Riz Ahmed: The UK film industry is reluctant to tell diverse stories
- Published
The star of Sky Atlantic's new HBO thriller, The Night Of, has told Newsbeat that more needs to be done to make British film and TV more diverse.
Riz Ahmed says the industry needs to be a "facet of the society we live in".
He says that because of a lack of inclusion, people from diverse backgrounds are leaving the UK to find work abroad.
The 34-year-old says that now the conversation about diversity has started "there's no going back".
"If we're getting our jobs in America and there's a massive problem there, you can imagine how screwed up things are in the UK," he said.
Riz Ahmed plays Nasir "Naz" Khan, a Pakistani-American college student accused of murdering a girl in New York
The Night Of starts on Thursday evening on Sky Atlantic and Riz says that the writers Richard Price and Steve Zaillian did a very simple thing when they adapted the script from the BBC version, Criminal Justice.
"[They] are just really sticklers for authenticity. They're kind of uncompromising in the detail with which they tell a story and with the reality they bring to their script.
"They just started with a very simple question, which is, most cab drivers in New York are more likely to be Pakistani or west African than they are white, so he has to be that."
Riz is also starring in Jason Bourne and can be seen as Bodhi Rook in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
He added that the #OscarsSoWhite debate is great, because it was "long overdue" but says something similar needs to happen to the British industry.
"I think we need to do more to talk about this in the UK to be honest.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is out in December
"Because I understand that British film and television has made a pretty penny in selling period drama, but I refuse to believe that the most interesting stories are behind us.
"They are happening right now. They are ahead of us. And I think that's a really amazing goldmine we're sitting on that we seem really reluctant to tap into."
The BFI London Film Festival has announced their Black Star project, which is the UK's biggest ever season of film and television dedicated to celebrating the range, versatility and power of black actors.
It will feature after the festival which will feature 245 feature films and 145 short films in 12 days, which accessible to the public.
See the full programme line-up., external
It'll be after the festival in late October and will include films and have discussions asking questions about the continued under-representation of black actors on screen, and looking into why opportunities for black actors in the US and the UK remain limited.
Clare Stewart, the festival's director, told Newsbeat that last year's festival focused on women, and this year they wanted to focus on another aspect of diversity.
She added that Riz is starring in two film being shown during the festival, Una and The City Of Tiny Lights.
She added that she "hears what Riz is saying" and admitted that there is a lot of that "conversation that we want to create a platform for".
"I think his thinking is very prevalent in the industry right now," she says. "It's something that I feel, there's a real interest in tackling and certainly from a BFI perspective, it's very committed to taking action in this context in terms of the films we fund.
"We've introduced diversity standards which have been very widely praised [for], not just by industry and the government here, but internationally as well.
"And that's about representation in front of the camera as well as behind the camera, in terms of creative crews. It's about the films we fund, it's about the audiences who watch them and it's very much about the filmmakers."
The Night Of is on Sky Atlantic from 1 September from 9pm.
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