Where this was said
Walking Away from Blockbusters
At 13:30 · chapter starts 12:35
Mendoza gently confronts Ahmed with the fact that he hasn't appeared in a big-budget blockbuster since Venom in 2018 — is that opportunity, choice, or something else? Ahmed doesn't flinch. Around 2017, he was on a mission he'd set for himself: pop up in big pre-existing stories and change the furniture from within. He believed — and still does — that stories can transport you to a world you've never visited and let you recognise yourself in a stranger. That's how culture stretches. But somewhere along the way, a different question emerged: what if I build the rooms myself? What if I tell my own stories? The freedom to control casting, genre, narrative approach — to tell stories that speak to the specificity of his own experience rather than be corralled into dry documentary realism — became the point. Sound of Metal, Mogul Mowgli, Hamlet, Bait: all evidence of what happened when he took the mask off. [1] — Riz Ahmed "Ahmed spent years trying to 'change the furniture in other people's rooms' — popping up in big IP films to stretch culture from within. The…" 13:00
Since playing the villain Carlton Drake in Venom (2018) opposite Tom Hardy, Riz Ahmed has deliberately stepped away from big-budget blockbusters to tell more personal stories.
Ahmed spent years trying to 'change the furniture in other people's rooms' — popping up in big IP films to stretch culture from within. Then he asked a different question: what if he built his own rooms? That pivot gave us Sound of Metal, Mogul Mowgli, and Bait.
Nobody is the Queen of England, yet millions identified with The Crown. Nobody is a Goodfellas gangster, yet Scorsese's film is universal. Specificity signals authenticity, and authenticity is what audiences actually connect with.
