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" I go to a lot of stand-up comedy. I find more inspiration from observational stuff than from rap. "
Riz Ahmed
Rap
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Inspiration
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" Growing up in the mid-to-late '90s in London, you start seeing the explosion of drum'n'bass and then the birth of U.K. garage and grime. I decided to focus a lot of my energies as an aspiring MC. It was a very natural way to express yourself as a kid from a certain kind of neighborhood. "
Riz Ahmed
Yourself
Growing Up
Start
" Sadly, I have disappointed the surveillance capitalists myself by not yet downloading 'Pokemon Go.' But I'm addicted to my phone enough as it is, and I don't necessarily need that helping hand. "
Riz Ahmed
Need
Phone
Enough
" Hollywood is an image. We project these fantasies on to it, but people are just people. "
Riz Ahmed
Project
Hollywood
Image
" The reality of Britain is vibrant multiculturalism, but the myth we export is an all-white world of lords and ladies. Conversely, American society is pretty segregated, but the myth it exports is of a racial melting-pot, everyone solving crimes and fighting aliens side by side. "
Riz Ahmed
Side
World
Society
" Reshoots are par for the course on any film. For me, I kind of love it because, as an actor, you always feel that there was a way you could have done it differently. Being able to go back and do some stuff again is always a blessing in my eyes. "
Riz Ahmed
Feel
You
Me
" In terms of negotiating a career - I've always grown up being an insider and an outsider to different worlds, across different classes and cultures, so I have always naturally liked making films or music that puts things in unexpected places. "
Riz Ahmed
Always
Unexpected
Up
" No-one gets a job at 16 and stays in it until 60 any more; we're connected to more people simultaneously than ever before, whether online or on our phones. We wear so many different hats within one day, one week, a lifetime. "
Riz Ahmed
Job
Hats
Day
" Rehearsing a scene beds a role into you. But sometimes, if you over-rehearse it without unearthing any new meaning in it, you can suddenly forget your lines. You realise that you are on a stage, not in the real world. The scene's emotional power, and your immersion in it, disappears. "
Riz Ahmed
You
Real
World
" You can read a character that feels amazing, but if the world around it and all the writing around it - even the way the stage descriptions are written - don't feel just right, then you know there's no point in doing the project. No character is ever bigger than the whole film. "
Riz Ahmed
Amazing
Writing
World
" Sometimes when you're inside a story, it's almost better if you don't think too much about its wider cultural significance or if you don't think about how audiences might react to it. That takes you out of the reality of the situation you're committing to as you're telling the story. "
Riz Ahmed
Better
You
Story
" I'm an actor. Since I was a teenager, I have had to play different characters, negotiating the cultural expectations of a Pakistani family, Brit-Asian rudeboy culture, and a scholarship to private school. The fluidity of my own personal identity on any given day was further compounded by the changing labels assigned to Asians in general. "
Riz Ahmed
School
Culture
Day
" The camera or the microphone in the booth is merciless. If you don't believe what you're saying, it hears it. If you don't believe it, it sees it in your eyes, it hears it in your voice that there isn't the conviction there. "
Riz Ahmed
Believe
Saying
Eyes
" Bandwagons roll through our lives. It's up to you whether you jump on them unquestioningly or jump on them to overturn them and subvert them. "
Riz Ahmed
Through
Roll
Up
" Anyone driving great social change, willingly or not, is going to be a fascinating contradictory mix of idealism and ego. "
Riz Ahmed
Driving
Mix
Great
" I'm used to doing U.K. indie films, like, six weeks of filming, tops. "
Riz Ahmed
Six
Indie
Filming
" There's this assumption that as an actor, Hollywood is always the end point, but I never thought along those lines. "
Riz Ahmed
Never
End
Hollywood
" I'm not in a 'starry' position to be able to pick and choose, but I am interested in telling stories of substance with great directors - that's my only guiding principle. "
Riz Ahmed
Position
Principle
I Am
" The 'Bourne' films totally reimagined and elevated the action genre. "
Riz Ahmed
Action
Elevated
Films
" It's interesting - what are you willing to give up in terms of your privacy for access to other people? For access to things you think you desperately need. Ultimately, it's that old saying, isn't it? If the service is free, then the product is you. The thing being sold is you. There's a product for sale in you and your data. "
Riz Ahmed
Saying
Think
People
" I don't think any of us like to be reduced to just one label. "
Riz Ahmed
Like
Just One
Us
" I grew up listening to a lot of early '90s hip-hop. I had the debut Wu-Tang album, Biggie, Snoop, that kind of stuff. Hieroglyphics, the Gravediggaz. I remember D.O.C.'s 'The Portrait of a Masterpiece' was something that had a big influence on me. "
Riz Ahmed
Kind
Influence
Listening
" I like the idea of being caught between things, always being a bit of an outsider, having an outside eye on things - almost like a Shakespearean fool. "
Riz Ahmed
Outside
Like
Fool
" I'm not trying to project any persona. Often people don't know where to put me. I don't fit comfortably under banners, and that's fine. I'm not worried about not making sense to people. That's probably my best asset. "
Riz Ahmed
Know
Project
People
" Being South Asian in the U.K. is like being Latino in the U.S., I would guess. It's a bit more hood. You see things; things happen. I was bouncing between worlds. You're acting from a very early age, when you have to code-switch like that. I'm a hybrid, a mongrel. I think many people live that life. "
Riz Ahmed
Life
You
People
" When I was growing up, I felt like I had to qualify it and say I'm British-Pakistani. But now I kind of feel like, in this day in age, this is what British looks like. It looks like me; it looks like Idris Elba, and hopefully through Nasir Khan, people will see that that's what an American can look like as well. "
Riz Ahmed
Growing Up
American
People
" Since the Greek myths, the greatest stories are premised on the idea of, 'A stranger arrives.' "
Riz Ahmed
Idea
Stranger
Stories
" I never thought acting would be a realistic job for me. Because, quite frankly, I didn't see people who looked like me doing it. I quickly realized, that's all the more reason to try. "
Riz Ahmed
Job
People
Acting
" I remember, growing up, you didn't wear an England shirt. The English flag was very much - and still is, to some extent - associated with the far-right movements of the 1980s that I grew up around. "
Riz Ahmed
Flag
You
Remember
" Nothing will turn you into more of a 'Star Wars' fan than being on a 'Star Wars' set. When you see how lovingly that world is rendered by the set designers, costume designers, props department, art department, they genuinely build an actual world. That is not an exaggeration. They build a world. "
Riz Ahmed
World
Nothing
See
" The fact is, I've been releasing records longer than I've been releasing films, or at least exactly as long. "
Riz Ahmed
Fact
Been
Exactly