Podcrushed - Riz Ahmed

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

Join the gang as they dive deep with acclaimed actor Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal, Nightcrawler, Rogue One). From his 12-year-old self navigating between his British Pakistani community and a posh private school to the chance haircut that landed him his first big break, Riz regales the hosts with story after story after story. Don't miss this one!   Preorder our new book, Crushmore, here: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Crushmore/Penn-Badgley/9781668077993   Head to squarespace.com/PODCRUSHED to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code PODCRUSHED.   Cymbiotika is hosting their biggest giveaway ever this summer. Head to Cymbiotika.com/summersweepstakes to learn more.   Look for the blue box at retailers everywhere or shop jlab.com and use code PODCRUSHED for 15% off your order today.   Want more from Podcrushed? Follow our social channels here: Insta TikTok X   You can follow Penn, Sophie and Nava here: Insta @pennbadgley @scribbledbysophie @nnnava   TikTok @iampennbadgley @scribbledbysophie @nkavelin See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lemonada 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 at the wall and just kicked in the whole wall.

Welcome to Podcrushed. We're hosts. I'm Penn. I'm Sophie. And I'm Nava. And I think we would have been your middle school besties. You know, just rapping with your pals after school. Saffiring with your boys in Southkins. Welcome to Podcrushed. I'm joined by my co-host Sophie Ansari and Navakavalin. Welcome, welcome. Can we do a temperature check? Sophie Rizahmed has been your dream. guest in season one favorite actor how are you feeling uh 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'm i've melted i'm a little puddle it was so nice it was extremely charming 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 sort 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. Go ahead. And a few in a couple weeks

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 going to 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 is with code switching. So while Riz was sharing his stories, I was kind of thinking about how much that really resonated with me, this idea of trying to go between worlds and

trying to figure out which one you fit into. 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. I agree. It ends on a note where it's like, yeah, it's wistful, I guess. Yes, I owe Sophie a debt of gratitude because Sophie helped me advocate for keeping that essay in the book. Thank you, Sophie.

Of course. Can't wait for you guys to read out. And I would 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. Yeah. It's true, though.

It's true, though. of story you might so desire to read. And our guest today is incredible and such a great storyteller and you're going to love our conversation, truly. That's true. So we have today somebody that we've wanted since

season one. The rest of them? Never. That's not true. The whole podcast has been for Riz. Yeah. Yeah. 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 of Phoenician scheme, but he was here today for his latest film called Relay. Outside of film and 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 no joke. We absolutely loved having Riz.

Everybody really did, by the way. Really love having him on. you're going to like this one. Stick around. Does anyone else ever get that nagging feeling that their dog might be bored? And do you also feel like super guilty about it? Well, one way that I combat that feeling is I'm making meal time everything it can be for my little boy, Louis. Nom Nom does this with food that actually engages your pup senses with a mix of tantalizing smells, textures, and ingredients.

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lamb-peelaf guy. Keep mealtime exciting with nom-num available at your local pet smart store or at Chewy. Learn more at trynom.com slash podcrush spelled try n-o-m.com.com. slash podcrushed. Hey, it's Lena Waithe. Legacy Talk is my love letter to black storytellers, artists who've changed the game and paved the way for so many of us.

This season, I'm sitting down with icons like Felicia Rashad, the Red of Divine, Eva Du René, and more. We're talking about their journeys, their creative process, and the legacies they're building every single day.

Come be a part of the conversation. Season 2 drops July 29th. Listen to Legacy Talk wherever you get your podcast, or watch us on YouTube. 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. Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's such a beautiful, cool podcast. I love you. So thanks for having me.

I don't know if anybody prepped you, but we start at 12. That's the idea here. start at we start in adolescence as a formative period for everybody the arts play a huge role in development you you seem like a prime example of that um so you know just start with a snapshot of riz at 12 how is he seeing the world you know what was the world like day to day I'm sorry I need a moment well uh so listen 12 years old I have 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. There's 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, a British-Bakistani community of kind of, you know, immigrant parents. And, you know, 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 uh psychedelic colored storefronts of like

indian sweet shops and like places where you go in to get the little cassette tapes of the latest um hip hop and bollywood mix tape and um the parties were called daytimeer parties because south asian girls weren't allowed out at night and so we'd have all our raves and parties in the daytime and it was just whole soft culture in the 90s you know it was a very particular kind of vibe And then stepping out of my green and white Adidas Firebird track suit

there'd be the school uniform and they'd be the school tie and the school tie and it was like Hogwarts where you were 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. Wow. Wow. Wow. The guy who, like, did it, who got it over the line for, you know, for the, for the crown.

So it 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 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 with the 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 back you know, I would change out of the uniform when I'm going back 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 teenagers, even now, people in my community referred to me as a completely random nickname of Golu. Golu means round-o, round one.

I had a spherical head as a small child. But, you know, we were that close in the community where it's like your cousins are like your siblings and your family friends are like your cousins. And I was Gourou. You know, I was like loudmouthed goolu. 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 set up of what my world was like. And there was definitely a bit of a bumpy right. but looking back, as is often the case, it kind of makes you who you are and it's kind of enriching 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 like a meeting of those two sides of you. Yeah, it's interesting. I think 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 at the Post School wants to be hanging out in places like where I'm from anyway, you know what I mean? Yeah. Then the whole world starts 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 the daytime, as I said. Yeah. I love that. That's that little fact. Yeah, yeah. I made a short film about it, but 10 years ago called Daytimers. And now actually 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. You're doing their grocery shopping. You see a line of like 300 brown kids going around the corner from cities all over the UK to come to a daytime of party. That's so cool. So the daytime of party started kicking. off more. I mean, those, that more and more kids were like changing clothes and putting on the accent that I had in my neighbourhood. Do 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. Just 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 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 and at some point it comes to the head and you kind of got to pick like where you see yourself, what your future is, like 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, I would say, you know,

to original question pen, like that was my sanity. You know, that's how I could make sense of the idea that we have these shifting identities, you know. And that was a place where I could act out and then 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. Wow.

This might be a bit of like a psychotherapy sounding question. This is really, really intense. No, no, no, no. This is perfect for us. This is what we do, so this is perfect. So as you discovered acting, is that also when maybe you started to be known more as Riz? Is that where, you know, 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? Gulu was back. Golu, right. Hombom world, you know. Yeah, and then, and then Ahmed was at school. Ahmed was in school.

Or am I crafting too much of a narrative here? I mean, were you still Riz in plenty of places? The interesting thing about Riz is really usually you say that because when, you know, when you're a teenager and then you're out, the daytime party, no one's calling you Ahmed. So my friends from the neighborhood, like some of 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, Chortu, you know, this stuff like that, like the tall guy, the shogai, you know what I mean? It was like that, that kind of thing. Can I just say it's so funny that yours was GOLU because your face is so angular now? I know, it is. I can't connect to you.

Yeah, I think it was my brother just trying to troll me. My brother, yeah. but um but um so when people would call me by my name it was ris one you know and and then that was more at school so so riz is something that happened even later when i went to oxford okay you know when i went to oxford university and that was a whole other the 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 of 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 nation of Bob's, Dave's, Chris, Tom, Tim's.

Riz shouldn't 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 of 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

who's Rizwan? What is that? I love that. 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. That's beautiful. That is really beautiful. 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 Resvon Festival,

and it's like the king of festivals, and at least one meaning of Resvon is paradise. So for all of us that, that word is so special. And it's 12 days, man. It's 12. days long. Yeah, it's like our greatest festival is Rezvon.

Yeah. Why, um, just, you know, why haven't I been invited to this? You're coming next year. We've got to. Yeah, next one. Like, you're not going to invite Santa. Yeah. So true.

This is a total change of directions, but I'm Persian and we have a word in Farsi, which is Shaitoon, which means, like, sweetly mischievous. And just, like, doing the prep for this, it's like, Riz has such a chaytun 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. Oh, can I say we go the same word in Urdu, because so many Urdu from Farsi, so Shetan.

But Shetan means like devil. In Persian, it's a little sweeter, I think. It's like sweetly mischievous. Yeah, yeah, it's like sweet little devil. So I mean, stories of being mischievous. Like, yeah, I mean, I was just constantly in Saturday morning detention. So I used to just get, I think looking back, I probably had a bit of ADD, but we didn't have a language for that. And, you know, so I was just very, very restless in class.

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. Oh, wow. Honestly, if I can get kicked out of class, at least I can just like physically move. You know, to be walking around the corridors. And the teacher would say, what the hell are you doing out here? And the hallways, I'm in. And I go, Mr. So-and-so threw me out.

He goes, 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 going to tell this story. Okay.

Try, try it. We were doing a school play, and we used one of the classrooms as the changing rooms. And we were playing like football or 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, old savagery vibes, we just all looked at each other, looked to the wall, and just kicked in the whole wall. Wow.

It was like a non-verbal, like, the inner destructive chaytunes in us is being, we just kicked it in. We were just like, ah, ha, ha, ha. Like, guys, how are you going to cover that up? Yeah, exactly. We got a pinning over it. Like, half the wall was gone. Wait, to be clear, where were you?

You were in a classroom. In the classroom, after hours, you know, like this uses a changing room in the school. 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, if you say something about someone's mom, 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 said something about my mom actually I think it said something about my mom or my aunt and I threw a chair at them they went through the window oh my gosh

this is your first week of school this one chair leg yeah I look back on that now and it sounds worse than it felt like at the time sure I look and put like that pen don't want to be in a problem No, no, no, no, no. This was a safe space.

No, this is the 90s, man. It's like, I can fully appreciate it. It was like, yeah, all right, so that happened. Yeah. Wow. Do you feel like things were just a bit less regulated, like parenting was less like policing back there? For sure.

It just crazy things happened. Very much. So that's a couple of examples. I wish I'd thought of more playful ones. No, those are great. No, those are great. Okay, good. 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 your mom or your aunt, the women in your life. Very sweet, Riz. Thank you, so happy. I don't want to understand. 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. 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.

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 in an assembly to win. We need a small, you're Asian looking, your Asian, your Asian looking boy for, this thing and I auditioned and I got it and man

I just remember the feeling of being as a 11 year old that are just doting on you and just like 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 we're talking about acting I remember feeling like I want to belong here Do you know what I mean? Like this is a place 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 going to be honest part of like I think I was like yeah, that's acting stuff is fun You know what this is bringing back I have been plumbing my own memories of this time

Because I started acting I was you know I moved to L.A. to Hollywood when I was 12 and that was when I got my first job 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 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 yeah exactly so i think that that was a kind of big thing for me um 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 yeah in that department anything anything of heartbreak is a bit different you know heartbreak is like um and it can be more mature too i think it can be so formative

And it's so formative that you may not want to share here. But if there is a story of that kind of classic first heartbreak, you know, that is something that we deal in. That's our wheelhouse. 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. It's actually really nice to hear. I feel like we do 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 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 I did or, yeah, I feel like. that's more common than than we actually show on this show a lot. Yeah, it's interesting because I kind of felt like I mean, don't get me wrong, you're going to a daytime of party, you know, you might be someone.

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 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 you know they were a bit perilous you know you get caught like you know yeah

getting 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 it wasn't really until kind of I left home and went to university that I really started

you know dating properly I found really fun. 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? Yeah. So doing it professionally, it's interesting because the first paid job I had was something like that Hampstead Theatre, 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. and 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 would 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 suddenly just like theater kids everywhere. It was cool. And anyway, I did a reading, an impromptory

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 they said And the fee is 100 pounds And I was like Yeah, of course Absolutely, thank you I remember hanging up thinking

I got to get 100 pounds from somewhere I thought I'd have to pay For the privilege Of acting in this theatre You know I was just like I'm going to get paid to do this

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 professional 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 that career for me would really be viable or I think I didn't see a lot of people out there that looked like me on the 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 drama school I was thinking all right now I've got 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 at a really rubbish barbers. And it gave me like a straight up like bowl cut, right? With the forehead like this, my ears popping down, like grade two, like up the side. No, why? I had a version of Prince Nassim Hamid, if you remember that guy. And I was like, wow, my career's over before he 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, it's casting a film that's starting very soon. and they say in your headshot you look exactly like one of the people they're making a film about Oh my gosh

I go on to meet these people I don't know 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 Interbottom

It was 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 going to 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 someone's just innocent and this cast and already told me here 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 made me in person you actually don't look like in that much in person the photograph you look just like one of these guys I was like I could get my hair about that like that we can do it I know exactly where to go I've got a guy

and so that was and so I was and so I took that meeting when I was still at drama school, when I left drama school early to take that job. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. Meet J-Lab. Headphones and speakers as vibrant as your summer, beach days, workout sessions, or chill moments.

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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 it as sick. When you have responsibilities, I know myself, I'm a house, 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 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 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 really really liked and enjoyed and could see the differences with the three that I use I use I use 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 L3 and 8 which is really good 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 slash podcrush for 20% off plus free shipping That's symbiotica.com slash podcrushed for 20% off plus free shipping. It was really something from, I felt from God, you know, I always asked myself like, simply the way the world was at times 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 a 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 Matt had being paid to act more than £100 this time. It's not more, but a bit more than that. And again, to act. And that was just this extremely fortunate start that I had in the business.

You mentioned supporting family. 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 loved rap, but you were, I don't know how early you sort of rapping, but they clearly knew they had like something 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. Yeah. You're just scarier for parents, parents like cars, to have their kids come on and go, well, I'm going to somebody to tell you. Yeah. 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 weariness 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 quietly supportive and quietly terrified is how I would put it I remember the course that I took a drama school it was a one-year course just in Shakespeare and it was called classical acting and I remember my mum on phones to aunties

and go what's the son doing now since he left dogs with he goes he's studying classics studying classics you know which is Latin and Greek or whatever So I think 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. Oh, okay, I got one job. All right, that was a good run.

Now I was constantly looking for, the moment where that the shoe would drop. 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. If I'm really honest, the turning point for me, I think, was when I did The Night of. Okay, yeah. 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 Gandalfini just come off of the surprise. He's, you know, they're going to want to make the show. HBO are going to want it. I was going to say, I'm surprised there was a pilot.

I would have thought that it was greenlit the series. Well, you'd be more surprised that they didn't pick it up. And this is what I'm thinking, well, can we try and take it out to other networks? So wherever in that interim, James Gandalfini tragically passed away. Wow, okay, I didn't know that. But then he was like, well, this is definitely never going to happen. In that, in that, in 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 it hadn't really led to sustainable income. You know how it is. Sometimes people see your face around you. You're like, you must be loaded. And it's like, that's not what it is, you know, seeing who's dying out.

So that was a time where I was like, 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 it's 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 $1,600 pounds in my account and it was a $1,200 ticket to go to LA as sure notice I was like Wow let's do this and it's in doing night crawler and then finally right off the back of that

the night of happened and when the night off came up up i was like okay yeah you know get some more opportunities get get american agent and that kind of stuff um 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've 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 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. Yeah, it's such a, wow, it's a beautiful question. Does your husband use air protection at all? That's a good question. He's actually on this call. He's the engineer. David. Yeah, David.

The molded ear plugs are not that expensive. Like when you go out, clubs, oh, he does. Yes, yes. When he goes out to shows, he does. Yeah, man. Sorry, I'm not trying to pre- I've just been proud so much of this now

when I was recent. Yeah, I bet. Look, I've, you know, rap, so I've been in clubs a lot as well and at that, you know, to net, stuff. I just couldn't be really honest in the spirit of this podcast and say that around the time of taking on Sound of Metal

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 I had to really try and re-grain my strength. It was like building myself up from scratch. Wow.

It was super scary and intense 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 silent 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 the 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 and 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 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 the body. Then in moments of kind of like trippy clarity and, you know, in the darkness, I realized like you, well, then everything you have is a gift. Everything is a gift.

And in a most strange way, I never felt more grateful, more at peace, more content than when I felt like I was going to 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 us. 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 you, Penn, if you ever feel that, like, yes, I think, I think that can happen. I think it's definitely true always. Like, with something as,

with something like the sound of metal being such a, you know, everything is coming up with the highest pedigree. And so you can feel it viscerally. Like, I get it. I get, I've, I've, I've had that experience a few times reading a script and being like, 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? Yeah, exactly, exactly. You get what you need and know what you want. Yeah. A lot of the time. So it was a weird kind of lining up. So to, to your point,

there was a lot of research in it. I didn't play the drums. I had to learn how to play the drums. comes from scratch. Incredible. American Sign language. 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... You knew it. Yeah. A different version of it. But there was something in me that needed to get out. 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, because he's becoming, he's kind of accepting it, I suppose, but that moment where he's finally like, I'm going to stop talking, he switches, you know, the teacher there who just says, oh, you know, to 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, I was, you know, look, like every film more or less tells you. the journey of discovering resilience 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

where 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 Rubin 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 with him with the children him him just accepting this life was like oh my goodness and and actually i do have a question somewhere in there i'm 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 racy'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?

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 an Afro-Latin kid who grew up in Harlem, and 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,

as he was like kind of letting me in on his, like, 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. Yes, that's what it felt like. He's like, would you mean why? He goes like, well, you hide behind words.

Oh. And you say, well, we can't, we can't do that. And so we communicate with our entire bodies. Yeah. And it's completely embodied. And it's like, you know, it's. The dinner table, the dinner table, man. Yeah.

Like, that was just so beautiful to see. A deaf dining table, a deaf dinner is loud. Yeah, that was so amazing. It's embodied, you know what I mean? And so, sorry, Sophie, you're saying. No, just the way that the filmmaker did that. Like, you know, you're hearing from Rubin'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 was done so well. Yeah, beautiful. And he's such a beautiful filmmaker, Darius himself. You know, he made a documentary about a couple in a band and how the guy in the band, the drummer was losing his hearing and it was it was kind of span off of that idea but he 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 oral setting and so the beauty of silence but to go back to what 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 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 blow, and also other things you wouldn't expect. Like Jeremy invited me to his wedding, which I was privileged to go to, and it was right on the water in Dumbo, you know, in New York. There's a merry, very go-round,

a fairground situation here. I was like, this is such a beautiful place. Why don't more people get married? Just in that moment. Like the train. Subway train. Like smashing overhead and happeningly loud. I'm like, this is not a good place.

All the wedding gets 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. So 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 had that episode personally, and the lesson that I learned in Sound of Metal as well, which is the gift and the curse are always a set. You know, it's that obstacle, that immovable obstacle is also the key

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So there's a connection, if there's possibly only one, maybe more, between Ruben and your character in Relay, which is they're both in the 12-step program in some manner I think they would both think about it differently but it is a spiritual framework you know it is it is actually deeply spiritual framework 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's sort of like he's a recovering addict can recognize patterns and what he does as being like, hmm, I might still have a real problem here, you know? I just thought that was like really fascinating. Yeah. Maybe is there anything about that? Yeah.

You know, absolutely. So much you could say about that. Man, it's a really interesting connection you drawn. So my character in Relay is kind of like a high level fixer, right? He 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 corporation in question.

And he's questioning himself. 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

so that I don't want to trust people because I get off on the adrenaline of living a crazy life that's extremely isolated. 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 think of a spy movie that's done that. What's interesting to me about it is this is like, when I read the script here, it just felt like it's a proper page turner, you know, is my most trusted conciliary in everything in my life, you know? I wish you could say the same is the other way

but she usually you know I'm after so many things about talking to me you're right can I help you in any way with your question I'm good

I'm good I'd like your opinion on something yeah so I just showed her the script and you know we'd recently had a baby

and it was like I'm going to take some work on and she read it she goes like yeah you've got to do this I would watch this if I saw the trailer to this I would say

we're going to the movies to watch this so this is just a page to 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 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 be able to. make phone calls. Yeah, I was going to say there are actually very many connections between Sound of Maddard. It's crazy, right? I actually wondered if you possibly, for a moment

and then I actually forgot about it, but when I first saw that story, 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, I don't think, like, implanted that. The relay machine was part of the script. It was game from his script.

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 the beginning is possible is the character in the beginning somebody who's hard of hearing 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 Queens. But so yeah, I mean, I think it's really important you have characters with deaf in movies that aren't just about being deaf. Yeah.

You have brown characters and stories aren't just about being brown. And to that same end, I know my character is someone who's very quiet is very nonverbal I thought it spoke volumes about him that the person is most communicative with is someone who's nonverbal

that he can make it's most comfortably with his oldest friend in sign language so it was just interesting we can plan it like that but that's kind of that similarity involved with sound of metal 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 this impenetrable, you know, invulnerable, alpha-mela is hot, hard-boiled trench coat, gum shoe kind of thing. He's got baggage. He's got issues. issues. He's in recovery. And the hardest thing for this character, and I would say similarity of sound of metal, is surrendering control, believing in something bigger than an other than

yourself and trusting that other thing. I think it's trust, right? Faith. If faith, you could call it trust issues, faith issues. It's the human version or 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? are going to have faith in some being that's got a plan for them. And I think both the character Milay and the character in Santa 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 it's interesting, you know, because for some reason, that's the storyline I keep getting. And I keep getting drawn to. And I think it's something that very much speaks to me. You know, I feel like. like, I've had to be very driven in my path.

And sometimes that comes from a kind of like 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're saying, Penn. It's like to find a beauty in 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 ball. The words give up have such a negative connotation. Surrender has such a negative connotation. But it's such a power in those things. And I think that's what Ash is learning. That's what Rubin and Sound Amel is learning.

And that's definitely what I'm still learning. 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. Yeah, he works in the most intensely chaotic and free-reeling way. You know, our first day of shooting, I thought, you know, usually day one of filming. You know this.

It's like, we're just going to do a 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. Oh, my God. A 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, you know, Grand Central Station, we filmed in the theatre 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... Just try to stop him? It wasn't actually worse than I. It was like, don't talk to me like that, do? And it was like... Oh, wow. started and it was like David was just filming

David's like Don't stop, don't stop Yeah, yeah, yeah I'm like somebody should I know he's in trouble I know he's Avatar bro but he's that And so we didn't control the streets

And so that kind of aliveness That kind of frenetic energy That kind of texture That's on screen and that's in the process There's a kind of controlled chaos And we moved so fast Like 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 Wow Oh my gosh Change costume here You're walking out of here

Change costume different hat coming I was like what the fuck I was like this can't be it It's gonna be a bad show By it's David McKinsey man He knows what he's doing And if you've seen his films like Head or High Water

And if you've seen starred up Like he's a master Attention and Character Tension and Character How one in forms the other and he's had this plan and he's I think he's really produced something that feels fresh and feels different but still speaks to those classic thrillers that we all love I think that's exactly right 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 well I'm a part of it it's not you know it's a massive group effort um basically my production company left-handed on hood with... By the way, I'm left-handed, and I noticed when you were writing as Rubin, I was like, he's left-handed! When are people really going to talk about

the most oppressed? You can say that? I'll let you say it. I'll let you say it. I mean, scissors. No one makes scissors fucking. No, so many things. Crazy.

So, yeah, so my company is called left-handed, and then there's this amazing NGO called Pillars. the pillars fund I went to one of your benefits I don't know if I should call it a benefit an Eid banquet like just a few months ago yeah yeah yeah the Eid thing that they did

Rami and Mona invited me yeah yeah beautiful it was beautiful man it was beautiful there yeah I'm sad I couldn't be there I thought it was amazing and so yeah pillars and left time and we teamed up and we created 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 the UK is 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 form a cohort, a little family and they do a long weekend in London and New York and in L.A. 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 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. That's so true.

So, yeah, it's 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 exists. I'm privileged to be a part of it. And, you know, the industry's in a crazy place. And I think that it's always a danger at times like this when things seem unturned to just not take risks. And so I think it's now more important than ever

to just find those voices that aren't being heard and give them a shot. Because nine times out of ten, they're going to make this something that thing that's fresh. It stands out and a thing that pops. Yeah. Amazing. 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? Stop drinking cola. That's a first. You mean thing, just stop it, bro. You can't do sugar, you can't, can't do caffeine. You're already on the edge. You don't need this. you need this.

Let me tell you about this thing called meditation. Nice. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think it is 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. I got that.

I got that with this it was like something at a dead Poet Society. It was a teacher, a white Jewish guy from the north of England. He had nothing in common. He spoke fluent Punjabi. At random. And took me and a couple of other boys under his wing and taught me Shakespeare and helped me find myself in these things and in literature and stuff and kind of allowed me to feel like, you know, the place where you think you don't belong is the place you needed most. That's the place that you do belong. And, um, that's, that's the place that you do belong and you know is meeting that right person the right time just wow that's beautiful

riz i hope left hand is turning this into a feature it's right there let's do it man let's do it pen has your Punjabi bro i need a brush up on it he's got a year to learn yeah guys thank you for having you yeah i love the the energy you guys bring to it and and yeah i love listening to it so it's a privilege to be it. Thank you so much. 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, Navakavalin, and Sophie Ansari. Our senior producer is David Ansari and our editing is done by Clips Agency. If you haven't

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