Actor Riz Ahmed Remakes the Leading Man
From Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso by Higher Ground
May 3, 2026 · 1h 21m
About this episode
Riz Ahmed discusses his career, cultural identity, and his new TV series Bait.
For the better part of two decades, Emmy and Oscar-winning actor Riz Ahmed has moved seamlessly between worlds: indies, blockbusters, prestige TV, writing, rapping. We discuss the long road to his new TV series Bait (3:45), what the character of James Bond symbolizes (6:00), and how the show connects to his own 80s upbringing in Wembley, England (18:40). Then, Riz describes how code-switching (inadvertently) led to acting (22:00), the childhood films he first made in his mind (26:25), the piece of advice from Idris Elba that changed his course (38:30), and how he broke out in Hollywood starring opposite Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler (40:50). On the back-half, Riz talks performing on stage with classmate (now Zeteo journalist) Mehdi Hasan (44:20), a frenetic audition for Slumdog Millionaire (45:28), nightmares from The Night Of (49:25), his upcoming project opposite Tom Cruise (53:45), the Swet Shop Boys’ hit song “Half Moghul Half Mowgli” (1:00:45), how life imitated art while shooting Relay (1:09:05), and the challenge—and freedom—of representing himself, anew, in Bait (1:13:20). Clips from Bait courtesy of Prime Video. Subscribe to our new YouTube channel…
People in this episode
Host: Sam Fragoso
Guest: Riz Ahmed
Topics covered
- acting
- Hollywood
- cultural identity
- TV series
- personal journey
- code-switching
Keywords
- Riz Ahmed
- Bait
- acting
- Hollywood
- cultural identity
- code-switching
- Idris Elba
- Nightcrawler
- Slumdog Millionaire
- Mehdi Hasan
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Prime Video
Books & works: Bait, Nightcrawler, Slumdog Millionaire, The Night Of, Half Moghul Half Mowgli, Relay
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