Riz Ahmed on chaos, comedy and defying categorisation

Riz Ahmed was multitasking in February in London: late for the school run, double parked on a yellow line and doing an interview on his phone when he hit another car. The other driver exploded, Ahmed tried to stay on the call while negotiating insurance details, then wound down the window and, in his Wembley accent, pleaded, “Take my licence plate, bro!

I’m not trying to fight you!” He says that day crystallised the gap between the persona he has to perform and who he really is. That tension runs through his recent work. The film version of Hamlet, which Ahmed helped develop and which came out in February, reimagines the prince as the son of a wealthy south Asian property mogul in modern London.

Later this year he will appear alongside Tom Cruise in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Digger.

United Kingdom, London

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