Riz Ahmed interview: On ‘Bait’ and building a genre-bending, Bond-adjacent fever dream

British actor and rapper Riz Ahmed’s Bait, which he wrote and stars in, tells the story of an out-of-work Pakistani British actor, Shah Latif, auditioning for the role of James Bond. The music, a mix of 1970s South Asian film psychedelia and UK club culture and one of the coolest remixes of Eurythmics’ ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)’, echoes the show’s genre-hopping DNA.

“We wanted to reflect the hybrid reality of London, of Mumbai, of Bengaluru, of every city today,” Riz says over a call from London as he heads to rehearsals for Saturday Night Live UK. “Our tastes are eclectic. Our reality is often full of juxtapositions. We wanted to have that broad range of different flavours, because that is what the show is like. It bridges and leaps across different tones, from comedy to drama to thriller to romance. We wanted a soundtrack that reflects those tonal shifts and that genre-bending, genre-defying approach.”