socializing that much out in the real world, you know, you know, going out very, very late at night. At least I wasn't. Some people are, but I wasn't. Anyway, our parties were in daytime, as I said.

[Sophie Ansari]

Yeah, I love that, that, that little fact.

[Riz Ahmed]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sophie Ansari]

I mean, so much sense.

[Riz Ahmed]

Yeah. I made a short film about it, but 10 years ago called Daytimers. And now actually there's a. There's a. There's a DJ crew of like South Asian DJ crew coming out of the UK called Daytimers Crew that speaks to that 90s culture. It was very. It was kind of surreal. You know, you'd be walking through a strip mall, people doing their grocery shopping. You see a line of like 300 brown around the, around the corner from cities all over the UK to come to a daytime. A party.

[Nava Kavilan]

That's so cool.

[Riz Ahmed]

So, so the daytime party started kicking off more, you know, I mean, those, that, that more and more kids were like changing clothes and putting on the accent that I had in my neighborhood. You know what I mean? So suddenly being the kid from that side of the tracks, it started having a kind of social capital to it as well. Yeah. In its own way. So these worlds did naturally start blending, but no less confusing. You just kind of become better at, you know, juggling those, those, those things. So I think as time Went on. It inevitably started. One started bleeding into the other until it kind of comes to a head. At some point it comes to a head and you kind of got to pick like where you see yourself, what your future is, like how, how are you going to try and do this? And for me, a big part of how I tried to bring those identities together and make sense of containing this multiplicity was through acting, you know, acting like I would say, you know, to original question pen, like that, that that was my sanity, you know, that's how I can make sense of the idea that we have these shifting identities, you know, and that was a place where I could act out and kind of vent all this kind of conflicted feelings that I had. And rather than getting a detention, get a round of applause. And I was getting a lot of detentions, you know, it was a very bumpy ride for me at school. You know, I was constantly on the verge of being asked to leave.

[Penn Badgley]

Wow, this might be a bit of like a psychotherapy sounding question.

[Riz Ahmed]

This is already really intense.

[Penn Badgley]

No, no, no, no, no, no. This is perfect for us. This is what we do. So this is perfect. So is. So as you discovered acting, is that also when maybe you started to be known more as Riz? Is that where, you know, if there's, if this is about identities and names, I'm curious, when did you start to become known as Riz rather than. You said, was it Gulu?

[Riz Ahmed]

Gulu was in his back home world, you know.

[Penn Badgley]

Yeah. And then, and then Ahmed was at school. Or am I crafting too much of a narrative here? I mean, were you still Riz in. Plenty.

[Riz Ahmed]

The interesting thing about Riz is. It's really interesting you say that because when, you know, when you were, when you're a teenager and you're. Then you're out at the daytime parties, no one's calling you Ahmed. So my kid, my, my friends from the neighborhood, like some, you know, these tougher guys and some of them even they're calling me Golu, you know, it was just like your name is my cultural name that just stuck the way people would have different, you know, names like Lumbu, Chu, you know, this stuff like that, like the tall guy, the short guy, you know what I mean? It was like that, that kind of thing.

[Sophie Ansari]

But can I just say, it's so funny that yours was Golu, cuz your face is so angular now, I can't connect the two.

[Riz Ahmed]

Yeah, was my brother just trying to troll me? My brother? But, but. So when people would call me by my Name, it was Rizwan, you know, and that was more at school, so. So Riz is something that happened even later when I went to Oxford.

[Penn Badgley]

Okay.

[Riz Ahmed]

You know, when I went to Oxford University, and that was a whole other level of posh and a whole other kind of world. It felt like, okay, wait, I'm back to being 12 years old again in a whole other way. But I've been through this process, so I know it, but I'm as unprepared. I felt as unprepared, you know, and that was when it was like, my name's Rizwan. So what? Riz. So there was a kind of self editing that took place, which I think a lot of people do, and I've kind of gone back and forth on that a lot. Pen. I've kind of sometimes think, like, is that me creating my own third identity? You know what I mean? Like, making my name my own. Like, the UK is a. Is a. Is a. Is a nation of Bob's, Dave's, Chris, Tom, Tims. Riz should be able to take his name in the pantheon of British names in a way. Like, am I kind of. Am I like, you know, just spicing up the pot a little bit, or am I kind of leaving part myself at the door? And it's interesting because only very recently have I started thinking of what if I think of myself as Rizwan? What is that?

[Penn Badgley]

I love that.

[Riz Ahmed]

It's very, very new to me, honestly. And becoming a father myself and thinking about names and power of names and, you know, has made me kind of think about stepping into Rizwan.

[Penn Badgley]

That's beautiful.

[Nava Kavilan]

That is really beautiful. This is a. This is a total aside. Maybe Penn was about to say this, but we're all members of the Baha' I faith, and there's like a holy day in the Baha' I faith called the Rezvan Festival, and it's like the king of festivals. And at least one meaning of Ridvan is paradise. So.

[Riz Ahmed]

All of us.

[Nava Kavilan]

Yeah. That word is so special.

[Riz Ahmed]

Yeah.

[Penn Badgley]

And it's 12 days, man. It's 12 days long.

[Riz Ahmed]

Yeah.

[Nava Kavilan]

It's like our greatest festival is Rezvan. Yeah.

[Riz Ahmed]

I just, you know, why haven't I been invited to this?

[Nava Kavilan]

You're coming next year.

[Penn Badgley]

We've got next one.

[Riz Ahmed]

Like, you're not gonna invite Santa.

[Nava Kavilan]

So true. This is a total change of directions. But I'm Persian, and we have a word in Farsi, which is Shaytun, which means, like, sweetly mischievous. And. And just like, doing the prep for this, I was like, Riz has such a shaytun face. Like, you just look like you're like sweetly mischievous. And I watched one of your interviews on, I think it was Fallon where you talked about people recognize you but they don't always know from what, so you kind of mess with them. You're like, yeah, I dated your sister. How's she doing? Which I thought was so funny. And I was curious if you could share an example of you being like mischievous when you were like 12, 13, 14, if any come to mind.

[Riz Ahmed]

Oh my God. Can I say we have the same word in Urdu, because so many Urdu from far seas, so shaitan. But shaitan means like devil in Persian.

[Nava Kavilan]

It's a little sweeter. I think it's like, yeah, yeah, it's like a sweet little devil. Yeah.

[Riz Ahmed]

So I, I mean, stories of being mischievous, like. Yeah, I mean, I was just constantly in Saturday morning detention, so I, I used to just get. I think looking back, I probably had a bit of add, but we didn't have the language for that. And you know, so I was just very, very restless in class. I just, I would just make it my mission to just troll the teachers to just tie them up in circles and just kind of like, you know, try and get kicked out of class. Honestly, if I could get kicked out of class, at least I could just like physically move. You know, I'd be walking around the corridors and then the teacher would say, what the hell are you doing out here in the hallways, army? And I go, Mr. So and so threw me out. Because we didn't throw you out to walk around, like go and stand outside. Like, oh man, back to square one. I have to stand still again. But I remember one thing. I mean, this is going to sound slightly psychotic. I'm gonna tell this story. Okay. We were doing a school play and we use one of the classrooms as the. As changing rooms. And we were playing like football or you know, something and someone kicked the ball in the classroom and he made a little dent in the wall. And for some reason, pure Lord of the flies style, mindless, 13, 14 year old savagery vibes. We just all looked at each other, looked to the wall and just kicked in the whole wall. Wow. God, it was like a non ve. Like, wow. The inner destructive shaituns in us is we just kicked it in. We were just like, just kicking this wall. Like, guys, how are you gonna cover that up?

[Nava Kavilan]

Yeah, exactly.

[Riz Ahmed]

Like half the wall was gone.

[Penn Badgley]

Wait, to be clear, where were you? You were, you were in a classroom.

[Riz Ahmed]

After hours, you know, like this uses a changing room in the school. Yeah, yeah. That was one. Another thing that happened, but which I was someone again. You know, we're young. We don't know how to express our feelings. I remember my first week at the school feeling so out of place. And I think, like, mum jokes were not as much of a thing, like in my culture and in my neighborhood, like, say something about someone's mum. That was very intense thing to do, but not so much in this kind of posh, carefree, take everything lightly kind of environment. And someone says something about mum. Actually, I think it said something about my mom or my aunt. And I. I threw a chair at them. They went through the window.

[Penn Badgley]

Oof.

[Nava Kavilan]

Oh, my gosh.

[Riz Ahmed]

Wow. This is your first week of school. This one cheerleading. Yeah. I look back on that now and it sounds worse than it felt like at the time.

[Penn Badgley]

Sure.

[Riz Ahmed]

That pain. Don't know. This is a safe space.

[Penn Badgley]

No, this is the 90s, man. It's like I can. I can. I can fully appreciate it. It was like, yeah, all right. So that happened.

[Nava Kavilan]

Wow.

[Riz Ahmed]

You feel like things are just a bit less regulated. Like parenting was less like policing back then, for sure. Things just crazy things happened.

[Penn Badgley]

Very much so.

[Riz Ahmed]

That's a couple of examples. I wish I'd thought of more playful ones.

[Nava Kavilan]

But those are great.

[Sophie Ansari]

No, those are great.

[Riz Ahmed]

Okay.

[Sophie Ansari]

And I feel like that says that. That is actually kind of sweet. I'm going to twist it a little bit. But, you know, you're protecting your mom. You're protecting the. Your mom or your aunt. The women in your life. Very sweet, Riz.

[Riz Ahmed]

Thank you, Sophie. Someone who understands.

[Sophie Ansari]

Another question that we always ask people is to tell us about their first crush or first love and then also their first heartbreak from that time. If you had that at that time.

[Riz Ahmed]

Man, I think it's going to sound like a bit of a cop out, but I think my crush was a bit more of a generalized one. And what I mean is this. The school play was something that was mainly for like the seniors, I think you call them here, right. So the people like in the last couple of years of their. Of high school. But that year when I was 11, about 10, 12, the school play was South Pacific. And so they put out an assembly. They went, we need a small Eurasian looking. Your Asian Eurasian looking boy for this thing. And I auditioned and I got it. And man, I just remember the feeling of being that are just doting on you and just, oh, he's so cute. Like helping you act and all this kind of stuff. I Remember, like, this intense feeling of feeling special and feeling cute and feeling doted on, and I can't remember any of the names of those girls, but somehow, as we're talking about that age and we're talking about acting, we're talking about. I remember feeling like I want to belong here. Do you know what I mean? Like, this is a piece of like. Yeah, I'm kind of getting attention from these teenage girls, and they're, like, taking me under their wing and they're kind of like, you know, So I remember that was, like. I'm gonna be honest, part of, like. I think I was like, yeah, that's acting stuff is fun.

[Penn Badgley]

You know what? This is bringing you back. I have been plumbing my own memories of this time because I started acting. I was. You know, I moved to LA, to Hollywood, when I was 12, and. And that was when I got my first job, so. So. But you just brought back a memory of when I was, a few years before that, started doing community theater. And I remember the attention from the teenage girls, which was not attention that I ever got in any other context. And you're so right about that. It's a really. It's a. It was a really, like, just exciting and glittery and stimulating thing. Like, yeah, I want to hang out where a bunch of teenage girls think I'm cute, even if it's not the right kind of cute, you know?

[Riz Ahmed]

Yeah, exactly. So I think that that was a kind of big thing for me. Other than that, I think, like. I don't know, I guess I kind of like. Yeah, I think that's the main thing that I can take away from that kind of age. Yeah. That department, anything.

[Penn Badgley]

Anything of heartbreak is a bit different. You know, heartbreak is like. And it can be more mature, too. I think it can be so formative and so formative that you may not want to share here. But if there is a story of that kind of classic first heartbreak, that is something that we deal in, that's our wheelhouse.

[Riz Ahmed]

Yeah. I've got to be honest, I was kind of like quite a late bloomer in that department as well, kind of growing up in quite a traditional culture. So I don't really have any stories from, like, my teenage years that really. Yeah. All right. Yeah.

[Sophie Ansari]

It's actually really nice to hear. I feel like.

[Penn Badgley]

Love it.

[Sophie Ansari]

You get a lot of stories of people around that time having a lot of freedom in that area and, like, experimenting and doing things maybe that they come to that are really. They're not ready for, and it's it's nice to hear an experience of because I think that's actually very common for a lot of kids, especially growing up in a religious household. Like. Like I did or. Yeah, I feel like that's more common than, than we actually show on this show a lot.

[Riz Ahmed]

Yeah, it's interesting because I kind of felt like, I mean, don't get me wrong, you're going to a daytime, a party, you know, you might someone, something like that, like. But for some reason I think that there was just a gravity attached to like romantic relationships in our minds about like, you know, these are things you have to take very seriously and the things you have to kind of approach with a certain, in a certain way, which maybe like kept me from exploring them. And then certainly I think the cultural context that I spent a lot of my social time in, they were, they were, you know, they were a bit, bit perilous. You know, you get caught like, you know. Yeah, get real trouble and you know, like families get involved, someone's got a big brother and you know, it was like that thing a little bit. So. So it wasn't really until kind I left home and went to university that I really started, you know, dating properly, if I'm being honest.

[Nava Kavilan]

You have an incredible career. We won't be able to talk about all of your projects, but we do want to talk about a few. But in your own words, could you tell us a little bit the story of your crossover into like sort of professional acting music? How did that happen?

[Riz Ahmed]

Yeah, so doing it professionally. It's interesting because like the first paid job I had was something the Hampstead Theater, which ended up being across the street from where I went to drama school and I was at university and I was at the student drama festival where, you know, if you're in a. If you're in a play at university and it goes well, then these drama festival people invite you. So I'm there like it's a new environment for me. It's all like. Oxford was very, very academic and this was like some used like theater kids everywhere. It was cool. And anyway, I did a reading, an impromptu reading there and someone invited me and said, look, you can have a job. As they called me up, I remember and said, listen, it's a script in hand reading of plays written by 11 year olds and. And they said the fee is £100. And I was like, yeah, of course, absolutely. Thank you. I remember hanging up thinking I gotta get £100 from somewhere, I'd have to pay for the privilege. Funny of acting in this theater, you know, I was just like, you know, I'll get paid to do this. Yeah, I think I was like 19. And so that summer, yeah, I was there, like one day I woke up and then I was a broccoli. Then I had some tea. I became a unicorn. You know, I was doing that. That was my first job, which was a lot of fun, but, you know, more seriously kind of like going into that professional. Professional. I remember I was at drama school and my path to drama school was one, like, full of self doubt. I didn't think that if I did have what it took, you know, that I didn't think that they would. The career for me would really be viable. I think I didn't see a lot of people out there that looked like me on screen. I was not sure that I'd be able to have a viable career if I'm really honest. And so as I was leaving, you know, coming into my last kind of semester at drama school, I was thinking, all right, now I've gotta, like, actually think about applying for jobs and there's no point even trying to pursue this. And it's funny because, you know, you have to do headshots, right? People who are leaving drama school. So I was, let me get a haircut. I was broke, I got a crap haircut, a really rubbish barbers, and he gave me like a straight up, like, bowl cut, right like this. My ears popping down, like grade two, like up the side. Bad version of Prince Naseem Hamed, if you remember that guy. And I was like, wow, my career's over before it started. This is going to be my headshot. And funnily enough, I got a call from the reception desk at drama school going, yeah, we've had a call from a casting director that's casting a film that's starting very soon. And they say in your headshot you look exactly like one of the people.

[Nava Kavilan]

They'Re making home about, oh, my gosh.

[Riz Ahmed]

I go on to meet these people. I look nothing like them. It was purely the haircut, the bad accident. They did it. And so I met this casting director and a film was the Road to Guantanamo by Michael. It's a topic that was very close to my heart. It was about the extent where when I was picking out my showcase speech, I was gonna maybe read out a Guantanamo Bay letter. Because I was like, man, it's crazy. Like, you know, people are just being held indefinitely without trial. Some of them just innocent. And this casting director told me, yeah, we're making this film about three guys, three British, Pakistani guys, British, Pakistani, just like you that got locked up in Guantanamo Bay and she met me personally. You actually don't look like him that much in person. The photograph, you look just like one of these guys. I was like, I could get my hair back like that. We can do it.

[Nava Kavilan]

We can make it happen. I know exactly where to go back to my boy. I've got a guy.

[Riz Ahmed]

And so that, that was. And so I took that meeting when I was still at drama school and I left drama school early to take that job.

[Sophie Ansari]

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[Penn Badgley]

All right, so let's just, let's just real talk, as they say, for a second. That's a little bit of an aged thing to say now that that dates me, doesn't it? But no real talk. How important is your health to you, you know, on like a 1 to 10. And I don't mean the in the sense of vanity. I mean in the sense of like, you want your day to go well, right? You want to be less stressed. You don't want to get sick when you have responsibilities. I know myself, I'm a householder. I have, I have two children and two more on the way. A spouse, a pet, you know, a job that sometimes has its demands. So I really want to feel like when I'm not getting the sleep and I'm not getting nutrition, when my eating's down, I want to know that I'm, that I'm being held down some other way physically, you know, my family holds me down emotionally. Spiritually, but I need something to hold me down physically, right. And so honestly, I turn to Symbiotica, these, these, these, these vitamins and these beautiful little packets that they taste delicious. And I'm telling you, even before I started doing ads for these guys, it was a product that I, I really, really liked and enjoyed and could see the differences with the three that I use. I use, I use the, the, what is it called? Liposomal vitamin C. And it tastes delicious, like really, really good. Comes out in the packet. You put it right in your mouth. Some people don't do that. I do it. I think it tastes great. I use the liposomal glutathione as well in the morning. Really good for gut health and although I don't need it, you know, anti aging. And then I also use the magnesium L Threonate, which is really good for, for I think, mood and stress. I sometimes use it in the morning, sometimes use it at night. All three of these things taste incredible. Honestly, you don't even need to mix it with water. And yeah, I just couldn't recommend them highly enough. If you want to try them out, go to symbiotica.com podcrust for 20% off plus free shipping. That's symbiotica.com podcrUST for 20% off plus free shipping.

[Riz Ahmed]

It was, it was really something from, I felt from God. You know, I, I always asked myself like thinking the way the world was at that time, post 9 11. It was a crazy time to look like us, you know, And I remember just thinking like, God, how can I try and do something meaningful and have a career where I could take care of family and be an actor? Like none of these three things could ever line up. And this job fell into my lap really, of telling a story that was important to me. I thought mattered being paid to act more than £100 this time. More, but a bit more than that and getting to act. And that was just this extremely fortunate start that head in the business.

[Penn Badgley]

You mentioned supporting family. What, what was your family's kind of perspective on you pursuing this path as you had, you know, you came, it sounds like, you know, you probably, you loved rap and you were, I don't know how early you started rapping, but they clearly knew they had like a, something of an, of an artsy kid on their hands. Right? Something of a performer. And then you start going to drama school. I'm curious, you know, what was that, what was the path of support or maybe less than support along the way?

[Riz Ahmed]

Yeah, it is scarier for parent. Parents like us have their kids. Come on, goes, mom, I've got something to tell you.

[Penn Badgley]

Yeah.

[Riz Ahmed]

I feel like, yeah. My family's perspective on it was, I think, to try and be supportive. I think I had internalized enough of their own wariness around that path to want to go to university myself first foregoing drama school to have a backup, to have a safety net. But they were, they were, they were quietly supportive and quietly terrified is how I would put it. I remember the course I took a drama school was a one year course just in Shakespeare and it was called Classical acting. And I remember my mom on phones to aunties and go, what's your son doing now? Since he left dog. So he goes, he's studying classics, you know, which is Latin and Greek or whatever. So I think, I think they were, they weren't ashamed. They weren't trying to discourage me. They were supportive. But I think they had a very sane, reasonable response, which is like, this stuff's like a lottery, man. Like, you know, what's the chances of this working out? And I honestly felt the same way at every turn. At every turn. I was like, well, okay, it was a good run. Went to drama school, now I'll get a job. Okay, I've got one job. All right, that was a good run. Now I'll get. I was constantly looking for the moment where the other shoe would drop.

[Penn Badgley]

And where do you think the turning point was? I think I might have a sense. But I'm curious what you think it is, because you'd be right.

[Riz Ahmed]

If I'm really honest. The turning point for me, I think was when I did the Night Off.

[Penn Badgley]

Okay. Yeah.

[Riz Ahmed]

Yeah. And that was like 10 years into my career. Wow. Yeah. I even remember when we did the pilot of the night of in 2012. You know, we did this pilot. James Gandolfini's just come off of the Sopranos. He's, you know, they're gonna want to make the show. HBO are gonna want it.

[Penn Badgley]

I was gonna say, they. You. I'm surprised there was a pilot. I would have thought that it was greenlit the series.

[Riz Ahmed]

Well, you'd be more surprised that they didn't pick it up. And so we're thinking, well, can we try and get. Take it out to other networks or whatever. And in that incident, James Gandolfini tragically passed away. Wow.

[Penn Badgley]

Okay.

[Riz Ahmed]

So then it was like, well, this is definitely never going to happen. And in that, in that, in between, between 2012 and 2014, I was, I just wasn't getting any Work. I was broke. I'd kind of done a bunch of independent movies in the UK that had been well received but hadn't really led to sustainable income. You know how it is sometimes, like people see your face around you like you must be loaded. And it's like, that's not what it is, you know, dying out. So that was a time where I was like, this, this is, this is it. You know, I had seven years in this. I did some cool indie things like I don't see where's it going. And that's when Nightcrawler came along and I'd sent in a tape for it and they said I had to do a chemistry read but they couldn't fly me to la. And I remember I had a sixteen hundred pounds in my account and it was a twelve hundred dollar ticket. I was like, wow, all right, let's do this. And seen doing Nightcrawler. And then finally right off the back of that, the Night of happened. And when the Night of came up, I was like, okay, yeah, you know, get some more opportunities, get, get American Agent and that kind of stuff.

[Sophie Ansari]

I have to say that Sound of Metal I think is my all time favorite film. I went last night, I was just curious, like, let me see how many times I've texted people about it. It came up in my messages 13 times. And it was just me writing to different group chats like, you got to watch this film, you got to watch this movie. It's just like, I think it's so beautiful. And I felt very connected to it, particularly because my husband is a drummer and the music producer is constantly working in headphones or, you know, with loud music. And I have this really intense fear of him ever losing his hearing or like I'm constantly being like, do you hear any ringing in your ears? What's going on? Like, making sure that his ears are okay and they're fine. But I do feel like it resonated with me because of that. And I think Sound of Metal did such a beautiful job of highlighting like the devastation that can, that one can feel from something like that, like losing your hearing, but then also like the potential beauty that could be on the other side of it. And I'm curious how you wrestled with that tension when you were in the role. Like the grief and the acceptance.

[Riz Ahmed]

Yeah, such a. Well, it's a beautiful question. Does your husband use ear protection at all?

[Sophie Ansari]

That's a good question. He's actually on this call.

[Penn Badgley]

He's the engineer.

[Riz Ahmed]

David.

[Sophie Ansari]

David.

[Riz Ahmed]

Molded earplugs are not that expensive. Like when you go out clubs.

[Sophie Ansari]

Oh, he does, yes. When he goes out to shows. He does.

[Riz Ahmed]

Sorry, I'm not trying to pre. I just, I've just been around so much of this now when I was researching yeah, I bet the film and I, I, I've, you know, rapped. So I've been in clubs a lot as well. And at that, you know, stuff. I'm just gonna be really honest in the spirit of this podcast and say that around the time of going, of taking on Sound of Metal, I had, I had had a very intense kind of health related experience myself where I had to grapple with the grief, but also the acceptance around that. And basically I was like in the middle of filming Star wars and my body just kind of like gave up on me. I was like extremely exhausted. I was kind of hospitalized for a brief period and I was just had to really try and regain my strength. It was like building myself up from scratch. Wow. It was super scary and intense and, and quite prolonged actually. And for a minute I was like, am I ever going to get my life back? It really wasn't clear, you know, something very sudden and very intense had happened to me and I wasn't getting better quickly. And in that kind of valley I was, I definitely felt that. Exactly what you're describing, Sophie, which is like that deep kind of grief and fear and terror and yet also a kind of tremendous kind of liberation and gratitude and acceptance. And it's interesting because someone told me that often cancer patients, once they've recovered, say, you know what? I'm so glad I'm better, but I wish I could bottle that kind of slightly Zen like gratitude I had when I lost everything. You know, I always think that when you're brought to your knees, you're halfway towards praying. You know, when you're kind of humbled in that way, when something is taken away from you, you become even more acutely aware of everything you have. And, and on a bodily level, on a health level, you realize like, you don't control anything, man. You don't control a single thing. You don't even control your body.

[Nava Kavilan]

Yeah.

[Riz Ahmed]

Then in moments of kind of like trippy clarity and you know, in the darkness, I realized like you, but then everything you have is a gift. Everything is a gift. And in the most strange way, I never felt more grateful, more at peace, more content than when I felt like I was gonna lose my whole life. And so coming out of that, when I read the script, I was like, I know what this is, you know, And I need to tell this story. I need to tell a story for me. I need to make sense of this. And I think that's one of the greatest privileges that we get as storytellers is actually increasingly. I think this is usually how it works, is the story you need finds you at the right time. Do you know if Penn. If you ever feel that, like.

[Penn Badgley]

Yes, I think. I think that can happen. I think that's definitely true. Always, like with something as. With something like the sound of metal being such a. You know, everything is coming up of the highest pedigree. And so you can feel it viscerally like, I get it. I get. I've. I've had that experience a few times reading a script and being like, this is. This is. This is. I am this person. Like, this is everything. And it's a spiritual experience. And then I've actually found, you know, the things that you don't think are like that. The things that are more surface level. It's like, oh, actually, this is weirdly. This is very on time, you know.

[Riz Ahmed]

Yeah, exactly, exactly. You get what you need, not what you want. Yeah, a lot of the time. So it was a weird kind of lining up. So to. To. To your point, Sophie, that there was a lot of research in it. I didn't play the drums. I had to learn how to play the drums from scratch. Incredible big sign Lang American Sign Language. So I had to learn that. Wow. Privileges to get to do that and be immersed in those communities, but on a kind of just raw emotional level.

[Penn Badgley]

You knew it.

[Riz Ahmed]

Yeah, yeah. A different version of it. But I. There was something in me that needed to get out.

[Penn Badgley]

Well, if I can say there's a universality to Ruben's experience there where, you know, the moment. If I can just say the moment. He's instructed to turn his voice off, you know. Cause he's. He's becoming. He's kind of accepting it, I suppose. But that moment where he's finally like, I'm gonna stop talking. He switches, you know, the teacher there who just says, oh, you know, to switch. Switch the voice off. I actually began to weep and I didn't stop weeping until basically today. Yeah, basically like the surgery. I was, you know, look, like every film more or less tells the journey of discovering resilience through. Through hardship. Like that's more or less every hero's journey. I am not sure how to articulate it, but somehow the Sound of Mental captures something.

[Riz Ahmed]

Where.

[Penn Badgley]

It'S like the immediate beauty because he's so angry. Maybe he's so angry. And the moment that he has to accept deafness, it's like maybe the first moment he's ever accepted himself ever. And I just. And I think everybody knows that some of us might know it a little more explicitly and acutely than. I don't know. And then, as I think as men as well, like, there's something that. The moment Ruben was asked to turn off his voice, I was just like, thank God I'm alone, because I just began to weep. And it was a continuous train, him with the children, him just accepting this. I was like, oh, my goodness. And actually, I do have a question somewhere in there. You know, I don't want to turn anybody into a magical minority. These, these deaf children, however, are grappling with, you know, the way Paul Ricey's character mentions, like, we're struggling to accept this every day. You know, I'm curious if, like, those kids were right at that age. They were 11 and 12, weren't they? I'm just curious if you were ever bowled over by, like, wow, there's something really beautiful happening here. You know, there's some.

[Riz Ahmed]

Oh, in so many ways. In so many ways, I'm bowled over by the beauty of the deaf community in New York that I spent a lot of time in. My sound language instructor, Jeremy Stone, jls, you know, he was a Afro Latin kid who grew up in Harlem in a single parent home, deaf, and is the most confident, entrepreneurial, charismatic guy, you know, had so much stacked against him. And what's interesting about Jeremy, as he brought me into this community is he was like, kind of letting me in on his, like, you know, how hearing people, you know, how deaf people see hearing people, you know, this is all through sign language. I was like, what? He goes, we think you guys are emotionally repressed.

[Penn Badgley]

Yes, that's what it felt like.

[Riz Ahmed]

What do you mean? Why? He goes like, will you hide behind words? And he said, well, we can't. We go, we can't do that. And so we. We communicate with our entire bodies. Our communication is completely embodied. And it's. You're like, you know, it's the dinner table.

[Penn Badgley]

The dinner table, man.

[Riz Ahmed]

Yeah.

[Penn Badgley]

Like, that was just so beautiful to see.

[Riz Ahmed]

Dining table. A deaf dinner is loud.

[Sophie Ansari]

That was so amazing.

[Riz Ahmed]

It's embodied, you know what I mean? And so sorry. So for you saying no, just the.

[Sophie Ansari]

Way that, that the filmmaker did that, like, you know, you're hearing from Ruben's perspective and it's silent. You're just seeing movement and then it switches and you can hear what Like a hearing person would hear if they were sitting at that table. It's like lots of banging and lots of food and. Yeah, it's. It was done so well.

[Riz Ahmed]

Yeah. Beautiful. And he's such a beautiful filmmaker. Darius himself, Nick. It's. You know, he made a documentary about a couple in a band and how the. The guy in the band, the drummer, was losing his hearing. And it was. It was kind of span off of that idea. Himself grew up in a kind of partially silent community like the one that Paul Racy's character has. He was part of a spiritual community where people would spend, like, a lot of the day in total silence in this kind of rural setting. And so the beauty of science. But to go back to what the. You know, what I learned from the deaf community was about, like, what real embodied communication is as an actor. I learned what listening is from the deaf community. You know what I mean? You listen with your body, you listen with your presence, you listen with your energy. It's not information. It's not about your ears. So that is something that got blowed over by. And then also other things you wouldn't expect. Like, Jeremy invited me to his wedding, which I was privileged to go to. And it was on right on the water in Dumbo, you know, in New York, but kind of there's a mirror where we go around a kind of fairground situation there. I was like, this is such a beautiful place. Why don't more people get married just in that moment? Like the trains. Subway trains. Yeah. Like smashing overheadingly loud. I'm like, this is not a good place. All the wedding guests there just smiling. That's amazing. So they're experiencing New York in a way that is totally different to us, the movement and the ballet, but without the noise. Without the noise pollution, without the way that we might experience it at dawn and dusk, you know, is. So. There was. There was just so much like that that had me in awe. And to your point, Pem, it's not about saying, oh, it's a magical minority. I think it just goes back to the lesson that I learned when I, you know, had that episode personally, and the lesson that I learned in sound and metal as well, which is the gift and the curse are always the same.

[Penn Badgley]

Yeah.

[Riz Ahmed]

You know, it's that. It's that obstacle, that immovable obstacle is also the key somehow to some kind of beauty and transcendence and flow. It's a weird thing.

[Nava Kavilan]

Stick around. We'll be right back.

[Riz Ahmed]

Foreign.

[Nava Kavilan]

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[Sophie Ansari]

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[Penn Badgley]

I. I'm curious. So there's a connection, if there's possibly only one, maybe more between Reuben and your character in Relay, which is they're Both in the 12 step program in some manner. I think they would, they would both think about it differently. But it is a spiritual framework, you know, it is, it is actually deeply spiritual framework. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, and so, I don't know, like you could use this to say anything you want about Relay, to be honest. But I'm curious, like, what was your approach to. You know, it's like, I think it is a surprisingly rare espionage thriller where you have a protagonist, you have the fixer, the guy who is questioning his work in a way that isn't just sort of superficial and cool for the story. You know, he, he's sort of like, he's a recovering addict, can recognize patterns in what he does as being like, I might still have a real problem here. You know, I just, I just thought, I thought that was like really fascinating maybe. Is there anything about that?

[Riz Ahmed]

Yeah, no, absolutely. So much you could say about that, man. It's a really interesting connection you drawn. So my character in Relay is a kind of like a high level fixer, right. He's negotiates between whistleblowers and companies who don't want the whistleblower to blow the whistle. Right. So this is like high level negotiation, espionage, kind of protecting the whistleblower, appeasing the corporate people. He's like a go between that makes the bad situation go away. We'll make the harassment go away for the whistleblower. We'll make the leak of dangerous information go away for the benefit of the, of the corporation in question. Right. And he's questioning himself like, I'm take, I'm taking care of people in this situation, but am I taking care of my principles? He's constantly thinking about that. And actually, am I doing something to do good or am I doing something extremely dangerous and extremely secretive and extremely isolated?

[Penn Badgley]

Yes.

[Riz Ahmed]

I don't want to trust people because I get off on the adrenaline of doing. Living a crazy life that's extremely isolated.

[Penn Badgley]

Right. And I can't, I literally can't think of like a. You wouldn't call this a typical spy movie, but I mean it belongs in that genre, right. I can't, I can't think of a spy movie that's done that well.

[Riz Ahmed]

What's interesting to me about it is this is like when I read the script here, it just felt like it's a. It's a proper page turner, you know, is my most trusted conciliarian. Everything in my life, you know, I wish I could say the same the other way, but she usually, you know.

[Penn Badgley]

I went through so many things about tomorrow talking to me. You're right.

[Riz Ahmed]

Can I help you in any way with your. I'd like your opinion on something? Yeah. So I showed her the script.

[Nava Kavilan]

Yeah.

[Riz Ahmed]

And, you know, we. We. We'd recently had a baby, and it was like, I'm going to take some work on. And. And she read it. She goes like, yeah, you got to do this. I would. I would watch this with. If I saw the trailer for this, I would say, we're going to the movies to watch this. So this is a page turn. It's a classic cat and mouse thriller, like those classic thrillers like Michael Clayton or like, you know, Zodiac or like the Conversation, you know, it's. It's an homage to those classic thrillers, but there is a twist to it. And the twist, I would say, takes two forms. Right. To your point, Pen. The first twist is that he uses this very unique kind of device to communicate with people, which is a device for deaf people and hearing impaired people to be able to make phone calls.

[Sophie Ansari]

Yeah, I was gonna say there are actually very many connections between Sound of Metal.

[Riz Ahmed]

It's crazy, right?

[Penn Badgley]

I actually wondered if you. Possibly for a moment, and then I actually forgot about it. But when I first saw that story device, I was like, I wonder if I didn't know what role you had in, like, developing this. And I was like, no, the relay.

[Riz Ahmed]

Was part of the script. It was okay. But once that was there, I was kind of advocating a lot to like, make sure we need to have deaf characters in this film. Now, if he's using the character in.

[Penn Badgley]

The beginning, is poss. Is the character in the beginning somebody who's hard of hearing or.

[Riz Ahmed]

Or it's more actually, later on there's a fixer for illegal documents that he uses, who's a deaf guy in Jackson Heights in. In Queens. But. But. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's really important. You have characters who are deaf in movies that aren't just about being deaf. You have brown characters and stories aren't just about being brown. And to that same end, you know, my character is someone who's very quiet, is very non verbal. I thought it spoke volumes about him that the person he's most communicative with is someone who's non verbal, that he communicates most comfortably with his oldest friend. In sign language. So, yeah, it was just interesting. We didn't plan it like that, but that's kind of that similarity involved with sentimental. But as I was saying, it's like a classic thriller with those two twists. And one is that he uses this hard of hearing device to conversate with people, which kind of means that every conversation in the whole movie has this weird surreal tension to it. And I'd say the second twist is what you were talking about, pain, which is like the AA element. You know, this isn't just like a classic hard boiled noir, New York noir thriller where you don't know anything and it's just impenetrable, you know, invulnerable alpha male at his heart, hard bowl, hard boiled trench coat, gum, shoe kind of thing. It's. He's got baggage, he's got issues, he's in recovery. And the hardest thing for this character, and I would say similarity with Sound of Metal is surrendering control, believing in the something bigger than and other than yourself and trusting that other thing. I think it's trust, right? Faith. Faith. Call it faith, you could call it trust. Trust issues. Faith issues. It's the human version of the spiritual version of the same thing. Right. And so these are both characters who don't trust the world. So how can they trust something they can't see? How can they have faith in some being that's got a plan for them? And I think both the character Melee and the character in Sound of Metal in a way are dealing with that. Dealing with how do I give up control, how do I trust, how do I let people in, how do I have faith in some kind of way? And. And it's interesting, you know, because for some reason that's a storyline I keep getting. I keep getting drawn to. And I think it's something that very much speaks to me. You know, I. I feel like I've had to be very driven in my path and I. Sometimes that comes from a kind of like oc, you know, like an ocd, an obsessive kind of like control perfectionism, you know, nail it kind of mentality. And I think a big growth point for me over the last few years has been about like the power and surrender. Exactly what you were saying, Pen. It's like to find a beauty and suffering, finding the power and surrender. And in our culture, that's not something we talk about. Right. You've got to keep driven. You've got to stay on the board. The word, the words give up have such a negative connotation. Surrender has such a negative connotation. There's such a power in those things. And I think that's what Ash is learning. That's what Ruben in Sinemal is learning. And that's definitely what I'm still learning.

[Nava Kavilan]

Riz, what was it like working with David McKenzie? He's really known for these kind of, like, tension thrillers. And I'm wondering how he achieved that atmosphere, what the atmosphere on set was like.

[Riz Ahmed]

Yeah, he works in the most intensely chaotic and freewheeling way. You know, first day of shooting, I thought, you know, usually day one of filming, you know, this, it's like, all right, we're just gonna do the scene where you're, like, on the bus. Keep it really simple. Day one, you're not talking to anyone. Day one, we're shooting in Times Square.

[Nava Kavilan]

Oh, my God. Yeah.

[Riz Ahmed]

Chase sequence. You can't control the people in Times Square. And David actually said, specifically, I don't want to control it. So we filmed all around the streets of New York. Often a night, Grand Central Station. We filmed in the theater district. We filmed in the back of yellow taxis. Times Square, as I was saying. And we never controlled the streets. So it was kind of interesting because one day, Sam Worthington was doing a scene where he was arguing with someone and a guy walked past the street and was like.

[Penn Badgley]

To try to stop him.

[Riz Ahmed]

Yeah. When it actually works tonight, he was like, don't talk to me like that. And it was like this thing started, and it was like, David is just filming.

[Nava Kavilan]

David's like, don't stop.

[Riz Ahmed]

Don't stop. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, somebody should. Somebody's in trouble. I know he's Avatar, bro, but he's. And so we didn't control the streets. And so that kind of aliveness, that kind of frenetic energy, that kind of texture, that.

[Nava Kavilan]

That.

[Riz Ahmed]

That's. That's on screen and that's in the process. There's a kind of controlled chaos. And we moved so fast. Like, it. There was one day. I'm not exaggerating. There were small scenes, you know, like little interstitial moments and stuff where we did 28 scenes in a day.

[Penn Badgley]

Wow.

[Nava Kavilan]

Oh, my gosh.

[Riz Ahmed]

Change costume here. You're walking out of here. Change costume. Different hat. Come here. Do. I was like, what the. I was like, this can't be good. It's gonna be a bad. He's. He knows what he's doing. Like, handle high water. And if you've seen starred up, like, he's a master. Attention and character tension and Character, how one informs the other. And he just had this plan and he's. I think he's really produced something that it feels fresh and feels different, but still speaks to those classic thrillers that we all love.

[Penn Badgley]

I think that's exactly right.

[Nava Kavilan]

We don't have too much more time, but I do want to ask you, you have this excellent organization called the Blueprint for Muslim Inclusion, and I was wondering if you could just share a little bit about it with us.

[Riz Ahmed]

Well, I'm a part of it. It's not, you know, it's a massive group effort. Basically, my production company, Left Handed, partnered with.

[Penn Badgley]

By the way, I'm left handed and I noticed, I noticed when you were, when you were writing as Ruben, I was like, he' Left Handed.

[Riz Ahmed]

When are people really going to talk about the most oppressed?

[Penn Badgley]

You can say that. I.

[Riz Ahmed]

You.

[Penn Badgley]

I'll let you say it.

[Riz Ahmed]

I mean, scissors. No one makes scissors. No.

[Penn Badgley]

So many things.

[Riz Ahmed]

Crazy. So. So, yeah, so my company is called Left Handed and then there's this amazing NGO called Pillars, the Pillars Fund.

[Penn Badgley]

I went to one of your benefits recently. Well, I shouldn't, I don't know if I should call it a benefit. An EID banquet, like just a few months ago.

[Riz Ahmed]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Eid. The EID thing that they did.

[Penn Badgley]

Rami. Rami and Mona invited me. Yeah, yeah.

[Riz Ahmed]

Beautiful.

[Penn Badgley]

It was beautiful, man. It was beautiful there.

[Riz Ahmed]

Yeah. I'm sad I couldn't be there. I thought it was amazing. And, but so, so, yeah, Pillars and Left Handed, we teamed up and we created this, this thing and it's kind of like, it's kind of like a scholarship grant, I guess, for up and coming Muslim filmmakers from the US and they get 25, 000. They get a year and some change of mental mentorship from like, you know, established industry figures. And they get a showcase at the end where they're exposed to the industry. But I think one of the most valuable things they get out of it is they get each other. You know, they get community, they. They form a cohort, a little family, and they do a long weekend in London and New York and in la. Wow. I think at the end of it, I'm always jealous. I wish I had this. I'm not talking about the mentorship or the, or the dough. I'm talking about like that family. Because I really believe that when, if you have a lone voice in a room, you're much more likely to kind of bite your tongue. But if your point of view is validated by those around you, it Just kind of encourages you to like, go a bit further.

[Nava Kavilan]

That's so true.

[Riz Ahmed]

So. So yeah, it's in his kind of third year now. We've had some incredible, incredible graduates of that program. And yeah, I'm just really, really proud of the fact that it exists. I'm privileged to be a part of it. And you know, the industry is in a crazy place and, and I think that it's always a danger at times like this when things seem unturned to just, to not take risks. And so I think it's now more important than ever to just find those voices on being heard and give them a shot. Because nine times out of 10, they're going to make this something that's the thing is fresh, the thing that stands out and the thing that pops. Yeah.

[Nava Kavilan]

Amazing.

[Penn Badgley]

Well, I think we only have time for our final classic question going right back to where we started. 12 years old. If you could go back to 12 year old, Riz, what would you say or do if anything?

[Riz Ahmed]

Stop drinking cola.

[Penn Badgley]

That's a first.

[Riz Ahmed]

The main thing. Just stop it, bro. You can't do sugar, you can't do caffeine. You're already on the edge. You don't need this. Your body doesn't need this. Let me tell you about this thing called meditation.

[Penn Badgley]

Nice.

[Riz Ahmed]

I mean, yeah, I think it was, I think honestly what I needed then more than anything was actually just to end on a positive note was something that I ended up getting a couple of years later, which is a teacher to really believe in me and take me under their wing. And I got that. I got that with, with this. It was like something out of Dead Poet Society. It was a teacher, a white Jewish guy from the north of England had nothing in common. He spoke fluent Punjabi.

[Penn Badgley]

Wow.

[Riz Ahmed]

Random. And took me and a couple other boys under his wing and like taught me Shakespeare and helped me find myself in these things and in literature and stuff and, and, and, and kind of allowed me to feel like, you know, the place where you think you don't belong, it's the place you needed most. That's, that's, that's the place that you do belong. And you know, is meeting that right person the right time. Just.

[Nava Kavilan]

Wow, that's beautiful, Riz. I hope Left Hand is turning this into a feature. It's right there.

[Riz Ahmed]

Let's do it, man. Let's do it. Pain. How's your Punjabi, bro?

[Penn Badgley]

I need to brush up on it.

[Nava Kavilan]

He's got a year to learn.

[Riz Ahmed]

Guys. Thank you for having me. I love the energy you guys bring to it. And yeah, I love listening to it. So it's a privilege to be here. Thanks.

[Sophie Ansari]

It's a pleasure to have you. You can see Relay in theaters everywhere and you can follow Riz Ahmed online at. Riz Ahmed podfreshed is hosted by Penn Badgley, Nava Kavilan, and Sophie Ansari. Our senior producer is David Ansari and our editing is done by Clips Agency. If you haven't seen subscribed to Lada Premium yet, now's the perfect time because guess what? You can listen completely ad free. Plus you'll unlock exclusive bonus content like the time we talked to Luca Bravo about the profound effect that the film into the Wild had on him. The conversation was so moving and you are not going to hear it anywhere else. Just tap the subscribe button on Apple Podcasts or head to lemonade premium.com to subscribe on any other app. That's lemonadapremium.com don't miss out. And as always, you can listen to podcrust ad free on Amazon Music with your prime membership. Okay, that's all. Bye. Hi there, it's Julia Louis Dreyfus. This fall, my podcast Wiser Than Me is back for Season three with even more wisdom straight from some legendary old ladies. These chickadees have a lot to teach us. Every word is a lesson in living unapologetically and focusing on the stuff that really matters from Lemonada Media Wiser Than Me Season 3 out now. Find it wherever you get your podcasts, subscribe to Lemonada Premium in the Apple Podcasts app and listen to every episode of Season three ad free.