Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Riz Ahmed

Episode Date: October 7, 2018

Over the last two years, Riz Ahmed had a blockbuster breakout in "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story," he appeared on the cover of TIME Magazine as one of the world's Most Influential people, and he became the first Asian man and first Muslim to win an Emmy Award. In this week's "Sunday Sitdown," Willie Geist chats with the actor and hip-hop artist about his rise in Hollywood, including that award-winning role in HBO's "The Night Of" and his latest performance as evil genius Carlton Drake in the new marvel movie, "Venom." Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Thank you so much, as always, for clicking and listening. I've got a good one to share with you today. I'm excited about this. Actor Riz Ahmed. You know him from movies like Nightcrawler, where he starred alongside Jake Gyllenhaal, Rogue One, a Star Wars story, where he played Rebel Pilot Boady Rook. You also know him perhaps for his role as the hardened prison inmate in the HBO series The Night of.

That one earned him the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor. and by the way, made him the first Asian and Muslim man to win that award. We got together in Brooklyn to talk. He's a British-born actor. He was raised in a Pakistani household from where his family immigrated. He went up through scholarship programs to British private schools, Oxford, onto Hollywood. And the theme throughout, as you'll hear, is his experience as an outsider, always being the guy who felt like he was on the outside looking in,

and in many ways still feels that way. We also talk about his other gig, which is as a rapper in the hip-hop group, The Sweatshop Boys. He goes by Riz MC, talks about his own experiences, especially as a Muslim man. It's an amazing story in here about still being stopped and searched at airports, being pulled aside for extra screening. And he says, by TSA agents who often ask him for selfies because they love his movies while they're giving him extra screening. True story, he'll tell you the whole thing. We also got some insight into Riz's latest project, the new Marvel superhero film Venom. He plays evil genius Carlton Drake.

A really fun conversation deep at times, funny dude, cool dude. Riz Ahmed right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Thanks for doing this, man. Appreciate it. Thank you, having you. So we were just talking about the Time 100 event, which was back in April. You were on the cover of one of the issues of time. You're now starring in a Marvel movie.

You had a Star Wars movie. less than two years ago. You won an Emmy for the night of. You've got the Hamlet coming up on Netflix. It's been a crazy couple of years for you, I think you'd admit. What's it been like to be at the middle of this rise? Yeah, I guess when you say it like that, it feels particularly crazy.

But, you know, the reality is it's, you know, you do all this work and it's spread out over a long period of time. Like something like HBO's Night of, I remember we did the pilot for that back in 2012. Oh, really? Yeah. It took that long to go from the pilot to the series and then for the series for it to come out. So, yeah, I guess it feels like a really eventful few years, but from the outside, it feels like it's, you know, a really, really concentrated space of time.

But overall, I'd say the journey over these last few years has been, I've just learned a lot, you know, about, about myself and about how I approach my work. and yeah, I'm grateful for that. I just hope I just continue to keep learning and trying out different things. So what would you say you've learned? I mean, you came up through indie films. Obviously, you've done theater. You've done everything as an actor.

Now you're into these bigger budget movies like then, like Rogue One. What do you learn on those sets that you haven't had previously? Yeah, exactly. I think that's the big learning curve, you know, going that change of scale to like indie movies,

to those gigantic studio movies. It's sometimes not what you quite expect, actually, because when you've got a really small movie, you have to plan everything in advance. So they're going to plan in advance, okay, your pants are going to be blue, you know, and so are mine. But they're going to be slightly different shades of blue,

and you need to plan that far in advance because the costume designer needs to spend a long time finding the cheapest possible pair of blue pants. And if you change it last minute, that's going to cost us money. Whereas if you do these really big films, they sometimes have the luxury of time and resources to change things last minute.

So you wouldn't expect, you'd expect that these bigger films are sometimes a lot more set in stone, a lot more inflexible, but actually it can sometimes be a free-for-all, you know, where you're really allowed to play, where sometimes they have the opportunity to go back and redo things, so they will. You know, and to do things, you know, 10 takes, 15 takes. I just did an indie film now, we got two takes per scene. So it's interesting, it's not what you'd expect, and that presents different. kinds of challenges, challenges of stamina and of sanity, really. You know, if everything's constantly in flux and what do you hold on to? So that's definitely been a really big learning curve for me. Are you in a place, Riz, where you try to balance it now, where you do a big blockbuster-style Hollywood movie and then go back and do an independent just to get scratched both of those itches?

You know, I don't really think of them as two different itches. I don't think of there being this one itch that's like, hey, I want my face on a billboard and another it's like oh I want to go deep with a character it's not really like that it feels to me it's one one big itch um which is a good itch yeah right exactly which is about kind of um wanting to try different things out really that's the main thing that that drives me is is wanting to have new experiences and take on new challenges so it's all part of one thing for me it's okay i've i I played a character that I felt was, you know, taking me to a similar place over there. How can I go somewhere different?

So to me, it was all very connected. And I think it's really easy to start compartmentalizing stuff. But I don't think that's true. I don't think I think it's all part of one thing, you know. How about for you personally, we talked about professionally, but for you to be in Rogue One and in Venom, many, many more people know your face and know your name. They loved you in your previous movie Sometimes I might say oh yeah I know him I like him

Now they know your Riz Is your life different today than it was two years ago When you go out and walk down the street You know I think Sometimes the world just feels like a slightly friendlier place It's really what it is you know I can't really complain

Sometimes people stop me and they say they enjoyed my work in there So they saw this trailer coming up And that's cool I mean I'm not at a level of like, you know, notoriety right now where I can't live a normal life and, you know, go to the supermarket and go and eat out with friends. I still do that. I have a normal life. And I really value that. So if that ever changed, I would certainly start to think twice about the kind of decisions I make or work-wise. And I think that that would give me pause, you know,

because I really feel it is quite important to be able to live, you know, a normal day-to-day, embedded life, you know, if you're trying to portray one. To live separately from the lives you're trying to portray to me feels challenging. That's interesting. So you're saying if you got too famous, you might reconsider your approach to the projects you take to keep some normalcy in your life. Yeah, we'll just invest in, you know, an array of elaborate disguises. You know, that's the other option as well. You didn't think about that. But you're doing pretty Well, you should probably start looking at disguises. You're on your way.

So let's talk about Venom and this character, Carlton Drake. Evil genius. Is that a fair description of this man? I'm sure, like, some people would say that about the character. But I think, you know, the thing is, whenever you play a character, you're kind of seeing things from their point of view. So as crazy as I might sound, I really think, Carlton Drake's not a bad guy.

You know, he's trying to save the world quite literally. And there are a lot of people that have the resources and have the intelligence and the know-how. the money and the ambition, but they don't try and focus that towards trying to save humanity, which sure is a slightly kind of narcissistic goal to have to think, you know, you've got a Messiah complex if you think you can pull it off. But the thing is, he kind of can. And he is doing that. And, you know, we live in an age right now. We've got some of the most powerful corporations and entities that humanity has ever produced, you know, gigantic technology companies.

And the heads of these, some of these companies, their ambition is just as lofty as that. You know, they want to save mankind. They want to propel us into a new future. And I think it does take a bit of ego to presume that you can do that. But they are kind of doing that. So really it's that straightforward. You know, Carlton Drake sees that humanity is on the brink of collapse. The planet is on the brink of collapse.

And he's trying to find an answer for that. And for him, the answer is to look outside, to look to outer space. space, try and find ways that humans can survive outside of planet Earth. And it's on that journey that he stumbles across these symbiotes, and things take an unexpected turn. It's funny, you mentioned the real-life people. As I watched it, a few names came to mind. Did you draw inspiration from any real-life entrepreneurs, some of the people you talked about?

You know, it's interesting you should say that, because I think, you know, when I played Aaron Kulur in the Bourne movie for me that was grounded a lot more in specifically researching certain personalities you know some of these people are household names some of these people you have to dig to find a little bit but they're very well known within Silicon Valley and so for me it was very much drawing from their lives their personalities even sometimes the way

they speak or they talk the way they carry themselves for this I kind of felt like I understood this guy's mission and I really allowed myself to sympathize for it, to sympathize with it, and it's kind of threw myself into it. You know, this felt more like, you know, myself in these given circumstances, in this character's position. So I wasn't drawing specifically from, you know, Mark Zuckerberg or an Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos.

Those people are not, at least for me, they weren't part of my research for this character. But what was part of my research for this character was a certain way of seeing the world. Seeing the world as being something that is in constant danger of destroying itself. And yeah, that kind of intense pessimism, but also intense optimism that comes with saying, okay, the world's about to destroy itself. And I'm the only person that can say. Right.

You know. So that point of view is quite fascinating. like researching that, you know, finding out about, I don't know, all these super wealthy people that are kind of, you know, all buying land in New Zealand now because they think a world war is about to kick off, and that's the place to go and hide out because it would survive in nuclear winter.

You know, that's a thing. Lots of people are doing that right now. Or creating nuclear bunkers in their mansions out in California. That's also a thing, you know, that's selling like hotcakes right now, which would give us pause about the times that we're living in. But it was more, understanding that point of view.

Do you think there's a real life danger in figures like that who have ego, ambition, some genius to what they do in taking all that, that stew, and turning in something negative the way your character does? It's interesting, I think we're already seeing that to some extent, aren't we? I think we're seeing a lot of people that were really involved in setting up the early internet.

and were really involved in some of these giant social media and technology companies. I think a lot of people are coming forward and saying we didn't fully realize what we'd unleashed. It was an element of Pandora's Box thing going on. And I think it's refreshing to see people come forward and say that, you know, and say, you know, we didn't fully understand what was going on

and to try and rectify that. Whether we can put the genie back in the bottle, I don't know, but I think it's a thing it's pretty hard to argue at this point that there haven't been some negative unintended consequences from these giant leaks leaps in technology that we've seen yeah even Elon Musk right talking about artificial intelligence has said this has already gotten away from us in a way yeah we can't control now just wait till 10 years from now and Zuckerberg saying no no that's not true so that debate is yeah it's interesting and bill gates also really concerned about it and that's that's interesting debate

but artificial intelligence is something I think we're on the you know we're in the cusp of seeing where that goes depending on who you talk to how far in the future that is but something that we all live with on a day-to-day level is social media and it's really fascinating to hear from people with some of the engineers that were involved in that you know how those things were built and what they were built to do and what the unintended consequences have been on our brains but also on our culture on our politics you know fake news and um you know the fashionability of like more or outrage and it's a fascinating time because we're so connected right now but it's never been easier to just like be at each other's throats yeah as well yeah so yeah so i think i think you know

that's something is very true to life you know technology having these unintended consequences yeah it's so interesting so that's where we are now i love your personal story so if you don't mind i'd love to just go back to your your childhood and ask you what it was like to be the child with Pakistani immigrants in Wembley, England in the 1980s and 90s. What was it like to be that kid? You know, for me, it was always interesting. You know, you don't realize that you, no kid is born feeling like an outsider.

You're sometimes made to feel like an outsider by the experiences you have. And for me, it was kind of interesting because I felt like an outsider everywhere. And if everyone tells you you're an outsider, then you start internalizing this. And growing up, that can be quite confusing. You know, for example, as you said,

growing up in a traditional kind of Pakistani household, very loving, nurturing, supportive family by every measure. Also just quite different to the context that I went to school in, where I got scholarships to go to, you know, predominantly white, quite old-fashioned private school. And then that gap widened even further when I went to Oxford University and I was kind of rapping on pirate radio stations back in London. So this kind of divergence like just carried on.

And I think growing up until I was a young adult, that was really confusing. But then you get to a certain point and you realize actually if you really own this, then it's an asset. You know, and when I look back, I think that's kind of why and how I started acting was just, you know, code switching was a natural part of my survival mechanism. I'd literally be changing costumes over the course of a day. Be wearing a traditional shavarkami sometimes at home. I'd go to school wearing a blazer and tie and private school uniform. And then when it was time for some class that I didn't like, I'd be skipping class and going hanging out with my friends

and changing into my jeans and my baseball jacket. So there was an element of costume change. There was an element of play acting and mask that was ingrained. in my upbringing. You've talked a lot about how important your parents were and are to where you are today. What did they tell you as a young boy and a man about being different in that society and going into that school where you surely were, if not the only one, one of the only children

of Pakistani parents? No, I mean, look, I think one thing that's important to understand is that, you know, South Asians are a really significant part of, and a really visible part of Britain. the relationship goes way back obviously to colonialism and you know post post independence when you know lots of people from that part of the world came to help rebuild Britain after World War II so it goes way way back and so it wasn't like we the only Pakistani people on the block or anything like that you know we're visible part of the country it's just about what institutions and

rooms you're sometimes welcome into or may to feel welcome in. And I think the interesting thing is for lots of children of immigrants, their parents can give them a lot of support, they can give them a lot of love, but they can't necessarily give them a guidebook on how to navigate this place. Their experiences, their adulthood,

their coming of age took place in a kind of different context with different values. So they can't really give you a GPS for this place, but they can like, you know, make sure you're loaded up on supplies, you know, confidence, love, you know, self-belief. And for me, it was really looking to my older siblings, you know, is where I learned how to navigate practically, you know, living a double life, living a triple life, you know, how to not get caught at home doing this thing or how to, you know, living between different

spaces where there are such different values. So I think for me, my parents, it wasn't so much about, okay, So I can totally relate how it feels living a double, triple life. They never had that. Right. I think it was more about just unconditional love and support that feels so grateful for.

And community, you know, which has always been really important to me. So when you come home and say, Mom, Dad, I'm going to be an actor. What did they say? I think, you know, any sane parent freaks out when their kid says that. You know, I think that's a totally rational response. You know, the odds in this game are really crazy.

There's so many talented people out there that don't find a career, an unfairly so. So I think they were concerned. But also being the people they were, being so supportive and loving, they wanted me to try it out. And, you know, maybe hope that I'd grow out of it. And I think my dad still might be hoping that I'd grow out of it. grow out of it. I remember he'd sometimes come and ask me, you know, what I'm up to. And I think it was a few years ago I was doing Nightcrawler and I said, I'm doing this film with Jake Chillinghall,

you know, this big American actor. It was kind of like a bit of a break for me in America. And my dad listened quietly and he went, you know, it's still not too late to become a banker. You know, and so I think there is that totally understandable, rational feeling of wanting your kids to be on steady ground. Have you sold them by now? Did Rogue One do it for you? Maybe the Emmy. This is it. We're going to nail it down dad. He's made it. He's here. So you mentioned night crawlers a breakthrough here. I think a lot of people talk about that is your breakthrough in America anyway. Is that the way you view it? Because the night of as well winning the Emmy for that kind of blew people's minds as an HBO series. What was the big moment for you where you

felt like, okay, I'm in this business I've arrived. I think that's a dangerous thing to think and feel, man. I try and avoid thinking and feeling that way, if I'm really honest, you know, it's hard not to when you get up there and you're holding an Emmy in your hand and you're looking at, you know, it's Robert De Niro and John Totoro are nominated alongside you. You're kind of freaking out and thinking, wow, I guess this means something. But I think I think like a lot of creative people, I harbor a healthy dose. of imposter syndrome you know so I'm constantly kind of questioning rather than like

thinking oh great I've arrived thinking what could I have done better you know what can I do to stop people finding me out you know as a fraud and it's interesting because I think a lot of people don't talk about this but I think everyone feels it at every stage or spoken to the most experienced acclaimed directors you know I'll be lucky to work with and they all feel that imposter syndrome and what I've kind of come to realize is it's that for me at least at this point what I feel is the key to try and succeed isn't actually believing in yourself that's not a prerequisite at all I've been so many of the most amazing athletes poets I think Maya Angelou writes about you know how severe

her imposter syndrome was I think it's more important to believe in something other than yourself something bigger than yourself you know a reason that you're doing it that isn't just just about getting an award or a pat on the back. And so I try and focus more on that rather than my own arrival or my own validation. So what is that for you? What is that thing that you work toward, that thing bigger than yourself? I think for me it's an attempt to try and stretch culture, you know, in every sense.

Sometimes that means, sometimes, you know, I have the ability to try and contribute towards doing that in a really small way just by playing a role. otherwise might have been played by an actor that doesn't look like me or sound like me. You know, that's stretching people's expectations, that's stretching their empathy, that's taking their, um, subverting their assumptions in some way. But also I think it's about the kind of work you do, you know, trying to find humanity and characters that audiences are used to dismissing. So for example, a film that I think many people in America wouldn't have heard of, but was a really important film for me and for, I think a lot of kids,

kind of, you know, people of my generation in Britain, this film called Four Lions. Four Lions is about four wannabe suicide bonds, but they're just terrible at it. When you realize these guys were just like idiots, these like kind of lost souls that in their desire to find some kind of sense of belonging and fraternity embark on this totally misguided, idiotic mission to do something they can't even pull off.

And it's a really fascinating movie actually because you start to face this quite unsettling truth, which is that far from the people that we disagree with being monsters or like members of a totally different species, it's scary than that, they're humans, they're human beings. You know, America's at a place right now where it's really divided, right, politically. But the people you disagree with aren't monsters, they're just people. And I think that's a much harder truth to face. So for me, that's kind of why I'm in this to try and stretch people's minds and stretch culture.

And I think that's about me playing roles that people might not expect me to, but I think it's also about taking on roles that challenge people's assumptions. And it's also about music for you, right? I mean, stretching in film but also stretching with the sweatshop boys. When you started your music career, what inspired you to do that? Who did you listen to? Who were the artists who made you want to be an NC? Well, it's really all my brother's fault became a rapper because he did a really silly thing.

he told me, listen, all these cassettes, these rap tapes, they've got swearing on it. You can't listen to them, okay? So when I leave the house, don't listen to them. Oh, come on. Of course. I did when you left that I memorized all of it. You know, kind of early Nars and Wu-Tang and, you know,

Biggie Smalls and Snoop and getting into like really intense, like horror rap, like grave diggers and stuff. Right. And so that's really, you know, it was, it was, Something was unknown. It was something that was forbidden. But really quickly, I started writing my own lyrics because it was a way to express myself. You know, it was always a bit of a hyperactive kid, always had a lot to say.

And this was a way of doing it and also a way of showing off, you know. And that really appealed to me as a kind of hyperactive attention-seeking loud-mouthed kid. Like, what are you going to do? So that's what I started doing. And yeah, I think, if... If I think of kind of growing up, like artists that really influenced me and an artist that, you know, I still look up to you very much, who is Most Deaf, you know, as someone who's so multi-hyphen and does everything to such a kind of high level, has never really compromised

on his principles. Most Deaf and Talib Kuali, I remember Black Star, and now it's really, you know, it's interesting to be doing this interview right now here in Fort Green, not too far away from where they had a bookstore. Right. And you talked about the hyphen it. I think people use that to describe you as well, which is to say you don't have to be one or the other. You can be all these things at once. And it gives you, I imagine, different audiences and different platforms to say what you want to say. Yeah. You know, I think the thing is that all of us are all these things at once.

Yeah. I think that's the reality. We all wear different hats throughout the day. You're the dad, you're the boyfriend, you know, you're the son. And we change. We switch. We all code switch. Some of us just code switch in more overt ways, more explicit changes, you know, costume changes, as I was describing before. But I think we're all a lot more complex than often we are allowed to be. And I think the role of an artist is to give people permission to be messy and to be complicated and to be contradictory. And the way to do that is to kind of expose your own mess, you know? So really that's what sweatshop boys was about and what the music's always been about is kind of going You know putting your hands up and saying

Here's the mess inside my head, you know, and it's been a real joy to see how So many kids have connected to that you know that experience of being a kind of third culture kid It's kind of existing on a kind of no-man's land as I put it you know where you're kind of caught between worlds that's been something that I think's been really quite healing for me and I think for people that have connected to it. I think because of some of your music but also because of the stances you've taken personally and the causes you've advocated for, people call you an activist as well. Do you like having that title in addition to being an actor and a musician?

You know, honestly, I don't think activist is a dirty word. No. Or anything like that. I just think it does a disservice to people who really are activists, who are grassroots organizers, who are people out there in the field, campaigning against local and global injustices. That's not what I do.

I'm an artist, and sometimes I get a big megaphone. If I can use that to talk about things that don't get enough of a shine, then that's cool. I'll do that. If something I connect to and I feel like I can educate myself to a level where talking about it doesn't, you know, do a disservice to that issue. But, yeah, I'd be very hesitant to describe myself as an activist in the pure sense of the word.

Right. But in the sense of, you know, someone who wants to try and do their bit to make things better, yeah, I hope we're all activists, or I hope we're all active in that sense in some small way. And you talked about one of your ways being stretching. the culture. There's been James Bond talk lately, and you've said that's a role that you would welcome. That's actually not true. It's not true. Well, no, there's like, I think GQ put it on their magazine cover. They just said the first Brown Bond question mark, but they never, we didn't really talk about it. I didn't say I'd welcome. It wasn't like really a thing. Right. Well, would you like to play James Bond in the interest of stretching the culture? I'm really interested in playing roles that challenge me, you know.

And for me, it's really like a script-by-script basis. I know it sounds like a cop-out thing to say, but I really feel like I'm at a point in my life where I feel really lucky to have done really big films, to done really tiny films, and to continue that balance, you know, and to stretch myself in different ways. So for me, quite honestly,

not to sound like that wouldn't be an amazing thing to be asked to do, it has to come down to ultimately the script and the character and where you're at and whether you feel like you can really contribute something to that, you know? I used to think that, it's funny, I was talking about this just a minute ago, I used to think that acting was like a clever thing you could do to like get a pat on the back.

And now I'm realizing it's like it's about exposing you. yourself you know it's about looking at where you're at in your life and looking at what this role is at and seeing how do they overlap so talking in abstract terms like that for me at this point it doesn't make sense since we're hearing Queens in the night of you pull off a good Queen's accent and then we saw you on girls doing a surfer dude sort of Montauk thing where do you get inspiration for your American accents that people say are so spot on I mean I think I think Americans sometimes are confused about how British actors can do American accents so well,

but what they don't realize is we grew up just watching you guys, you know, so much of our TV, all our pop music. So you just get it in the air from a very early age. But I do really enjoy kind of exploring different accents. And something that I do for that is actually I record people. I always like to kind of ground stuff in reality as far as possible. And that goes to research and, you know, immersing myself in the world as that maybe the characters might be like going to tech conferences when I was preparing for

Bourne or you know going to visit Rikers Island Prison when I was doing the night of and so I always try and find individuals and actually record them and listen to them because I'll always find some weird kind of quirk of how they pronounce something or their intonation that will just give me an idea and I won't then necessarily go on to mimic them at all but it's just about um giving a yourself permission to be as weird as people really are. Right. You know what I mean? So I enjoy that side of it for sure.

And I enjoy talking to people in the process of interviewing them. So yeah, that's a fun thing about accents. Lena Dunham's funny talking about your American accent on girls saying you shot for five days. They never heard your British accent. So at the end of the shoot, you kind of jarred everyone by going back into your British accent. Yeah, it's a very cheap part of the trip. Well, it worked on them. Well, you know, it's interesting because.

Girls was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed working with Lena. She's a bit of a crazy genius, you know, able to write and direct and produce and starring and improvise and also direct other actors take-by-take.

It's a real tour de force and is so inspiring. It was a lot of fun, but it came together very, very last minute. I think she, like, saw the night of, they were looking to feel that role. I think she might have, like, DM'd me, you know, on Instagram.

or something and it just came together so last minutes and sometimes when you don't have that long to prepare you have to just jump right in and I remember the first day I turned up in one talk I met up with a surf instructor and he just opened his mouth and I was like all right this is you this is you dude so so me if you're watching thanks a lot does he know does he know does he know it's him now he knows and he's going to be looking for a residual check exactly a little back callina call lina she'll hook it up about the lyrics, Sweatshot Boys' lyrics. The one song when you talk about TSA, and when you grow out the stubble on your beard,

I was getting pulled aside for extra screening. You take a lot of these sort of post-9-11 being a young Muslim man issues head on. Does that stuff come from experience with you? Yeah, listen, I think it's the responsibility of any artist to talk about their experience, you know, and trust that that experience can be universal. You know, even if I'm talking about getting pulled aside

at an airport and someone else gets pulled over driving a car, you know, we all get singled out or feel maligned in different ways, you know, so even if you can't relate to the texture of my experience, you can relate to the feeling, you know, that's as the basis of all art. So really, that's, it's my responsibility to talk about my experience. That's the only way to be an artist and an authentic and honest way. So yeah, when I've rapped about kind of being surgeon. to airports and being pulled aside before being allowed to board planes. That's something that happened to me every time I flew to America until very recently.

And sure, it's like pretty frustrating and it's hard not to find it frustrating. But it also would take on some really bizarre kind of twists where it would almost become comical and that's the point in which I thought, okay, this isn't just like, oh no, boo-hoo, poor me. This is also like, this is absurd. And that's the point in which it starts becoming a strange, contradictory little experience. On the one hand, I'm really angry about this. On the other hand, this is hilarious.

So, for example, when I was getting on the plane to do the Star Wars press tour, you know, I'd be stopped for a second time and patted down and searched. And, you know, at this point, the guy's searching me are like, they're fans of mine. So they're quoting rap lyrics back at me about being searched at the airport. No. While they're searching me at the airport. And then they're asking me for selfies. But they still search you?

Yeah, they have to. It's just a protocol. It's not, I think what people need to understand is a lot of, sadly, you know, what we see in our really understandable attempt to keep our society safe is still driven by racial profiling and kind of blanket measures that can sometimes end up alienating entire communities rather than being really, really specific, intelligence-led kind of searches and operations. So you gave him the selfies though? I did give them the selfies, but then something even weird happened, which was I got on the plane, the plane that I was being prevented from boarding, and I sat down, and I picked up the in-flight magazine and I was on the cover of it. So when things get that bizarre, you're like, okay, this is just silly and crazy and then you write a song about it.

That's not the experience most people who are pulled aside have. They don't sit down by themselves on the cover of the magazine. They don't. Maybe it's a bit more of a heightened experience, but yeah, I think everyone can really connect to the idea of feeling like an insider and an outsider. Yeah. As someone who's welcomed, as someone who's pushed away, you know, as a fraud and someone who's earned their chops.

So it's really that feeling that I'm talking about. That's great. Thank you so much. Thank you. I really appreciate your time. Cheers. That's great. My thanks again to Riz for a great conversation.

You can catch his new movie Venom. in theaters now. And as always, thank you to you for tuning into the Sunday Sit Down podcast. If you hear, check out the library of our extended conversations with all my guests. And don't forget to subscribe. Click right there. Subscribe to hear new episodes every week. Be sure to tune in, as always, to the Sunday Today program every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.