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Riz Ahmed’s Hamlet Is For Anyone Feeling “Powerless” & “Gaslit” In This Political Moment

admin — Fri, 12 Sep 2025 06:44:34 +0000

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TORONTO, ONTARIO – SEPTEMBER 05: Riz Ahmed attends the premiere of “Hamlet” during the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival at TIFF Lightbox on September 05, 2025 in Toronto, Ontario. (Photo by Harold Feng/Getty Images)

When you think of the world of English playwright William Shakespeare, chances are you’re not picturing his Early Modern English text interspersed with Hindi. But maybe you should be. In Hamlet, the 2025 reimagining of Shakespare’s play about a Danish prince who, seeking to avenge his father’s death, slowly descends into madness, filmmaker Aneil Karia transports the infamous story to the streets of London and the city’s vibrant South Asian community. In this re-telling, starring The Night Of’s Riz Ahmed in the titular role, Hamlet’s family aren’t actual royalty, but rather real estate royalty. His father is the head of Elsinore, a lucrative real estate empire changing the landscape of London; his clothes aren’t made of luxuriously spun fabrics or lush velvet, but instead consist of a plain white kurta; the court surrounding Hamlet’s family (in this case business associates and a mix of aunties and uncles) don’t feast on hearty meats and wine, but rather samosas and traditional Indian sweets. And everyone speaks Hindi. It’s safe to say, this isn’t your English teacher’s version of Hamlet.

The project, which premiered at the 50th annual Toronto International Film Festival, was almost 14 years in the making, championed by Ahmed who had a longtime dream of taking on the role of the infamous antihero. While it was a long process to see the movie through to its premiere, the wait was arguably worth it, considering it’s a story that — although written over 400 years ago — is timelier than ever. “Hamlet is about grief, and Hamlet’s grieving his father, but he’s also grieving an illusion of how he thought the world was,” Ahmed tells Refinery29. “He thought it was a much more fair and just place than it’s turning out to be.”

A lot of injustice is presenting itself to us in a way that’s shocking, and we’re all feeling a bit powerless in the face of it, a little bit gaslit about it as well… we’re feeling complicit in it.

riz ahmed

If that sounds familiar, reflecting, say, the entries of your own journal or conversations you’re having within your own circle of friends and group chats — that’s exactly the point. Around the globe, social and political injustices, the reappealing of human rights, ongoing genocide, and climate disasters have remained a constant and incessant onslaught. “I think a lot of people are feeling that way right now, right?,” Ahmed says of Hamlet’s realization. “A lot of injustice is presenting itself to us in a way that’s shocking, and we’re all feeling a bit powerless in the face of it, and we are feeling a little bit gaslit about it as well, and then we’re feeling complicit in it.”

While the particulars may be different, In essence, Ahmed adds, this idea of feeling powerless and trying to do something to change that is Hamlet’s journey. “Shakespeare wrote that storyline 500 years ago, and here we are today, still going through that journey.”

The decision for Ahmed and Karia to situate the story in a South Asian community is one that came easily. Given Ahmed’s own background, it made the most sense. “It’s as simple as I connected to this play and I wanted to play this role,” Ahmed says. “Riz is South Asian so that means his family has got to be South Asian,” Karia adds. “And suddenly there you go, we have a South Asian Hamlet.”

TORONTO, ONTARIO – SEPTEMBER 05: (L-R) Aneil Karia and Riz Ahmed attend the premiere of “Hamlet” during the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival at TIFF Lightbox on September 05, 2025 in Toronto, Ontario. (Photo by Harold Feng/Getty Images)

While the decision to situate this particular version of Hamlet within the South Asian diaspora of London was one made out of necessity — the fact that Ahmed himself is South Asian and drawing from his own experiences is natural for such a closely held project, you can’t help but feel like telling the story within this particular community in this particular time period is the only way a filmmaker could have brought the story into the 21st century, at least in an authentic and believable way.

“It became so much more rich than we could ever imagine,” Ahmed says of grounding the story in this community. Karia adds: “We were constantly being surprised by how these somewhat archaic and kind of whimsical or fantastical details in Shakespeare, like the ghost world, family, honor, remarrying within the family and things like this, which can feel fantastical in some adaptations, started to feel relevant to contemporary South Asian communities.”

“It felt like there was some conversation between modern South Asian existence and this ancient text, which was really interesting.”

Integral to Shakespeare’s original play is the idea of legacy and lineage. It’s the reason why, upon his return to Denmark, Hamlet is initially so quick to fall into line, accepting his Uncle Claudius as the new King and his own step-father (if only in public). He’s guided by an allegiance to his mother and the belief that this is what’s best for the country and the lineage. And it’s what, as Hamlet pursues the truth about his father’s death, motivates him to do so by any means necessary, following the notion that he’s avenging, but also preserving, his father’s legacy through justice.

It felt like there was some conversation between modern South Asian existence and this ancient text, which was really interesting.

director Aneil Karia

In Ahmed’s 2025 adaptation, the stakes — and reasoning — remains the same, but is emboldened by the shift to a South Asian community, in which duty to one’s family remains a strong tenet that carries with it generational expectations and weight. Not to mention the emphasis on respect and deference to one’s elders. We see this from the moment the movie opens when Hamlet, taking part in traditional funeral rites for his father, openly looks to his Uncle Claudius (played by Art Malik) for guidance on what to do.

In the world of Ahmed’s Hamlet, as within the diasporic community both on-screen and in real life, living up to familial expectations is of the utmost importance. And viewers watch Ahmed navigate that push and pull between duty and desire on-screen as he navigates first his grief, then his torment, and finally his rage.

This rage, ignited when Hamlet is visited by the ghost of his father, who reveals he was murdered by Hamlet’s Uncle Claudius, is what changes the course of the play and the trajectory of Hamlet’s life. While the original play presents Hamlet as slowly going mad, with his visions of his father framed as ghostly hallucinations, the contemporary take leaves more room for interpretation. Instead, and minor spoilers ahead, it leans into the idea of spirituality, a large part of many South Asian communities and identity.

While this spirituality is inherent within the culture presented onscreen, seen through rituals and ceremonies, Hamlet is also faced with symbols of Hindu deities, one in a particularly pivotal moment, causing internal reflection. By introducing these deities and the idea of spirituality in this way, Hamlet’s beliefs aren’t represented as delusions, but are instead rooted in something real — or at least believable: Faith. Meaning that when Hamlet does finally reach his breaking point, in a pivotal and incredibly public moment (one in which Ahmed, who frantically fluctuates between devastatingly desperate and comically unhinged, shines), audiences are presented not necessarily with a man who’s gone mad, but one who is valid in his feelings of grief — making his eventual end all the more devastating.

While the outcome of Karia and Ahmed’s Hamlet remains the same as the play, the way in which we view the titular character and his actions has changed. And that feels like a very 2025 update.

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‘Rogue One’ Scene That Was Left on the Cutting Room Floor

admin — Sat, 23 Aug 2025 12:32:13 +0000

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Summary

Relay premieres at Toronto International Film Festival to positive reception with Riz Ahmed and Lily James
Ahmed stars as a fixer in a thriller maintaining secrecy for whistleblowers until a new client causes chaos
Ahmed and James discuss the unique script, filming in NYC, and their collaborative process with director Mackenzie

After the positive reception of its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, David Mackenzie‘s (Hell or High Water) paranoid thriller, Relay, is now playing in theaters nationwide. The movie stars Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal) and Lily James (Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again), and offers audiences a throwback to propulsive ’70s mysteries with a high-stakes cat-and-mouse game.

In Relay, Ahmed is Ash, a fixer who keeps whistleblowers safe from the corrupt corporations that want to silence them. He’s diligent in working from the shadows to protect his identity, as well as his clients, utilizing a relay service that maintains a wall of secrecy between them. But when a new client, Sarah (James), reaches out for help, fearing for her life, Ash’s practiced discipline begins to slip.

In this conversation with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, Ahmed and James share what’s so unique about Relay‘s script that allows this genre film to stand out and how New York City plays its own character in an otherwise tight cast. They discuss their experience of working with Mackenzie on a whirlwind shoot, just under a month, collaborating in an “organic and alive” way. They also share tales from other sets for cut scenes from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and James’ upcoming Cliffhanger reboot.

‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’ Left This Entire Scene on the Cutting Room Floor

James also shares the intense filming conditions for the Cliffhanger reboot.

Image via Lucasfilm

COLLIDER: I really want to start with congrats on the movie, but before we get into it, I like throwing a curveball or two at the beginning. For both of you, you’ve done a ton of projects. When you think back on them, what do you consider the toughest shot or sequence of your career?

RIZ AHMED: Wow.

LILY JAMES: My goodness.

AHMED: I’m going to jump in and say we did a one-shot take on my first week of shooting Rogue One that we spent a whole week shooting. I was carrying, like, a 50-kilo backpack prop on my back, running through sand, dodging stormtroopers and booby traps, and it wasn’t in the final movie.

JAMES: It didn’t make it in?

AHMED: No, it didn’t. They changed the whole storyline. Maybe they changed the whole storyline because I was so bad in that shot, but they changed the whole storyline, and none of that whole bit of the film was even in the final film. We reshot this other stuff. That was pretty tough. I was like, “Why can’t you make the prop lighter?” But no, they take their props so seriously on Star Wars.

Image via Walt Disney Studios

JAMES: I’m always that annoying person who’s like, “Make it heavy. I need it to be heavy.” [Laughs] I did a lot of hanging off mountains recently. I was in the Dolomites in Austria doing Cliffhanger, and we were hiking for an hour and a half, also with all our own stuff on our backs as actors. There was no kind of hair and makeup that could go with us. We were kind of hanging off ropes and real heights and really climbing pretty much every day and battling snowstorms and weather patterns that would come in and completely disrupt us. We’d suddenly have to quickly evacuate the mountain before the fog set in, and you couldn’t see your own hand. So, yeah, that was pretty crazy.

See, I like how people think that being an actor is really luxurious and you’re not physically challenged, but every time I speak to actors, they tell stories like this. You really get put through the wringer.

‘Relay’ Will Have Audiences Leaning Into Its “Classic, Twisty” Tale

“There’s so much going on below the surface.”

With Relay, one of the things that I really, really enjoy about this movie is that it’s a smartly written script. It’s always one step ahead of the audience. There’s not too much exposition. Can both of you talk a little bit about the script and the quality of the writing, and the storytelling?

AHMED: It was a real page-turner of a script, and really confident, insofar as, for example, my character doesn’t even speak for the first half an hour of the movie. When you’re reading the screenplay, it really gets you leaning in and asking questions and feeling intrigued, and I think that it has that effect on the audience as well. So yeah, just a confident, classic, twisty thriller that takes you in its hands as an audience member and takes you on a really fun ride.

JAMES: And there’s so much going on below the surface in terms of what these characters are dealing with, what they’re battling with, these great kind of missions that they have and really fighting for their lives, and this sense that these lonely people in New York City. There was something just so human about the portrait of these characters, but also in this very high genre kind of world and high-stakes situation. And we were really in New York City, which, for me, I was like, “Get me to that city!” I’ve always dreamed of filming there. I’d love to live there. It’s such a palpable character in the film, New York. You feel it has its own energy.

David [Mackenzie] told me that you had, like, 300 scenes to do in 27 days, and one of the tougher sequences was the Times Square sequence, where you didn’t have it locked down. I could be wrong about this, but you were just filming, and people were around. Can you talk a little bit about filming that sequence?

AHMED: It’s kind of crazy.

JAMES: Respect to David for shooting it that way, for not shutting it down, and for having real people and real crowds and these faces that burst onto the screen and add such a beautiful authenticity to the film. It was bonkers. I mean, we had no control. It was chaos.

AHMED: I think that’s David’s style and probably why he wanted to shoot in New York City, because you wanted to welcome in the chaotic, intense energy of the streets of New York. It’s so, really, invigorating. It was challenging at times, but it kept you on your toes. That kind of aliveness and that unpredictability, I think, is on the screen. I think you can feel that in the film, because part of David’s process has a fluidity and that ferocious pace to it.

I’m a big fan of his work.

Filming ‘Relay’ Was a “Bizarre and Disorientating” Experience

The pair discuss the interesting way they rehearsed and prepared for the shoot.

I’m so fascinated by the way actors like to prepare for a role. For both of you, you see the shooting schedule coming up for the next week. You know what you’re going to do on Monday. Over the weekend, when you’re looking at the script and you’re figuring out scenes, can you take me through your process a little bit, like what that weekend is like for you when you’re shooting a movie?

JAMES: Well, this was pretty unique because we were getting together and working together with David, like, every weekend and talking about the next week’s work and finessing and developing as we went. We were also adapting off of night shoots, so your weekend becomes this bizarre and disorientating.

AHMED: Yeah. It was really interesting, the open and collaborative process on this one. It wasn’t like, “Alright, everybody go away on their own and do their homework, locked away in their cage.” It was more like, “Alright, see you guys on Saturday. We’ll work from 10–4. We’re going to get these scenes into shape. We’ve discovered some stuff this week. How is that going to change what we do next week?” And similarly, “We’re going to be rehearsing stunts on Sunday.” So, it was a very organic and alive process. It felt very much like we were riding a wave in real time, rather than we had this finished, fossilized script and then we’d have to bring it to life afterwards. It was like the whole thing was just moving and alive, and it had a kind of pace and a collaborative energy to it.

Relay is in theaters now.

Relay

Release Date: August 22, 2025
Runtime: 112 minutes
Director: David Mackenzie
Writers: Justin Piasecki, David Mackenzie
Producers: Basil Iwanyk, Gillian Berrie, Teddy Schwarzman

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