Riz Ahmed

So it's really about whether we are willing to pay the price of true resistance, you know.

And it's actually a very, very radical speech.

It's very confronting.

It's tackling a taboo subject, really.

You know, the idea of taking up arms and resisting oppression and the powers that be, it's a dangerous idea, actually.

It can get you arrested if you discuss that openly to this day.

That's correct.

Yeah, yeah.

And that ended up being a big part of the process, actually.

Well, I guess it struck me that this is a play in part about fatherhood and about the absent father.

And I didn't fully understand that until I myself became a father.

until I became actually an absent father in the sense that I was away for much of the day, awake before my kid was awake, home after my kid had gone to sleep.

And I started to understand that emotionally, but actually it was more the effect it had on me physically because...

you know, I'm waiting to, I want to play this role.

It means so much to me, this story, like 15 years of developing the script.

I want to get ready for these soliloquies.

And what would happen is me and Anil would turn up on set on like two hours sleep, one hour sleep, like 45 minutes sleep.

And the baby was a newborn.

Exactly.

And his child was sleep regressing.