Riz Ahmed on Politics, Identity, and Being Brown in Hollywood

Deconstructed

The Intercept

News

4.8 • 4.7K Ratings

🗓️ 4 October 2018

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Riz Ahmed became the first actor of South Asian descent and the first Muslim to win an Emmy last year when he picked up the award for Outstanding Lead Actor in A Limited Series for his starring role in the HBO drama, The Night Of. In the brand-new Marvel movie Venom, he plays the villainous Carlton Drake opposite Tom Hardy’s titular anti-hero. Off the big screen, he uses his unique platform to bring attention to issues from the lack of minority representation on T.V. to Islamophobia and racism. He’s also an old classmate of Mehdi Hasan’s, and this week on Deconstructed the two discuss their complex identities and the difficulty of being the only muslim in the room.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, before we start the show today, I just want to let you all know that next Wednesday
0:04.0	October the 10th here in Washington, D.C., deconstructed will be putting on its very first live
0:09.2	show.
0:10.2	Woohoo!
0:11.2	We have an amazing panel of guests, Senator Jeff Murkley, our Revolution President
0:14.5	Nina Turner, Congressman Ro Khanna, and CNN analyst and former Bernie Sanders, press
0:19.5	secretary Simone Sanders.
0:20.9	I'll be interviewing them all in front of a live audience about the future of the left
0:25.0	and whether the Democrats in Congress will actually get radical if they come out on top
0:29.2	after the midterms to get tickets and be in that audience, head to the Intercepts Facebook
0:33.7	page and click on the events section.
0:35.7	Doors open at 6 o'clock on the 10th of October at the National Union Building in downtown
0:40.1	D.C.
0:41.1	Okay, that's done.
0:42.9	Time to start the show.
0:44.1	It's not so much a question of, am I going to do this thing to upset people?
0:48.4	My mere existence upsets certain people.
0:51.2	It's not that I'm deciding to be political.
0:53.6	I'm deciding to be me.
1:00.2	My guest today has been on the front cover of Time magazine, which included him in their
1:05.2	list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
1:08.1	The New York Times magazine put him on their front cover last month, calling him the
	...

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