Riz Ahmed has recalled the chaotic moment he crashed his car while trying to do an interview during the school run, an experience he says highlighted the gap between his public persona and his real self. The actor was speaking to a men's magazine from his car, double-parked on a double yellow line in London, when he hit another vehicle. The driver, furious, got out and confronted him.
"He's like, 'What the fuck are you doing?!'" Ahmed said. The actor, still trying to keep the interview going, negotiated car insurance details while muting and unmuting the call. He eventually wound down the window and told the driver: "Take my licence plate, bro! I'm not trying to fight you! Take my details, please!" The driver replied: "You drive like that? I hope you don't get the job."
Ahmed, 43, was discussing his new Prime Video comedy Bait, in which he plays Shah Latif, a struggling actor who bungles his James Bond audition but is unexpectedly considered for the role. The show, developed over nearly a decade, co-stars Guz Khan as his cousin Zulfi, who sees the potential Bond gig as a chance to promote his minicab business Muber, and Sheeba Chaddha as his mother.
The actor also stars in a film version of Hamlet set in modern-day London and will appear alongside Tom Cruise in Alejandro González Iñárritu's upcoming film Digger. In a 2016 essay, Ahmed compared airport interrogation rooms, where he had been frequently stopped, to audition rooms, saying both reduce people to reductive labels.
Bait, he said, is about how life can feel like one big audition. "We're all projecting this version of ourselves that's usually quite different to who we really are," he said.
