Riz Ahmed

speaker

1,209 appearances 3 recordings 3 series first heard Mar 2026 last heard 10 Jun

Riz Ahmed’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.

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He was kind of defending me.

And it was just this kind of shocking realization that, oh, I'm different.

I'm different in a way that means that I could be in danger, right?

And feeling othered in that way made me more vigilant, made me more aware of my identity.

In many ways, it set me on a lifelong journey of trying to like square the circle of my identity.

In some periods of time, I tried to code switch a lot.

If I've gone to a predominantly white upper class school, which I did,

I'd code switch in that way, then I'd hang out in my neighborhood, I'd code switch another way.

And I think that journey has defined me.

I think that's why I started acting, was kind of code switching from one social environment to another.

It's a kind of performance, right?

And where I'm at now and really what the show Bait is also trying to do and what it's about, it's about a search for identity.

So I'm trying to bring all those different sides of me together, not edit and censor myself when I walk into a room.

I did this monologue for SNL UK recently and I was working with the writers on it and it was about identity crisis.

And I was like, I'm having an identity crisis.

The UK is having, everyone's having an identity.

We're all trying to work out who we are.

And I said, look, that's why I sound like a mix between Stormzy and Rishi Sunak.

And just trying to embrace that, be playful about that confusion.

I think that moment of realizing my difference and navigating identity was a big one.

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