Riz Ahmed takes on his inner critic

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Support for NPR and the following message come from 20th Century Studios' The Dog Stars. Director Ridley Scott returns with a gripping post-apocalyptic thriller starring Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin, Margaret Qualley and Guy Pearce, only in theaters and IMAX this Friday.

**Tonya Mosley** (0:16)
This is Fresh Air, I'm Tonya Mosley.
A struggling British-Pakistani actor lands the audition of a lifetime as James Bond. Word gets out and the internet goes wild, and suddenly his life starts to resemble the very character he's auditioning to play. He's in a chase sequence except for he's not chasing a villain, he's chasing acceptance. That's the setup for Bait, the prime video series that is part spy thriller, part family comedy, and part psychological unraveling. My guest today, Riz Ahmed, created, wrote, and produced the series. He also stars as the lead character, Sha Latif. Now, he's been nominated for an Emmy for outstanding lead actor in a limited or anthology series or movie for the role. I spoke with him earlier this year when the series was released.
Bait opens with Sha in a tuxedo doing a James Bond screen test. He's debonair, commanding, in control, James Bond personified, and then he forgets his lines.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:22)
Tell me, when it's just you all alone, how do you live with yourself?

**SPEAKER_3** (1:30)
Do you even know who you are?

**SPEAKER_1** (1:43)
Line.

**Riz Ahmed** (1:43)
Cut. Sorry.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:45)
Sorry.

**SPEAKER_5** (1:48)
Sorry, Helen.

**SPEAKER_6** (1:50)
It's all good.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:51)
It's all good. It's just we're on a bit of a schedule.

**Riz Ahmed** (1:55)
Yeah, that's why I was thinking, quick reset back to once.

**SPEAKER_5** (1:56)
I'll nail it this time.

**Tonya Mosley** (1:57)
How are you blowing this audition?

**SPEAKER_5** (2:00)
I know the speech.

**Tonya Mosley** (2:02)
I know it.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:02)
Yeah, you f*** up every time at the exact same moment.
What is this, a prank show? Sorry, wearing a hit in the camera.

**SPEAKER_5** (2:10)
It's funny. I just have a very particular process. I've got my head around it now.

**SPEAKER_6** (2:14)
I'm ready.

**Riz Ahmed** (2:15)
Sorry, guys, we just have to...

**Tonya Mosley** (2:16)
Yeah, well, just a minute. Sorry.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:18)
How was your weekend?

**SPEAKER_6** (2:19)
It was good, thanks.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:19)
How was yours?

**SPEAKER_6** (2:20)
Great.

**SPEAKER_5** (2:20)
What did you do? Just...

**SPEAKER_3** (2:23)
thanks, Jim. stop it.

**SPEAKER_5** (2:26)
Sorry.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:27)
You know what?

**SPEAKER_6** (2:29)
They didn't want to see you.

**SPEAKER_5** (2:31)
I had to convince them.

**SPEAKER_6** (2:32)
So this is on me.

**SPEAKER_5** (2:33)
I've got a confession to make. I'm lightheaded from fasting. It's the holy Muslim month. It's called Ramadan.
This involves no eating and drinking in the day. I'm lightheaded from if I get a bit of a cultural understanding.

**SPEAKER_6** (2:50)
Well, I've just seen you drink apple juice.

**SPEAKER_5** (2:53)
Six takes in a row.

**Tonya Mosley** (2:55)
I tried.

**Riz Ahmed** (2:56)
It's a shame you didn't.

**Tonya Mosley** (2:58)
The moment is the beginning of a wild ride as we watch the character unravel. Ahmed has said the show is about family, ambition, and the hunger to belong, and what it costs someone when they finally get close to the thing they've been chasing their whole life.
Riz Ahmed is already an Emmy Award winner for his work In The Night Of, an HBO crime drama in which he plays a college student whose life shatters after being accused of murder in New York City. In Sound of Metal, he played a punk drummer grappling with sudden hearing loss and he was nominated for an Oscar for that film.
For The Long Goodbye, which is about a British Pakistani family whose ordinary Sunday is shattered by a far right militia, he won the Oscar for best short film. Riz Ahmed, welcome back to Fresh Air.

**Riz Ahmed** (3:47)
Thank you so much for having me back.

**Tonya Mosley** (3:50)
Well, after that failed screen test that we just heard in that clip, your character Shah goes to the dressing room and then he goes over the monologue he forgot during the audition, and then he starts berating himself in the mirror for failing that test. I actually want to play that and then I want to ask you something on the other side of it. Let's listen.

**Riz Ahmed** (4:13)
You knew it?
You knew it? What's wrong with you?

**SPEAKER_6** (4:20)
Do you know who you are?

**Riz Ahmed** (4:21)
I'll tell you who you are. You're a failure.

**SPEAKER_5** (4:25)
You should be ashamed of yourself. You are ashamed of yourself because you're ashamed of your family.

**SPEAKER_3** (4:30)
Nobody, you're nothing.

**Riz Ahmed** (4:43)
Come in.

**SPEAKER_1** (4:46)