Riz Ahmed: How to Silence Your Inner Critic (And Build REAL Self Worth)

haven't seen it, make sure you do. A series exploring identity and the tension between who we are and how we're seen. His reimagined film Hamlet and Digger, his new film coming later this year. Please welcome to On Purpose, Riz Ahmed Riz. Honestly, whether it was Post nine to eleven Blues, whether it was Four Lions, We've been with

you from the start. I've been cheering so much. I am a huge fan of how you put yourself out there, the conversations you have, your multidisciplinary art form, and honestly,

I've been waiting for this moment. I feel like, for like god, at least seven years since I launched the show.

the room with you. It was me, you and we were talking to Bella Bella Bajari, who's chief content officer Netflix, dear friend, and you said to Bella you were like, give this guy a show man, Like you were like you were vouching for me even back then, like give him a show. Beller like, what are you doing? And I was like this is I was like, this is so nice. I'll take it. Like you're a man at the moment, you're nominated for the Oscar and you're trying to get me a show and now we've got three

shows at Netflix. Amazing. You know, AMAZ feel like you planted a very important say I want to give your flowers and give you treadit for that man.

through the zeitgeist and the culture. I mean, ninety five percent on rotten tomatoes. Unbelievable. That is ridiculous to even think about you and like to see the kind of conversations it started. It's not just oh my god, you should watch this show. It's really good. It started conversations about identity, about shame, about mental health, about in a critic,

about guilt, about all these things. And you see it where wherever I go on my feed, whether it's TikTok or Instagram, either it's you or someone talking about the show. How does it feel to put yourself out there in such a vulnerable way because this story has so much of a correlation with your reality. How does it feel to put yourself out there almost not wanting validation, and then to be validated for it. It's really interesting, isn't it?

continue to go on that journey. I haven't fixed it. I haven't solved the equation. It's a constant battle, you know, trying to find that self love and not just be on a treadmill looking for it from other places. So the show is about that and about trying to get past validation. So in a weird way, when people are validating the show, I'm like, this is a trap.

something about receiving praise something makes me feel uncomfortable. And so I'm trying to find that balance of not being desperate and hungry for it. You know, you can't live off a diet of this candy, of these dopamine hits. So people's pray but also just receive it and avoid it. I can sometimes swing between those extremes.

it doesn't matter what anyone else says about me. And it's like, if you think about it, you're always trying to oscillate between too tight too loose, and you're trying to find that perfect balance of like how do I hold myself in a way I don't suffocate myself or stra but how do I hold myself in a way

that I don't also just let myself go where nothing is important or valuable. And I was thinking about it because in the show we get so many of these flashbacks into Shah's childhood, his teenagers. I've seen the show. I loved it, and I have been talking about it with colleagues and friends and people who have all had interesting reflections on it, both people from South Asian backgrounds

and people from completely not. And that's what I love about the show is that it starts really fascinating dialogues beyond culture and gender and race. But one of the things that stood out I wanted to ask you is what's a childhood memory that you have that you would say defines who you are today.

and feeling other than that way. Maybe more vigilant made me more aware of my identity In many ways. It set me on a lifelong journey of trying to like square the circle of my identity. In some periods of time, I've tried to code switch a lot. If I've gone to a predominantly why upper class school, which I did a code switch in that way, then I'd hang out of my neighborhood. I'd code switch another way. And I

think that journey has defined me. I think that's how why I started acting was kind of code switching from one social environment to another. It's a kind of performance right, And where I'm at now, and really what the show Bait is also trying to do and what it's about, it's about a search for identity. So I'm trying to bring all those different sides of me together, not edit

and censor myself when I walk into a room. I did this monologue for snl UK recently and I was working with the writers on it, and it was about identity crisis, and I was like, I'm having an identity crisis. The uk is everyone's having an idy We're all trying to work out who we are. And I said, look, that's why I stand like a mix between Stormzy and Rishie Sunak and just trying to embrace that, be playful about that confusion. I think that moment of realizing my

difference and navigating identity was a big one. The other one's a lot more of a playful memory. Every time there was a community gathering at some point, the Aunties would be high on Coca Cola and Fanta and they would say, bring Gorlu down. Gorlu was my name in the community. No Gorlu means round though, yeah, little spherical round object. Don't Apparently my brother named me Gorlu. I had a round it grown er, don't ask bring Gulu down.

It's time and I would perform and I would do Michael Jackson dancing and I would do like just right and it honestly they basically I'd be smashed off coca cola as like a six year old, just like just freaking out, just throwing my limbs. I just remember these rows of Aunties just sat there clapping and just feel like this is the best feeling ever. I'm just getting to express these quite wild animal movements. I mean, it

did look nothing like how dancing should look. I'll just basically freak out in this really expressive way and be a firmed for it.

things relate to each other my whole life. Yeah, I'm fascinated by those two memories because they, like you said, ones play for and has certain consequences with what happens with that, the validation, the praise, the applause for losing control, and then the other one is actually quite to be in that threatening place as a young man with your brother and feeling the racist implications of having that kind of interaction with song. So many people go, I mean,

sure you experienced a lot. When you said Gorlu, I was like, so I was overweight growing up, so I was bullied for that. I was bullied for the color of my skin because the area I grew up and there weren't a lot of people of our color. And so I get it, like I hear that, and that doesn't make it any more normal or easy or better for any of us. It's just like, no, that's what you went through. But I can also relate to the other side of the Aunties. I could totally relate to

everything you just said. I'm just like we'd be at like an event and the act had pulled out or something, and then my mom would be like, all right, you got to go on stage and save the day. What do you mean? Like, I haven't prepared anything. I'm not ready for this, and I'd have to figure it out. We're all out ages trying to please Aunties literally literally to do what is up with that? And the funny

thing is where I was saying this too earlier and I saved it. But I was like, you know, like you you kind of you lived the auntie's dream, like you went to a great school. You don't went to Oxford and did PP For anyone who doesn't know, that's the prime minister's degree, like the prime ministers of England. I think pretty much every single one of them did ppe at Oxford as a subject, it is the most world class degree could possibly do in the whole entire country.

Then you go, I want to become an actor, and then you go be an actor too. I'm like, you did it like you did the academic dream you did the you did your dream like when you look at it from that perspective of hey, wait a minute, I actually lived every dream here when you look back and go what is my dream now? Or uncovering what is riz Armed's dream? Do you have anything that feels close? You know?

it really land like that? Or does it feel like a series of mistakes that went right, moments of hubris that went wrong, a journey that's constantly unfolding that you're not quite in control of. And in many ways like you don't stop to like breathe it. But maybe I mean, I'm sure you stop to breathe all the time, so you stop to kind of, you know, kind of really have check out that perspective. But when you're saying these things about kind of living the dream or whatever, I

guess I don't see it like that. I feel very grateful for my journey. And maybe the reason why I don't see it like that is I realized that all these kind of external markers of achievement, they.

to feed my soul or make me feel full. I've been just thinking about this a lot lately, because I talk about these things and I practice these things, but then you meet someone who does it better than you, more naturally, more effortlessly, and you go, you're talking about me. J Yeah, yeah, I was talking about you life, Thank you.

I was doing one of my friends who's like she can make like if she saw a beautiful colored flower on the side of her own she would stop and grab them and feel like someone just gave her a million dollars amazing, and it sounds ridiculous to say it, but having watched her do that, I'm just like, that's what I want like to be, you know, to be able to turn that really ordinary, simple moment into feeling like it's the most order. And we see this in kids.

I know you're a dad too. It's like you see this in kids when you watch a kid just marvel at something and they're lost in a moment. You know, there's that classic stereotypical thing of like trying to get everyone out of the house, put on your shoes because we've got somewhere to be milestone objective, achievement goal, and the kid is like playing.

Should it be landing more? And that's when I realized, like, it's actually the reward was the process of making it was the process of reaching inside to a vulnerable place and kind of offering it up. There's that moment of offering, is that moment of letting go. There's this sample at the start of a j coletrack called the Climb Back.

The tracks pulled the Climback, and I think it's a sample from a very old audio book called The Tower of Leadership, and it says, you need to ask yourself, why are you doing this work?

wanted to ask you about that. I think it's such a great line because I think people are exhausted feeling like their life just feels like one big audition, big term. And we see, obviously your character's Charlotte if like he's going for an actual audition, but then his life turns into pretending, like everything has to be about that moment and he has to be that character in his normal life, and I think we do that to ourselves. Is it possible to live as if life is not an audition? Yeah,

that is really the central idea of the show. That's why this show is based around an audition. It's not really a show about being an actor. It's about this We always feel like we are all auditioning. And that's because I think of social media to a considerable extent, the attention economy that we all exist in, that our value is about our visibility, and so we're all constantly performing this version of ourselves that we think we should be,

that we think people want us to be. And that's true on your LinkedIn profile, on a zoom call, on your social media, just as it is for an act. Right, Like, here's the script I have to behave like a more desirable, put together, successful version of myself. But actually I can't make sense of this script of life and I'm having a panic attack. And so how do you switch that off? How do you kind of like stop performing. I think it's really interesting because you could say, well, you know what,

it's about being really vulnerable. It's about embracing your messiness. You can also get into like performative vulnerability. I think so much of it isn't about what you do, it's about why you're doing it and how you're doing it.

it's all in there. And so for me, I started to realize that and you'd feel this way that as an actor, it's slightly different because with an actor, everyone thinks you are your roles so right, Like if someone meets Chris Hemsworth, they think he's thought and like they think they're getting a picture O man. Yeah, they think they get a picture with Thor if you Robert Downey Junior, you think you're with Iron Man like that you know Tony Sark, Like that's who you're in love with. You're not.

You don't know who Robert Downey Junior is, same with Rizamed. Whereas for you the public and private self, there's an authenticity. There's a coherence to it. Yes there is in the sense of, yes, I do this in real life and I do it online. But I'm also a complete human being with lots of other desires and lots of other complexities.

So like what I try and do as much as I can, which helps me more than helps anyone else, is like I try not to say anything profound when I'm around me because because it's people come over for

dinner party, they're expecting Jay's going to be dropping some jam. I'm like literally the plainest, like, yeah, just a man United schools. Yeah exactly. I would literally start talking about football, because all I'm trying to do is like I don't want to play up to the caricature of what I

think I've become. It's like a comedian that just thinks they have to be funny all the time, so I can feel like, oh God, I've just got to be everything that comes out of mouth has to be profound and not as not only is that not realistic, it's not possible. I'm not I'm a normal person. Like everything I say is like deep and life changing, and I don't even want to be that. And so it's this

fascinating thing that I'm always dealing with. It makes you feel better, Jay, the time we've spent I've you always felt to me to be very superficial. Thank you what you want to hear? Yeah, but yeah, So I think my point is I'm always, in one sense, compensating for that by creating moments of breaking the image.

in that space between those two versions of yourself. That space really started opening up for me a lot about ten years ago when I started to become more known in America doing some work here and doing things like Star Wars. That is when it just felt so out odds.

You know, the perception and the reality couldn't be more different, and that's something that's stressful, absurd, what's so kind of funny, and so I wanted to kind of liberate myself of that shame hopefully invite other people to liberate themselves of that shame as well by actually trying to collapse that distance between the public and private self. So I'm always an actor. What if I make a show that's taking all my vulnerabilities and euroses and laugh about them and

put them out there. And it's so much in the show that's really directly from my upbringing. There's that skinhead moment a version of it. I had a panic attack once when I was supporting Wu Tang Clan concert at Kenish Town Forum in North London. We refilmed me having a panic attack your Kentish Town Forum. I said, I

want to do the same place. I want to burst out into the same alleyway and have the same panic attack there. Even you know the British Security Services m I five and m I six recruiting my character.

we're all doing it. You don't have to be you or me, like I said, We're all kind of performing. It feels like these days.

have to perform. Life is that way. But if you never leave the stage and you feel like your performance on stage is who you are and is reflective of your worth, that feels like when you're really stuck, because now you're saying the value I get from being on the stage is all the value I have. And especially if when you leave the stage, you're trying to be as boring as possible. Do you know what I'm trying to say, You're trying to be as imperfect as possible. What is love?

and they respect football together fifty exactly right. But what I think I love about that WhatsApp group my cousins is when I got nominated fro An Oscar for acting, one of my cousins genuinely was like, okay, cool, Like what is that big deal is that? Like when I

won Regional Employee of the Month. I was about to say like, well, no, it's saud, she's not like waing regional employee, and another cousin came in and went, no, it's not like that, because you actually won that award Regional Employing the month.

be liked or validated, It's like what again is set up for is trying to be something you're not. So obviously your characters trying to become the next James Bond. And it's not really about it's this idea of I'm trying to be something I'm not, And I think that is even more difficult than just trying to be liked, because before there's one version of you trying to be liked for who you are, and now you're trying to

be liked for someone you'll never be. And that's like an even more complicated place to be because now you're taking on traits, personality, types, clothing, whatever. I mean, I'm half disappointed didn't show up in a tux today, you know that, right, Like it's like for everyone else the subway takes you show up and everyone else to have to be This is where I get to be boring.

You're not worried, look great, but yeah, it's like but that idea of trying to be someone when not I find that to be like the the Golden handcuffs, the drug of society where I remember when I started, when I left the monastery and I started working in the corporate world just to pay the bills and survive. I remember thinking to myself, this place is trying to make me someone that I'm not. Yeah, And I could spend thirty years here becoming someone that I'm not, become partner,

could make money, whatever. And that's the challenge people having to work with. Because we're lucky, we get to express who we are through our work and tell stories and everything. But when I think about someone who's like, yeah, I've got you know, Riz, That's what I've got to do every day, Like I have to be someone I'm not.

in one place. Do we have an essential center? Isn't it just about our circumstances and our environment? This is when I'm asking you to say something profound. Yeah, I need you to help me out with this. What's your take on this? Do you think we have like, Okay, this is you at your core, and that's you your core.

Like I'm like in love with all of those parts of myself, and I'm like trying to become okay with all of those things, those things that are seen as contradictions correct and paradoxical, and they feel like they don't mesh. But I'm like, if everyone sat down and asked themselves who they were, I think we all have paradoxism. Yeah. We've been taught to say I'm an accountant, I'm married, I'm Hindu, I'm whatever. It is. Like, we've been taught

to have very simple labels which are very you know, incomplete. Yeah, And I guess it's like less about finding your self means being in one lane.

from my work, that's valid as well. But I always felt like it's got to be a have a greater purpose, right, And for me, that was about trying to stretch culture, this idea of one person at a time, one film screening, one performance at a time, opening people's hearts and minds to an experience that they didn't think.

And so to try and open people's hearts and minds, to realizing that we're all the same, we're all one, and to stretch culture in that way. And before I used to think, Okay, that means me popping up in all these roles that are as different as possible, to me change people's ideas about who can play that role.

It's something actually I've never really talked about publicly before Jay, But I did this film called Mogul Mowgli, and it's a a guy who an artist, who suddenly loses his ability to walk, becomes tremendously ill overnight, and is never sure if he's going to get his life back. It was an expiration of lots of themes that I was interested in creatively. But what people don't know is that that basically really happened to me. It was twenty fifteen

and I just started filming Star Wars. I'd never done studio movie before, never done a big franchise. I never thought that would be my path. I was really happy doing indies like Nightcrawler and Four Lions. I suddenly got to be in this film set with stormtroopers and all these big things. I was like, Wow, this is going to happen for me. One week into filming that, I started getting weird pain in my legs, and I thought, okay, maybe I've pulled something during one of the action scenes.

And I woke up one morning and I couldn't get out of bed and I couldn't walk. Tried to go to a hospital. They were like, they just kind of like, palm me off. They didn't weren't really sure what it was. I went to the hospital back in my parents' neighborhood, the same hospital I was born in. When I was visiting, my parents said let me go and check get checked out there. They immediately saw what was happening and they were like, you need to be admitted to hospital straight away.

I remember saying, I can't do how the fhilic Star Wars right now, and they said, you're in a very dangerous situation right now, and I'll explain to you what's happening, but you need to be hospitalized immediately. And I just felt like, what's happening to me? It's my life kind of falling apart before my eyes. I ended up spending two and a half months in hospital. I was unable to walk. I went down to just under fifty kilos, wow,

one hundred pounds. You know. I couldn't lift my arms, I couldn't walk, and.

I remember being sat there and seeing like a pigeon sat on the window sill of this NHS hospital.

in Star Wars. I'm in a hospital desperately trying to get the nurses attention because I can't get out to go as a toilet and don't want to wet the bed. My life is just it couldn't be more different to what people are perceiving it to be. It was something about that experience made me want to start telling work from a personal place. And the reason for that is that I felt a lot of.

be happy? You have the things you want and all this shame and all this kind of like this really venomous voice was coming out and I was like, actually, this is the thing that's killing me. The only way to heal myself of that voice is by owning it. Is owning my experience, losing the shame around my experience, losing my shame around who I am. That's what Mogo

Mowgli's about, That's what bait is about. Because I believe, you know, what happened to me was a kind of autoimmune condition, right, And autoimmune condition is when the body attacks itself. And I know we're both big fans of that book The Body keeps a score, you know. It was my belief that I wasn't war with myself, that my critical inner voice was so out of control. I was always attacking myself, beating myself over the stick so much that in a way, my body had turned on itself.

I mean, I told this story jokingly before about one but I'd tell you, which is two years after I'd finished filming The night of I'd still get up in the middle of the night, go to the bathroom and start running scenes again. This is the show has come out. I want an Emmy for this role. It's done. I should have moved on my life, but still in the back.

to that hospital bed, and I had to look it in the eye and say, normal, shame, man, normal shame. I'm going to own this. I'm going to create work from this. And that's what Sound of Metal was, That's where Mogo Mowgli was coming from. That direct experience in the universe brought me a Sound of Metal, which is also about an artist going through a health crisis. And I was like, no, you're not done with it. You've got to go back there. You gotta make work from this place. Yeah.

never hear people talk about because they're scary. Yeah, And I feel like when I'm hearing you talk about that, I'm like, it sounds like you were dealing with a lot for something mental to become physically that deabilitating when you're a fit, young man, healthy man in general, Like that means there was a real war within yourself, as you've rightly said it. Talk to me as much as you can about that.

bless them. They carried on sending me food to the hospital, and I was having trouble swallowing it, and I was like, am I going to make my way out of this?

you've given me. And it was incredibly scary. And the next morning, I remember they said they said that they might have to start a really intensive kind of chemo on me. God man, I mean that's it's a harrowing time like in your life. Like that's like just when I hear about it, because I I not not It wasn't life threatening. But my version of the mental turning in the physical was I developed while I was a monk.

I developed polyps in my throat, and so these get on your vocal cords, and people generally get it from like vocal exhaustion or lack of vocal rest or some sort of vocal disruption. And I think for us in the monastery, it was mantra, it was chanting, it was you know, and and I do not have a singing voice, for whatever it's worth, but I think my vocal range is pretty limited and I was probably straining it. I

don't even know how it happened. That's that's the physical version, but we all know there's well from what we're talking about, there's so much more to it, whether it's a lack of expression, a lack of authentic communication of where you're at. And I remember having to get them lasered off my throat, and so I went into surgery got them lasered off. It's pretty like you know, you don't feel it yesterday.

It it's not like I said, it's not life threatening, but like for months after, you're drinking from a straw because you can't eat proper food, okay, and you can't talk. So I have a white board and I remember moving in back with my parents at the time because I couldn't be in the monastery, and I'd literally write to my mom like what I could eat, water, whatever it was. And I'm literally carrying a whiteboard around my neck basically and just writing stuff to my family because I can't

say anything. And at that time, I'm like, I give speeches at colleges, I give talk to the temple. I'm like speaking is my thing, Like that's what I do course, and it's all gone and its disappeared in like I can't even say anything, Like I'm writing words on a whiteboard, and I remember feeling very similarly to what you're saying about seeing that pigeon praying to God like I can relate to it. And again like mine was not life threatening.

You know, there's a difference between not speaking and not walking. No, but it's profound because it's your your gift turns to your curse. It's like the thing that you are blessed.

me was a few things. I remember talking to one spiritual guide at the time and I said to him, I said, I can't speak to God out loud anymore, like I can't hear myself talk to God. I can't chant. I can't mantra is such a big part of Eastern tradition. I can't I can't chant out loud, and you're meant to chant out loud so you can hear the spiritual

sacred sound like that's our practice. And he goes to me, He goes, God's teaching you to chant with your heart like and I was like, God, like that that at that time, I just remember that like hitting me. It was like he was like, yeah, you think, well, you think you talk to God out loud, like you think that's what God listens to. He was like, God's listening to this, like God knows what's going on in here.

It's got nothing to do with sound and voice. And I was like, wow, that's that's huge to learn to talk to God with my heart. What does that even mean? Yes? And then at the same time, it's what you said where it was like, Okay, now that my voice is starting to come back, how am I going to respect

the fact that I have a voice like to and you know, to not take it for granted, to be like, how can you feel that this ease with which we're talking right now and we're communicating and I can hear you,

you can hear me. When that goes away, God, life feels colorless, and you know it loses so much value and so again, and you know we were talking about this offline as well, like when you of course you forget all this, you started taking all the gifts for granted, again, you probably have to in a way to try and kind of move through the trauma. But I don't know if you have moments where you remember that and you just sink into that deep sense of humility and gratitude,

and humility is the word. I mean. You're taking me back that Actually, I don't think I've actually thought about this. I don't. I don't think I've talked about it publicly. To be honest myself, I don't. I can't remember if I've actually talked about it. And I'm being reminded of your experience, like your your experience triggering me going yeah like that, you know it was intense. That was intense,

and I don't traumatic. Yeah, it was traumatic. But all of that to say, with all of yours, talk to me about where does the shame come from going through something like that and then not wanting to share it, Because I think there's the pain of going through something traumatic, and there's then there's the pain of communicating it to a group of people who may or may not actually

understand what the hell you just went through. Yeah, but talk to me about where was the shame for you in wanting to share that and what kept in for so long? I will, But can I first tell you something about your voice? Yeah? I love your voice. But here's the thing.

who doesn't or if not exactly that a version of that. Now, what I mean by that is like you want to aspire to this archetype of heroism and that is about being this kind of invulnerable, powerful alpha male, whatever that means, although hilariously, I mean the alpha male in a wolf pack is the animal that lets the kids beat it up the most, you know, and it's like the most chill and the least aggressive, right. But we have these ideas in our culture, and I guess I didn't want to.

I already felt like I don't.

say that now. The time I just saw the GLO was half empty of it, and I thought, I don't even want anyone to think that weak, unbroken, that I'm not up up to the mark. Yeah, And in a way,

I actually think that there's some truth in that that I think the culture has shifted a little bit more, you know, I think we do because of spaces like this Man that you've created and other people have created where we can talk and celebrate our vulnerabilities a bit more, you know.

You want emmy, He's like, osc you know all this stuff, and it's like to actually go, oh wait a minute, even him, like there's stuff he's going through not only is affecting him mentally physically and that mental physical connection that I want people to make here, which I know you do too, which is this idea that a lot of what we're going through physically is coming from some

sort of emotional block, mental block. And in Bait you visualize that as this severed pig's head, which is this Patrick Stewart voice, severed pig's head.

I'll get complacent. I remember even when we won an Oscar for our short film, It's so funny. It was almost like the oscar was looking at me, going, you ain't shit. The kind of elation lasted as long as me going there, collecting it, going backstage, going to the toilet, coming back and sitting down again by the time I said down. In fact, I would say my critical inner voice was an all time high when I was sat there holding that oscre in my hand, because it was

almost like a survival mechanism. My brain was going with that voice. That part of my brain was going, don't put your feet up now, don't think you can get complacent, don't kick back. I've programmed you to strive, not to savor,

and so you're now are going to really crack the whip. It's just it was just going crazy. I remember sitting there in that seat having the most aggressively critical thoughts to myself.

It was one of those moments in the show where you're like, what, like, it's such a surprise, right, right, Yeah, talk to me about that, because I think what you just identified is the high performers an overachiever's curse, where the inner critic is what drives you to extraordinary success.

F one drivers, that they won't say the same thing. Basically, the athletes who I think are playing at the levels where every inch counts, in every minute matters, they all have this crazy inner critic which they have to learn what to do with it because in the moment they have to believe that this point is the only thing that matters, and then as soon as they win or lose the point, they have to believe that point doesn't

matter at all. Wow, because that's the switch there, so that their code switch or that is that it's like, when I'm playing this point, this is the most important point in the world, and as soon as the point's over, whether I win or lost the point, that points of relevance.

can also make us quite tense. And I think our best performances come when we're in a state of flow. And that is about, like you're saying, too tight to loose, that is also about being kind of loose. That's about a joy. It's about openness and receptivity and play and curiosity. Yeah, all those things that the critic does not really give us. And so yeah, for me, it's like on that mixing desk of the voices in my head. You don't want to the voice in my head. Y, there's a lot of them.

is a way of getting there that isn't that. That just seems to be the most common way that a lot of successful people have got there, but then they

didn't like what they got either. I think it can get you to a place, but then it will kill you. Yeah, exactly.

think kids you can't control them. Really, I mean, they humble you every day, right they they totally kind of you know, is that thing where you don't raise your kids, they raise you? So I don't know, I think that that's kind of something I'm trying to pass. It's on from the critic to the to the cheerlead that to the child.

that's why as we get older. I'm sure you feel this way too, time just flies. Every adult I talk to, they're like, yeah, God, time's just going fast.

doing for you? Is that just means streamlining and focusing on the things you really want to or how are you managing with that?

in my opinion, it's the best speech I ever given. Because he also knew he was going to die. So I feel like when someone knows they're going to die, it's that death awareness meditation, right, it's a big part of the kind of yeah, yeah, when that strict tradition in Eastern philosophy. Yeah, absolutely, and it's like every word mattered, like he didn't that wasn't performing if you see him

do it. He also just reads it like deadpan, like there's no performance, there's no emphasis, there's no poet, like he's not trying. It's just truth. Yeah, because he knows he's going to die. So it's like there's a so I listened to that, and there's a line in it that just goes like something like, and I'll butcher it.

Some people should listen to the real thing. But he literally says something like every few days, if I check him with myself and I ask myself, I look in the mirror, like, am I doing what I want to do? If this was my last day? And if after three or four days the answer isn't this is what I should be doing, then I know I've got something to change. And I'm like, I don't think we can all live like that all the time. I think there's you know,

people have responsibilities and pressures and whatever. But I think there's truth to the idea of did you call the person that you would call if it was your last day. Did you talk to your partner in the way you would if it was the last time you were going to talk to them? Did you look at your kid before you went out to work in a way that you would want them to know was how much you loved them, Like, I think all those things do matter.

That applies even if you've got to go to a job every day and you've got to say hello to people. It's like, did you behave with everyone in the way that you want to be remembered? I think that is important to me. And I think it's streamlining. I think it's focusing. I think it's all those things, but really it's more about it's less about what I do, and it's more about who I am, and in that, what

is the spirit of my being. I've noticed versions of that where like, in order to become successful, I've had to be more technical, I've had to be more strategic, I've had to be more organized, I've had to be whatever whatever the words are. And then I go, I'm just a guy who loves the heart, Like that's who I am at the core of Like I'm just a guy who just wants to like love and be loved.

Like that's who I am at my essence. And who are the people who can take me back to that in this crazy world where I have to be all these other versions of myself in order to do the thing people always say like, what's your favorite place? And I'm like, I'm never looking for my favorite place. I'm looking for my favorite people, because as long as I'm with my favorite people, it doesn't matter where I am.

And so I'm looking for people actively always, yeah, that keep taking me back to that place within my heart and can do it quicker, more beautifully, more gracefully, more elegantly. And I find I'm some of them are old friends that have had for twenty twenty five years, yeah, And some of them are new people that I just met last year. People who can make you more yourself yeah yeah, yeah,

people who can make you forget yourself. Yeah. People who go beyond the performance of yeah yeah yeah, like the person who's not getting you to play up to your avatar or you're you know. And so I'm looking I'm always looking to not collectors in this. I don't need a million of those people. You've got to find a few people that you just drop in your nervous system calms down. You know, the active mind switch is so important, so important.

this narrative where it was like, I don't like it, and you're actually making me think about this. Is like, there are a periods of time when I've ador lay and the thing that was surprising to me now is just before coming here, I was like, oh, I gotta go to La, man, being from London like walking, you know, like driving and everything spread out and I was like, you know, see any and all these kind of cliched criticisms, right, And yet I walk it out today in La absolutely loving it because.

Or like yeah, it's like I won't think about work or be on my phone after six pm. Because to me, that rest and renewal is where the best ideas come out. Talking about flow state, I can't invent flow, I can't engineer it, I can't manufacture it, and so for it to exist, I need to be in this lucid state where it said something that randomly allowed for me to be inspired at eight pm and it came up and that's fine, but I don't need to act on it immediately.

I just need to let it breathe and let it sit.

if you could just allow the water to be still enough. Riz, I want to do a certain question for you that we've got that speak about everything we've been talking about. But we're going to do them as not rapid fire, but we're going to do them as quicker fire. Yeah. Yeah, not line rambling. I don't want you no no, no, you can give longer answers, but I want to kind of get out from you. So what's the hardest mask you've had to take off?

people feel like that. I've learned to embrace that. Actually, I actually feel like having that slight outsiders perspective is kind of fun. Yeah, it allows me to enjoy things at a distance as well. But yeah, I mean all the time. I mean, ah, you know, I remember going to meet the Queen and accidentally trying to fist bumper. Ah, that's so good.

That's beautiful. I love that. That's one of the reasons why I've I actually liked living in LA because I'm reminded of my insignificance daily because it's so big, because it's so big, and I go to an event and I'm the least important person in the room, and I love it because the only conversation I'll have is meaningful one because the only person who's aware of me is someone who's connected to the kind of work I do well, and then that allows me to bask in the glory

of the rarity of that human and the intraction we just had. So I tried to belong to one person then belong to a room or a place or a space, because belonging to one person is kind of all we're looking for anyway. It's like when you meet one person and you go, oh god, even like you know we're from the same area, like you know, we know the same people. Like that to me in a busy, big

room is like pure joy that I know. Even the person winning an award on stages you've rightly just said, isn't even feeling yeah, And so it's not being celebrated that it gives us joy. It's not belonging to a whole room that gives us joy. It's connectious. It's one person that lives to you, and you go, we're from the same place, we believe in the same things, we care about whatever whatever that may be. Or I had a really good debate with someone that engaged me in

a really curious way and we don't agree. It can be so overwhelming in those rooms, can't it. Where like you're chatting to people and you feel that everyone's like looking over his should and see if there's someone else to talk to, and it's like pinball. It's like a social pinball, but finding a center in those rooms, finding a kind of a rooted place to drop into. Yeah,

that's the way to do it. Yeah. I always say to God, I'm like, I just want to meet the one person you want me to meet today, And that's how I walk into a room. I love that. I always meet that person and it's always like becomes a friendship, or we had a great conversation and we don't talk ever again, or and it's just like, yeah, God, like I'm here for you. So you just introduced me to the one person you want to introduce me to you and it Yeah, that that kind of carries me. So

this one's a good one. So when was the last time you tried to people? Please?

I was going to do a talk show or something and I said, I shouldn't wear that outfit. That's to me in a weird way. I was like, that's I need to meet the audience where they're at. Maybe they haven't seen a show like this or have related to someone like me from my background. I'm doing something maybe targeting,

like you know, it's Middle America or something. And I tried to dilute down what I would wear and who I would be, And luckily, when I was wearing things, I was like, oh the hell is this what am I doing? And I took it off.

so well said man. So well said, I feel like before we go to the final five, which is our Rabbi Fire, I feel like we have to give a bunch of shout outs to places in north and Northwest London there we grew up around because we've got to go Niche. We were talking about this before. We were like, we could have done a whole interview about north Northwest London and no one else would have got us apart

from our hometown, which we love. So this is for the fifteen people that know exactly what we're talking about. I'm going to start with the what I said to earlier Kebabish on the Healing Road.

that's a good one.

wait for more people to watch it. I can't wait for you. I mean, I know you've got Digger coming out this year. You've got you know, Hamlet that's out already, Like it's I feel like, you know, just keeps becoming more and more your year for actually putting out real expression. I appreciate you trying to receive it. There we go, h thank you, appreciate you. But we end every interview with the final five. These questions have to be answered

in one sentence maximum. Oh God, here we go. So, Riz, these are your final five, brought to you by State Farm. The first question is, what is the best advice you've ever heard or received. Idris Elba once said to me, categorize yourself, not explain.

other people's work for them. It's about the limitations people placed on you, how we internalize them, and then we perpetuate that narrative and going I'm this, this is my lane, I'm this flavor. There's so many different sides to who you are. I told him that recently and he was like, I was like, bro, you remember that conversation.

usually the same thing. You Losing your voice has made you so conscious of what you're communicating and how and the words you're choosing. There's so many examples I can think of in my own journey where the thing that I thought was blocking me, if I just leaned into it, it could unlock something. And I would say to all of those people, the thing about you is different is an obstacle in certain ways, but it's also the key, and I would say, lean into the specificity of your

experience of who you are. You know, I went to Oxford University and felt very out of place there on many different levels. And my experience there taught me something, which is actually because I was thinking about quitting after the first month, I was like what the hell am I doing here? Kind of had a mental health kind of breakdown almost over there and felt super depressed, super

kind of like an alien. But I kind of feel like now, the place where you stick out if you can, if you can find a support, if it doesn't hurt you, the place that you stick out is a place where you should kind of stick it out. You have an opportunity of changing the temperature in that room, of bringing other people into that room. I love that, man. Yeah, it reminds me of the stoic statement of the obstacle is the way, oh right, idea of like the obstacle

is the way. There is no other way, and so that obstacle, whether it's how you set up, or your background or your uniqueness. Yeah, all right. The question number two, what is the worst advice you've ever heard or received? It was one of the first casting directors I ever met, said, hey, nice to me. Just be careful about your eyes. You can look at a bit of a psychopath. Sometimes because I do this, I get excited and I start going to this. I want to watch this interview back. I did it there.

a kind of devotion. Devotion, and seeing how she is with our child, I think she just operates from like a deep place, you know. I think the biggest thing she's taught me that And also, you can never buy enough phone charges. She will take them all and lose them all, you know, they say, is the way that the first thing about someone that you find cute ends up being the thing that's like kill me.

After six years of marriage, Bro, that hasn't changed. She's still borrowing my charger.

your purpose. I think your path is something that is extremely personal but also divine, and so alignment to our path to our purpose. There's this phrase in Islam that set out delmustrine, which is the straight path, and people interpret that in different ways, but for me, it's about finding your path, the path that's intended for you. So yeah, man, your health, your rosie rot, your ability to provide, and your path. Have you been in Mecca before is that the first time.

hearts as well. And going there was incredible, and I would say it was actually just a physical act of walking around in a circle with all these people from all over the world, everyone dressed the same, everyone's mask kind of stripped away. There's just such a sense of oneness there. It was really kind of beautiful, and I promised myself I got try and bor all this feeling. But of course, as soon as you're on that plane, you're like back on your phone.

versus that way, I love it. It's just a fascinating like mindset shift of like, oh, what if we saw life as cyclical and not as linear and everything we just talked about today.

in because everyone's on their phone. I'll put it down if everyone else does. I just want everyone to be off their phone, everyone to go back to dumb phones. And here's why.

and say we'll take this mom and check out. Time feels totally different. My experience of the day feels totally different. The thoughts in my mind are totally different. I'm a little bit closer to being obsessed with the velcrobe on the shoe again.

thank you, thank you. If you're feeling inspired by this episode, you won't want to miss my conversation with Wicked's Cynthia Arrivo. We are afraid to let a person go, and we need to be okay with things people go.