Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" 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. "

Related Quotes:

" 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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I think that with piracy and tighter funds being around, people are realising that the game to play is to try and win people's respect with bold film making and then win a special place in people's collections, rather than just having the biggest opening weekends. "

" I'm used to doing U.K. indie films, like, six weeks of filming, tops. "

" 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

" 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. "

" My parents, man, they're just the most loving, encouraging... They're like those people who define themselves through their role as parents before people in their own rights. "

" The fact is, I've been releasing records longer than I've been releasing films, or at least exactly as long. "

" 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. "

" It's interesting that we assign the label 'political' to art that doesn't just fit a mould of status quo. Is 'Downton Abbey' not political? That's political! Every piece of art offers a perspective on the world. And what is politics if not a perspective on the world? 'Downton Abbey' is about class. It's also about race. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" There's this assumption that as an actor, Hollywood is always the end point, but I never thought along those lines. "

" Anyone driving great social change, willingly or not, is going to be a fascinating contradictory mix of idealism and ego. "

" 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

" I don't feel that any kind of narrow stereotypes are representative of the work I've done, nor the range of the audience that work has found. I've played lots of different roles, and they've connected with lots of different people. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I go to a lot of stand-up comedy. I find more inspiration from observational stuff than from rap. "

Riz Ahmed

Rap

Inspiration

" I'm always trying to slip out of those labels everyone tries to put round your neck. We all have multiple selves. "

" I've been very lucky to have played a variety of characters, and they weren't defined by their race. "

" No one's of Pakistani origin in any British show. That's why every actor of color is here working in the States. It's true. "

" I have always been restless, had a lot of energy. "

" The 'Bourne' films totally reimagined and elevated the action genre. "

" What's interesting about the U.K. is that it celebrates an alternative voice. It's up for telling new stories. "

Riz Ahmed

Voice

Stories

" Maybe I don't ever fully switch off, but I think the way I offset that is by splitting my time between film and music. I always want to challenge myself and grow, fail, self-flagellate, and then try again. "

" 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. "