{"id":637872,"date":"2026-06-14T07:12:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T07:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/637872\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T07:12:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T07:12:23","slug":"riz-ahmed-on-bait-and-how-being-brown-in-london-feels-like-youre-in-a-spy-thriller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/637872\/","title":{"rendered":"Riz Ahmed on BAIT and How Being Brown in London Feels Like You\u2019re in a Spy Thriller"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This week on the the Awards Tour Podcast, host Jacqueline Coley chats with Academy Award-nominee <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/celebrity\/riz_ahmed\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Riz Ahmed<\/a> about his critically acclaimed limited series <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/tv\/bait\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">BAIT<\/a>. In this episode, Ahmed talks about the James Bond pitch he gave to producer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/celebrity\/barbara_broccoli\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Barbara Broccoli<\/a>, 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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/celebrity\/jordan_peele\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jordan Peele<\/a> inspired the spy thriller genre of the show.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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\u2019s gonna pull it off. What was your favorite part of the spy stuff?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Riz Ahmed: When <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/celebrity\/jordan_peele\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jordan Peele<\/a> made <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/get_out\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Get Out<\/a>, he said being Black in America sometimes feels like you\u2019re in a horror movie, and so that\u2019s why he made <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/get_out\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Get Out<\/a>. I was inspired by that, so my thesis was \u2018Being Brown in the West sometimes feels like you\u2019re stuck in a spy thriller.\u2019 So that was why we wanted to use the James Bond template\u2026 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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/tv\/bait\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">BAIT<\/a> is streaming now on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B0GPDRM6Q1\/ref=pv_ag_gcf?cmp=rt_leaderboard&amp;tag=rottetomao-20\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Amazon Prime<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/editorial.rottentomatoes.com\/article\/app\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Find Something Fresh! Discover What to Watch, Read Reviews, Leave Ratings, and Build Watchlists. Download the Rotten Tomatoes App.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This week on the the Awards Tour Podcast, host Jacqueline Coley chats with Academy Award-nominee Riz Ahmed about&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[20267,154733,1825,96,2839,3133,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-637872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-awards","tag-awards-tour","tag-emmys","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-television","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}