Sometimes when you're inside a story, it's almost better if you don't think too much about its wider cultural significance or if you don't think about how audiences might react to it. That takes you out of the reality of the situation you're committing to as you're telling the story.
Interpretation
Focusing too much on external perceptions can hinder genuine storytelling.
This quote emphasizes the importance of immersing oneself fully in the process of storytelling without getting bogged down by external opinions or interpretations. Riz Ahmed suggests that overthinking the broader cultural implications or audience reactions can detract from the authenticity and emotional engagement required to tell a compelling story.
In practice
In a workshop on creative writing, this quote can remind participants to focus on their story rather than worry about how it will be received.
I get good references from a wide range of music. Something who's been a good influence in the last few years is Qawwali music. If you listen to a Qawwali singer like Aziz Mian - he's like James Brown. Qawwali is like Pakistani gospel-jazz. It's emotional, but it's also improvised, and it's all about that sacred-and-profane tightrope.
No one's of Pakistani origin in any British show. That's why every actor of color is here working in the States. It's true.
Rehearsing a scene beds a role into you. But sometimes, if you over-rehearse it without unearthing any new meaning in it, you can suddenly forget your lines. You realise that you are on a stage, not in the real world. The scene's emotional power, and your immersion in it, disappears.
Being South Asian in the U.K. is like being Latino in the U.S., I would guess. It's a bit more hood. You see things; things happen. I was bouncing between worlds. You're acting from a very early age, when you have to code-switch like that. I'm a hybrid, a mongrel. I think many people live that life.
As a minority, no sooner do you learn to polish and cherish one chip on your shoulder than it's taken off you and swapped for another. The jewellery of your struggles is forever on loan, like the Koh-i-Noor diamond in the crown jewels.
I'm an actor. Since I was a teenager, I have had to play different characters, negotiating the cultural expectations of a Pakistani family, Brit-Asian rudeboy culture, and a scholarship to private school. The fluidity of my own personal identity on any given day was further compounded by the changing labels assigned to Asians in general.
To all the musicians, to the Academy, with all due respect, reggaeton is part of our Latin culture. And its representing as much as any other genre at the worldwide level.
With electronic music, you are not confined to the acoustics of a concert-hall, and that inspired me to bring my performances outdoors.
My method of getting a play across the footlights is like a revolver shooting: every line has a bullet in it and comes with an explosion.
I think something that every actor wants, whether they've done four movies or forty movies, is they want to find the work interesting. You want to come to work and think this is going to be a challenge.
But I owe something to Vincent, and that is, in the consciousness of having been useful to him, the confirmation of my own original ideas about painting. And also, at difficult moments, the remembrance that one finds others unhappier than oneself.
I don't know why people expect art to make sense. They accept the fact that life doesn't make sense.
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