Oscar- and Emmy-winning actor, writer and producer Riz Ahmed knew he had to lay it all out there for his Prime Video series Bait. “We’re all performing this public version of ourselves,” he said during Deadline’s Contenders TV panel.
A revelation that was compounded when he was banned from his local supermarket for suspected shoplifting the same week that photos of him from the upcoming Star Wars leaked.
So when someone shared with Ahmed the idea that “the distance between your public and private self is the amount of shame your carrying,” the idea for Bait was born. Ahmed was so moved that he realized “either I need to get therapy or I need to make a TV show about it.” With that we have the creation of Shah Latif, the neurotic struggling actor who auditions for James Bond and was built so much from Ahmed’s own real-life experiences.
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One of those experiences that thankfully is not based on real-life events is when Shah finds himself consulting with a decapitated pig head. A dead pig head which offers him wisdom that could only really be delivered by the iconic voice of Sir Patrick Stewart, but how could anyone possibly convince the Oscar-winning Sir Patrick to do such a thing? “We wrote him a letter expecting him to say no, but he said yes,” Ahmed said. “Still pinching.”
What came next was Ahmed sitting down with Stewart teaching him Urdu swear words. He recalled the actor’s response: “Behenchod – ah, sister f*cker, is it? Fantastic, it does have a logic to it. Wonderful culture. You’d like me to sing the words or say them?”
The coming together of Bait was full of magical moments. It was nothing but true kismet when Ahmed’s co-star Guz Kahn came on board to play Shah’s cousin Zulfi. Kahn had to remind Ahmed of their chance meeting 20 years prior, a meeting which Ahmed had completely forgotten about but Kahn never could.
“I was doing spoken-word poetry performance in a British city called Coventry, which is like a post-apocalyptic Detroit,” he said. “I’m out in the street, ‘Please, will you come see me do some spoken word,’ when I see a bunch of guys down a dark alleyway, mid-transaction.” The guys down the alley were Kahn and his friends.
“Guz’s legal team has asked me to describe it as they were selling tulips … ‘Hey, how you doing, brothers, would you like to see me do some spoken-word poetry?’ Out of their pity, him and his goons come and watch me do spoken word. Guz says it was the first time I saw someone who looked like me doing something like that in a space like that. And that inspired me to take the stage more, and that set him on his journey.”
The finale leaves the audience guessing as Shah seemingly is offered the role he’s nearly destroyed himself and his family for, when he’s asked to deliver one of the most iconic lines in cinematic history — “The name’s Bond, James Bond” — and he refuses. Was it real? Was it metaphor? Prime has not picked up for Season 2 yet, but either way Ahmed has a peace about the whole thing.
“All the incredible geniuses, teachers, mentors who shepherded me through my first experience showrunning. Whether or not we get to make Bait again, I‘d love to keep that family with me.”
Check back Monday for the panel video.
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