Riz Ahmed on BAIT and How Being Brown in London Feels Like You’re in a Spy Thriller
Riz Ahmed talks about his James Bond pitch for the show, and breaks down how he pulled from his life and identity.
This week on the the Awards Tour Podcast, host Jacqueline Coley chats with Academy Award-nominee Riz Ahmed about his critically acclaimed limited series BAIT. In this episode, Ahmed talks about the James Bond pitch he gave to producer Barbara Broccoli, how he pulled from his own life and experiences, and paying homage to the Bollywood soap operas he grew up watching. He also discusses how Jordan Peele inspired the spy thriller genre of the show.
Jacqueline Coley: [BAIT] is a show about an actor being up for the role of James Bond, and in someways, the overarching story is a thriller on whether or not he’s gonna pull it off. What was your favorite part of the spy stuff?
Riz Ahmed: When Jordan Peele made Get Out, he said being Black in America sometimes feels like you’re in a horror movie, and so that’s why he made Get Out. I was inspired by that, so my thesis was ‘Being Brown in the West sometimes feels like you’re stuck in a spy thriller.’ So that was why we wanted to use the James Bond template… Spy thrillers are all about double identity, torn loyalties, being looked at but not seen, surveillance, not knowing who you can trust. (Ahmed is British Pakistani.) It felt like so much of our experience sits inside this spy thriller genre.
BAIT is streaming now on Amazon Prime.
