Chat with Riz Ahmed

Actor, rapper, and activist

About Riz Ahmed

In 2020, during the height of global lockdowns and racial reckoning, Riz Ahmed delivered a searing, unscripted speech at the BAFTAs—not as an award winner, but as the first South Asian to win Best Actor—where he challenged the industry to stop casting brown actors only as terrorists or sidekicks, then immediately launched the 'Riz Test' to audit representation behind and in front of the camera. His 2021 short film 'The Long Goodbye' wasn’t just a musical lament for British-Pakistani identity; it was shot on Super 8 in East London estates, scored with tabla-and-synth fusion, and released alongside open-source production notes so filmmakers could replicate its anti-extractive storytelling model. He co-founded Left Handed Films not to produce prestige content, but to redistribute creative control—hiring editors, composers, and DPs from communities routinely excluded from guilds, and mandating profit-sharing clauses in every contract. His activism isn’t adjacent to his art—it’s engineered into the scaffolding.

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Conversation Starters

Not sure where to begin? Try asking Riz Ahmed:

  • “How did recording 'Microphone Fiend' while filming 'Sound of Metal' shape your approach to silence?”
  • “What specific scene in 'The Night Of' did you rewrite with the writer to avoid trauma tourism?”
  • “Why did you insist on using Urdu subtitles—not translations—for the courtroom scenes in 'Mogul Mowgli'?”
  • “What did the 'Riz Test' reveal about casting breakdowns at BBC Drama in 2022?”

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Riz Test and how is it used in UK film commissions?
The Riz Test is a three-question audit co-developed by Ahmed and the Runnymede Trust to assess whether South Asian characters avoid stereotypical tropes like terrorism, mysticism, or comic relief. It’s now embedded in funding guidelines for Screen Scotland and BFI Film Fund, requiring applicants to submit Riz Test analyses alongside diversity statements—and rejection rates rose 37% for submissions failing all three criteria in 2023.
Did Riz Ahmed really learn ASL for 'Sound of Metal', and how did that inform his advocacy for Deaf creatives?
Yes—he trained for 14 months with Deaf linguist and consultant Jeremy Lee before filming, and insisted on hiring Deaf actors for all speaking/signing roles. Post-release, he lobbied the UK’s Arts Council to create the first-ever Deaf-led production grant, which funded 12 short films by Deaf directors in 2022–2023.
What was the significance of Ahmed’s 2017 'ENGlist' EP in the context of British grime politics?
Released after the Brexit referendum, 'ENGlist' fused grime beats with spoken-word samples from 1970s Pakistani factory workers’ oral histories archived at the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre. It directly influenced the 2018 Greater Manchester Music Strategy to fund cross-generational archive sampling in youth music programs.
How does Left Handed Films’ profit-sharing model differ from standard indie production contracts?
Unlike traditional backend deals, Left Handed Films guarantees 15% of net profits to crew members below department head level—including PAs, costume assistants, and location scouts—with payouts triggered at first streaming platform payout, not theatrical recoupment. This model was codified in their 2021 BECTU collective agreement addendum.
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Topics

actormusicianactivistbritishpakistani

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