Riz in
The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Concordia
Merchant Taylors’ School
I always feel that work grows out of that kind of organic
relationship in some way – it’s got to be interesting to you
culture. As an 18 year old I saw myself as a
rebel and found that iconoclastic approach
very attractive and that passion for things
French has stayed with me.
You went to Oxford to do PPE.
What was the tipping point when
you decided ‘I’m going to do the
acting thing?’
It was very late in my third year. At
Oxford I’d done drama but never really
felt I was ‘part of the club’, as drama at
Oxford is quite institutionalised. All we
did was classic old school stuff which I
found quite stuffy and there often wasn’t
a part for me even though I loved it. A
female acquaintance of mine had seen
me in a play and she emailed me and said
now that everyone’s applying for jobs, you
should apply for Drama School. That was
the first time I really dared to think I could
do it, so I applied on a whim to London
Drama School and got in but I couldn’t
afford it, so I applied for a Scholarship,
which I got. I just hadn’t dared to think it
was possible. I’m so glad I did it.
What was the break that got you Road
to Guantanamo?
I was on the one year course at Central
School and when students leave they
showcase your photos on the website
so casting directors can check you
out. By coincidence, a casting director
was scouring the website, saw me, and
happened to think I resembled one of
the Tipton Three. I met her and it turned
out I didn’t. But I met with Michael
Winterbottom anyway who thought I
looked like one of the other guys in the
Tipton Three. (Road to Guantanamo is
based on the true story of Ruhal Ahmed,
Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul from Tipton
in the Black Country. They were captured
in Afghanistan in 2001 and detained at
the US base in Guantanamo as enemy
combatants. The Three were repatriated
to the UK in March 2004 and released
without charge the next day). So I
auditioned for it, got it, and left Drama
School two months early to play that
role. I felt that it was what I had always
dreamed of – combining my interest
in politics with some causes that are
close to my heart and it was a really
renegade acting experience, literally
in the front line of the war zone, all
improvised – it was a refreshing change
from studying Shakespeare.
I guess until The Reluctant
Fundamentalist, Four Lions was your
most well-known film in the UK...
I am really proud of Four Lions because
it was a product of a long process of
conversation and collaboration with Chris
Morris and the other actors. When I put
out the rap ‘Post 9/11 Blues’, Chris sought
me out and said he was doing some
research about the war on terror and he
wanted to speak to lots of different people,
hear different voices on it. I thought that
was interesting and we hit it off and I was
researching for two years. I always feel
that work grows out of that kind of organic
relationship in some way – it’s got to be
interesting to you, if not to an audience,
and luckily this was both. We worked on it
for three years and took it from there.
What has happened to radical British
cinema?
I think that is something that has changed
in radical British culture – even the use,
the currency, of a word like radical. The
radical social movements have lost
direction and a certain currency because
of certain battles they weren’t able to win.
There’s also been a mainstreaming of
things that were radical, you could say a
co-opting – that those elements of culture
are now mainstream and change has
accommodated and incorporated what
was once radical, although sometimes
it’s tokenistic – a black face in a Richard
Curtis film. But sometimes it’s much
more authentic and genuine, like when
we’re talking about Idris Elba as the next
James Bond and sometimes it gets in
through the back door. Four Lions wasn’t
being funded for a long time but now it’s
one of the best loved British films in the
past ten years, so I think it’s changes in
our wider culture, it’s a more absorbent,
plural society – also some of it’s down
to pure economics – there are direct
consequences to slashing subsidies …
cuts in the funding of institutions like the
