Riz Ahmed on Why ‘Bait’ Is Most Vulnerable Piece of Work to Date

Riz Ahmed spent 10 years bringing “Bait” to life. Part of that journey was driven by fear: “It’s a very scary project to make because it’s so personal,” he says. Some of the delay, he reflects, came from finding excuses or sabotaging the process because it felt so exposing. “Bait” is indeed Ahmed’s most vulnerable work to date.

In the six-part Prime Video series, Ahmed is executive producer, creator, writer and stars as Shah Latif, a struggling actor from London who is seen leaving an audition for James Bond. Shah becomes a viral sensation, but the show itself takes a satirical look at an actor who blows a life-changing audition while exploring themes of family, community, mental health, and Shah’s desire to succeed. That vulnerable performance earned Ahmed an Emmy nomination for outstanding lead actor in a limited or anthology series or movie.

Ahmed describes the show as a blend of genres, mixing drama and comedy while poking fun at one of the biggest franchises of all time. He admits that getting a show with such a complex premise off the ground — and even getting permission to do so — was a challenge. It was worth it.

“The show draws so much from very specific things that have happened to me. Anecdotes become scenes; locations where I’ve grown up suddenly put on screen,” he explains. “It’s really about trying to take all my greatest hopes, fears, and insecurities and do something more fun with it than just therapy. It’s definitely the biggest swing I’ve ever taken creatively and personally.”

In the first episode, after Shah botches his audition, he goes home to visit his family, whom he hasn’t seen in two months. His parents and relatives dote on him, while his parents brag about his accomplishments to their friends. When his cousin Q (Aasiya Shah) discovers Shah’s viral moment, chaos ensues.

Overwhelmed by it all, he leaves and goes back to his apartment. As he waits for his agent to call with news, he stares at a watch given to him when he received the 2015 Rising Star Award. In a memory, Shah is booed off the stage after suffering a panic attack. Ahmed delivers a raw and vulnerable performance that feels surreal to watch. “It’s a theme running through the show — the idea of feeling like you’re not good enough,” Ahmed says. “What happens to trigger this panic attack is, my character has his first taste of going viral and internet notoriety, and suddenly, there’s all this chatter and conversation about him that feels exciting and thrilling. Don’t go in the comments, dude. What he starts to see is also a lot of backlash. People have a lot of hot takes on whether this guy is good enough to be the next James Bond. ‘Who is this guy? I don’t like him. He’s ugly. He’s too that.’”

Ahmed admits he has been down that same rabbit hole. “Especially when you’re working out who you are, you’re asking the world to tell you, who am I? Am I good enough? And when the answer comes back as a D or a C-minus instead of an A-plus, that hurts.”

He reveals that Shah’s stage panic attack was inspired by a real-life experience of his own. In a full-circle moment, Shah’s having a panic attack on stage at the Kentish Town Forum in North London. “That happened to me on that exact stage when I was supporting the Wu-Tang Clan.” He recalls, “I was almost booed offstage because Wu-Tang were two and a half hours late. The crowd is waiting for RZA, and Method Man to come out, and this kid comes out, an unknown rapper doing electronic rap, — and 5,000 people were booing.” Ahmed says he couldn’t breathe, and his pulse was racing. But unlike Shah, who runs off, Ahmed battled through it until he got the crowd applauding. ““And then I just bolted off stage. It was the shortest set I’ve ever done in my life, two and a half minutes, and I bolted out of that same fire escape that you see, that same alleyway to try and take a deep breath.”

Leaning into Shah’s vulnerability and how he tries to mask it is the emotional core of the show. Says Ahmed, “He’s wearing this mask and trying on this outfit that makes him feel more successful, cool, desirable, decisive, and that outfit happens to be James Bond. His vulnerability is there to see across six episodes of him, going down a rabbit hole of self-destruction and messiness and drama and comedy.”

How does Shah cover it up? “By seeking the validation of others, people pleasing, trying to prove to the world that he’s good enough, that he could be James Bond. He could be the ultimate symbol of success and alpha masculinity and Britishness and all this kind of stuff.”

Another driver of the show, aside from the London locations, is the music. Ahmed worked with music supervisor Ciara Elwis to create a soundtrack that blends Pakistani acid funk, Bollywood disco, Pakistani folk music and garage. The music itself becomes a character in the story. Ahmed says, “The music was trying to do a couple of things. One was just trying to be as eclectic as possible to showcase London, which is like a character in the show. You’ve got that class of clash of tempos and cultures and sounds. It’s also trying to be as eclectic as the tone of our TV show because that was something that we really wanted to do.”

Ahmed goes on to say, “We wanted to take a big swing and go from one episode being almost a Bollywood soap opera, to the next episode being a ‘Before Sunrise’ romantic walk and talk to another episode being like a spy thriller with a surreal twist. We really wanted to play in different genres. That’s something we were really adamant to try and pull off and try and do. We felt it’d be bold and it’d be interesting.”

Later in the series, Shah finds himself getting slapped in the face. Ahmed describes it as a “massive moment in the show. It’s the character’s low point in many ways, when things really blow up for him.” This time, he’s with his family and he’s losing his grip. “He’s not grounded at all,” says Ahmed.

Growing up, Ahmed recalls his parents watching Indian soap operas, which were formulaic and often featured family events with everyone dressed in their finest garb, inevitably ending in a dramatic bust-up. “This whole episode, in many ways, is paying homage to that.”

Ahmed adds those messy family moments are meaningful. “This show is a complicated love letter to home and family. You can’t live with them, can’t live without them. It’s the place you want to return to and escape from. It’s the people you want to make most proud, and the people you want to prove wrong. That complicated moment where who he is trying to be out there in the world, and who he is with his family and all these different sides of Shah — they’re kind of clashing and exploding, and he’s having a bit of a meltdown.”

“Bait” might be Ahmed’s most vulnerable work to date, and it even became therapeutic: “This show is also a process of me trying to get to a place of more self-acceptance and self-love, like hopefully all of us. I’ll put it out there and say I’m on that journey. I think all of us are somewhere along that journey. Maybe some people are fully enlightened and are fully self-compassionate in a way that’s totally self-accepting.”

He continues, “Every day I’m trying to take another step forwards on that journey, and some days you take a step forwards and two steps back. This show is an attempt to me to put it all out there. There’s no more hiding. You have to accept it, celebrate it, laugh at it. You have to laugh your way through shame, and so I’d say it was healing in a way, to say, ‘This is my mess.’”