British-Pakistani actor Riz Ahmed, whose credits include The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012), Out of Darkness (2013), and Sound of Metal (2019) to name a few, has called for more and better representation of Muslim characters on screen.
Talking to a leading publication, Ahmed said that the lack of diversity is a “blind spot all over our culture”.
He added that poor representation “costs lives” and that our society should “empower people to tell their own stories”. “It is not surprising, but it is shocking. It's a blind spot that's all over our culture. And it costs lives. Countries get invaded, hate crimes go up, laws get passed. So, off the back of that we're thinking, “What do we need to shift?” And, actually, it is about empowering people to tell their own story,” the actor told the publication.
On the work front, Ahmed is presently waiting for the release of his next film Mogul Mowgli which sees him in the role of a British-Pakistani rapper diagnosed with a degenerative autoimmune disease.
Talking about the film, the Oscar-nominated actor said, “It is basically a pandemic movie: a workaholic gets hit with a health crisis; his life is thrown into a lockdown. He has to sit with himself, reassess what really matters. I always find the making of a film, the telling of a story and the story itself, end up mirroring each other. Always.”
When asked about the film's reception in the US compared to the UK, he added, “I am a bit more detached from how it is being received than I would be with other work. And there is something quite liberating about that… The irony is that the stuff you make without having one eye on how it is being received is the stuff that is received best.”
Riz Ahmed also stars in Michael Pearce’s sci-fi thriller Encounter. The film, which had its world premiere at the 48th Telluride Film Festival on September 3, 2021, is slated to get a limited release on December 3, 2021, by Amazon Studios prior to streaming on Prime Video on December 10, 2021.
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