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

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Welcome back to on purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier and more healed. Today's guest is someone I've been wanting to have in this seat for God knows how many years. I'm joined by the one, the only Riz Ahmed Academy Award winning actor, writer, producer, and artist known for sound of metal, rogue one, and the night of, and for bringing deeply human stories to life. Riz is currently starring in bait, if you 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 re-imagined film, Hamlet and Digger, his new film coming later this year, please welcome to on purpose, Riz Ahmed. Riz. Honestly, whether it was post 9/11 blues, whether it was four lions, we've been with you from the start. Oh man. I am a huge fan of how you put yourself out there, the conversations you have, your multi-disciplinary art form, and honestly, I've been waiting for this moment, I feel like, for like, God at least, at least seven years since I launched the show. Likewise, Jay, because I'm watching you and I've just been rooting for you from the beginning, and we were just saying this before the camera started rolling. We have so many people in common in the work world, but also in the personal world, because we grew up not too far away from each other in kind of overlapping worlds as well. So seeing you doing your thing, blazing a trail, it's just super inspiring. So likewise, man, I've been itching to get in here and, yeah, talk to you. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I was thinking about it. And I want to vouch for this, because I like doing this when I've got someone on the show, when I've got a memory that stands out to me, and it was probably around five years ago, I think it was. You'd been nominated for an Oscar. We had this South Asian Oscars evening in LA, and you were at the party. It was probably the only time I've actually been in the room with you. It was me, you, and we were talking about Bella, Bella Bajary, who's chief content officer, Netflix, dear friend, and you said to Bella, you were like, "Give this guy a show, man." You were like, "You were vouching for me even back then." You were like, "Give him a show, Bella." Like, "What are you doing?" And I was like, "This is so nice. I'll take you." You're the man of 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. I feel like you planted a very important seed. I want to give you your flowers. Thank you for that, man. For me, the reason I was rooting for you was because of not just what you have to say, because of course, what you say is so rooted in this ancient tradition, it's how you say it. It's how approachable it is, it's how human it feels, it's how relatable it felt. Just even selfishly on a personal level, when I hear you speak, when I see the way that you're relating to people or making these things that can sometimes feel very abstract or kind of elusive ideas, esoteric ideas and bring them into the everyday, bring them into our daily lives. It makes me feel less stupid. Do you know what I mean? It makes me feel like, "Okay, yeah. Okay, yeah. All right. I understand that. I get to grips with that." And I'm certainly one of those people who for a long time thought, "What's this meditation, stuff? What is this?" This is kind of a bit airy fairy. And it actually became such a big part of my life for many years and changed my life in so many different ways. And it's really because of people like you making it relatable, making it human. So yeah, on a personal level, I was, I need more J.S.H.A. in my life. You know what I mean? Thank you. That means the world. It's an incredible moment for you. I feel like you're everywhere in a good way. I feel like Bate has just pierced through the zeitgeist in the culture. I mean, 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. Unbelievable. Like that is ridiculous to even think about. Thank you, man. 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 inner critic, about guilt, about all these things. And you see it. 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? You're meant to be validate for it. It's really interesting, isn't it? Because the whole show is about validation seeking and how it can lead us down a really dangerous path. It's very natural, it's very human with social animals to want that connection, want that praise, want that affirmation to be seen. But if you are purely dependent on that external validation and you're not giving yourself that self-love, you can become completely lost. And that's what the show is about and the show is really inspired by my own journey with that. I've been on that journey. I 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. You know, it's interesting. I was saying something that is to someone the other day, which is, I've never been great at receiving praise just now when you were saying when he's nice things about me. I was actually saying, you know, I'm here with J. Shea, I'm going to open my heart, try and be present and receive, receive the good energy. But something in me, and I'm sure you've come up against this with all kinds of people. I don't know how you deal with it yourself, even. 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 were praying, but also just receive it and avoid it. I can sometimes swing between those extremes. You know, there's on the one hand is googling yourself later night. And on the other hand, it's like going, nah, nah, there's nothing rubbish on it. And so I'm just trying to find that healthy middle ground because the show is about that in a way. Yeah. No, I find that powerful because I feel like it's almost like my friend said this to me the other day and I really like to, it's this idea of like too tight, too loose. Sometimes you're holding yourself too tightly, like everything matters and everything's important. Yes. And then sometimes you don't hold yourself tightly at all, it's too loose and you're like, oh, nothing matters. No, it doesn't matter when 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 strangle myself, 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 the childhood memory that you have that you would say defines who you are today? When I was about eight years old, me and my brother got put up against the wall by a couple of skinheads, right, for people outside of the British context. They're kind of like, it was like a racist movement, basically, and they put a knife to my brother's throat. I remember being eight years old, looking up at him, he was kind of defending me. And it was just the, this kind of shocking realization that, oh, I'm different. I'm different in a way that means that I could be in danger. And feeling other than that way, maybe more vigilant, maybe more aware of my identity. In many ways, it's sent 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 white upper class school, which I did, I code switch in that way, then I'd hang out in my neighborhood, I'd code switch another way. And I think that journey has defined me. I think that's how 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 having everyone's having an identity, we're all trying to work out who we are. And I said, look, that's why I sound like a mix between Stormzy and Rishi Sunak. And just trying to embrace that, be playful about that confusion. I think that moment of realizing my difference in 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 Golu down. Golu was my name in the community. Golu means roundo. No spherical round object. Apparently my brother named Golu. and we go look at around it, grown up, don't ask. Bring go look down, it's time. And I would perform. And I would do Michael Jackson dancing. And I would do like just rant. 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, you know? And I just remember these rows of aunties just sat there clapping, 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 was basically freak out in this really expressive way. And be affirmed for it. Quite strange, but I don't know if anyone else can relate that. If any other kids out there were brought down to dance for the aunties. But I say the mixture of those two things, you know, self-expression and navigating identity is something that could be a bit dangerous. Those two elements, I think, have kind of really forged my whole path. And I've been exploring how those two things relate to each other, my whole life. Yeah, I'm fascinated by those two memories. Because they, like you said, one's playful 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 someone. So many people go, I mean, sure, you experienced a lot of that, 100%. When you said golo, 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 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 can totally relate to everything you just said. Where I'm just like, we'd be at like an event and they acted pulled out or something and then my mom would be like, all right, you got to go on stage and save the day and all that. What'd 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 here just trying to please aunties. - Literally, literally, always trying to do. - What is up with that? And the funny thing is where I was saying this to you earlier and I saved it, but I was like, you know, like you kind of, you lived the aunties dream. Like you went to a great school. You then went to Oxford and did PPE. For anyone who doesn't know, that's the Prime Minister's degree. Like the Prime Minister's of England, I think pretty much every single one of them did PPE at Oxford as a subject. Like 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 to 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 Ahmed's dream? Do you have anything that feels close? You know, it's so interesting here and you say this because I don't know if you have this Jay. If I sit back here and I say, Jay, you've done this thing. You brought kind of mind for nursing. It's Eastern philosophy to like the world. You've got the world's number one health podcast. All this kind of stuff. You're aware of those things, possibly as facts. But your internal experience of it, does 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'm sure you stopped 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 realize that all these kind of external markers of achievement, it don't really land. They don't really land in the way you think they will. The award, the round of applause, these fleeting moments, these moments of kind of dopamine hits, those moments of the little kid dancing in front of the aunties being handed another cup of Coca-Cola in a round of applause. And, you know, those moments, they feel nice. They feel good, but they're very, very fleeting. They don't nourish you on a sole level, those external things. I think what we're searching for as artists, as storytellers, as actors, but really any of us is a sense of flow. You know that moment when you forget yourself, it's that feeling when you're not literally self conscious. And you talk about this so much, right? And there's this feeling of connection to all things and all people and every now and again, in a fleeting moment, whether you're lost in a jigsaw puzzle you love or video game or on stage performing or in a conversation, playing with your kid, you forget yourself. And that's the thing I'm chasing. It's trying to live in that as much as possible, both in my aunt and in my life. I want to try and just find a way of just living as close as possible to that pocket, rather than these milestones and these trophies and these things of achievement. Of course, we all have an ego. We need one. I'm still setting goals. I'm still setting targets. We're still living in this world. But I've realized in a weird way, having achieved some of those things, having ticked some of those boxes, hasn't feed your soul in the way you think it will. It makes so much sense because I think as humans, we're only good at living in the two extremes. So one is life is all about goals. It's about the milestone. It's about winning. And I want to get there. And then the other option is, oh, none of that matters. I've just got a B. And really, it's all in the middle somewhere. Like you're saying, which is, I need to have goals and I need to know where I'm going. But I know that that's not the thing that's going 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 talking about me, Jay? Yeah, yeah, I was talking about you, Ray. I was talking about you, my 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 a room, she would stop and grab them and feel like someone just gave her a million dollars. Oh, 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 able to be able to turn that really ordinary, simple moment into feeling like it's the most, and we see this in kids. I know you're a dad too. I'm so 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, I'm trying to get everyone out of the house, put on your shoes 'cause we've got some way to be, milestone, objective, achievement, goal, and the kid is like playing with the Velcro on the shoes. And it's that, that's the thing. That's what it's all about, it's this moment. What you're saying kind of reminds me of obviously there's that cliche, it's not the destination, it's the journey. But I think you need to set the destination so that you get to experience the journey. And that's what I'm talking about. It's like you can aim to achieve XYZ. Just know that XYZ isn't going to be the juice. The juice is going to be that feeling of flow that if you're lucky, you might feel trying to get there. You know the love that we've got on bait was overwhelming for me in a way because it was so personal, because it was drawn from such a, all my insecurities and neuroses in such a personal place. Not because I'm trying to do something all about me, but actually because I think those feelings are universal. I started, I was just saying to my wife, it's like, should I be enjoying that more? 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-cold track called the Climbback. The tracks were the Climbback. And I think it's a sample from a very old audiobook called the Tower of Leadership. And it says, you need to ask yourself, why are you doing this work? Is it to get or is it to let go? That's it. When you're reaching inside to share something and it's an offering, that is the reward, man. That feeling of lightness, that expansiveness. The things you get back from it, they're nice, but it's never gonna be the juice, like that laying go was. So I'm trying to making my peace with that now. (upbeat music) That's huge though, to even be attempting to do that. Because it's so easy to stay on the hamster wheel. It's almost easier to just keep producing, keep building, keep putting out, keep doing that thing. You had this great line, I think you said it in one of the interviews and it's in the themes of bay. It's even in, I don't believe it might even be in the show, but you said like, life just feels like one big audition. And I wanted to ask you about that. I think it's such a great line, 'cause I think people are exhausted, feeling like their life just feels like one big audition. That's a big time, and we see obviously your character, Charlotte, 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 the 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. [BLANK_AUDIO] 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 actor, right? 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 could 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. And I have to be honest, at least for myself, like I've never gotten to a point where I feel like I've cracked this. But I have some days, some afternoons, where I just feel like it's not about me. I forgot on myself, I mean that sense of flow. And I run into that's when things are going the best, you know, when I'm not thinking about them in that way. But I don't know, I mean, how do you kind of find this as well? Particularly kind of operating in a world that's about mindfulness and meditation and finding your purpose on a spiritual level. But of course, the medium is often digital and social media. And how do you square that circle? Because it must be, in a way, it's similar as like being an actor. 100%. You know, you're trying to do something spiritual and forgetting yourself, but you're doing it with people watching. I haven't figured it out either. I would be stupid to say I have. And I'm grappling with it too. And that's why this interview is so exciting to me, because the themes in bay are so universal, no matter what you do. And like you said, whether someone's applying for a job on LinkedIn or whether they're just trying to make their mom happy or whatever it may be, it's all in there. And so for me, I started to realize that and you'd feel this way, but 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 Thor. And like they think they get in a picture with Thor, if you see Robert Downey Jr., you think you're with Iron Man, like Tony Stark, like that's who you're in love with. You're not, you don't know who Robert Downey Jr. is. Same with Riz Ahmed. 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 around people because it's people come over for dinner party. They're expecting Jay's going to be dropping some jails. And I'm like literally the plan is like, yeah, just come and unite it scores. 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 only is that not realistic, it's not possible. I'm not, I'm a normal person. Like not 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 who makes you feel better, Jay. The time we've spent, have you always felt to me to be very superficial? Thank you, I'm very sure. I know that's what you want to hear. But yeah, so I think my point is I'm always in one sense compensating for that by creating moments of breaking the image. You know, somebody says something really interesting to me that in a way inspired the whole show of bait, right? One thing was this feeling of life for all of us feels like an addition. The other thing was the distance between your public and private self is the amount of shame that you carry. The distance between how you want to be seen or how people see you and who you are when no one's watching, that performance that we are all living in, that's actually about, that's a measurement of shame. And I was like, I want to do something in that spot. And for me, in that space between those two versions of yourself, that space really started opening up for me a lot about 10 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 felt so at odds, you know, the perception and the reality couldn't be more different. And that's something that's stressful, absurd, also 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. Why if I make a show that's taking all my vulnerabilities and neuroses 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 Bhutan clan in concert at Kendish Town Forum in North London. We re-filmed me having a panic attack at Kendish Town Forum. I said, I wanted to do the same place. I want to burst out into the same alleyway and have the same panic attack there. Even the British security services, MI5 and MI6 recruiting my character, they've tried to do that with me. I can't believe that. Yeah, that's a crazy story. After I became more known as an actor, they reached out several times saying, do you want to help us with messaging? Do you want to sit down? I was like, I don't know why it's done. I'm not getting involved with me. No, thank you. But I tried to say all these kind of moments of confusion and contradiction and try and put them out there. Because like you said, the gap between your public and private self can feel like a straight jacket. And I think 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. And I feel the challenges. And I love that idea, the one that you shared just now, this gap between your public and private self, how big shame is or how deep the shame you experience is. And I think that the biggest challenge becomes when you never leave the stage. And so everyone has to perform. Everyone has to perform at work. Everyone has to perform with family. There's going to be prices in your life where you 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? What is your safe place? What are your safe relationships? They're the place where you don't have to perform. We get to be the messy chaotic neurotic boring version of yourself. And so this weird thing's happened. It's like the place of love and safety is a place where. And it should be like this. You know, my cousins, they laugh about what I do. You are friends with one of my cousins, right? And we split football together like 15 years ago. Exactly, right? But what I think I love about that, what's happening with my cousins is when I got nominated for 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, "Word," and I would say she's not like reading regional employee. And another cousin came in and went, "No, it's not like that because you actually won that award." Regional employee in the month. He didn't win. That's healthy. That's good, generally mean, to have your safe place be one where those things don't matter, where the performance is immaterial. But it can be lopsided, right? It's where people get addicted to being out there and getting a pat on the back. Not only are we trying to be liked or validated. It's like what Bay again has 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 Bond. 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 you 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 in a truck. Everyone else have to be, this is where I get to be boring. You're not boring, look great. But yeah, it's like that idea of trying to be someone we're not. I find that to be like 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 30 years here becoming someone that I'm not, could become partner, could make money, whatever. And that's the challenge people are 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, I'm, that's what I've got to do every day." Like I have to be someone I'm not. Do you think that we all have an essential essence and go, "This is who you are." Like I said, I grew up code switching with these very different sides to myself, wearing a school uniform, school and then a show of academies at home, and then re-bought classics and fake Versace out with my friends. Literally change. and costumes, accent and personality, is a form of acting. Now I try and bring all of that together, making things like bait or my version of Hamley or whatever, when we bring these different things together 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 here. 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 at your core? I believe that life is more about a collection and connection of ideas and stories and narratives that you've built as opposed to a center that was always the case. And it can sound easy to say it, but actually it's really hard. Like I always say to people, I'm as much in love with monk wisdom as I am with building a media empire, as I am with being a loving partner, as I am with a good friend. Like I'm like in love with all of those parts 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 paradoxes over there. 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 yourself means being in one lane. - Yeah. - I don't believe in that. I think that having all these different sides to who we are is human and universal and healthy in a way. Over the last 10 years or so, I kind of really went on this journey of trying to make work from more personal place. When I came into this game, I felt like for some reason I had to justify it beyond just myself enjoying it. Now I'm actually my joy is valid, you know, joy. And if other people take joy from my work, that's valid as well. But I always felt like it's gonna 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 they could relate to. But actually, wow, I recognize myself in it. It's like I was a big fan of watching the crown. And you know, when you're watching the crown, you're suddenly like, I'm the queen of England. (laughing) That's me, I'm her. I totally get, you know, how it's this amazing body swap that story can achieve, right? 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, who can be in a Star Wars movie and all this kind of stuff. And now more and more, I think like, I wanna share the messy contradiction of myself. I used to think acting was about putting on the mask. Now I think it's about taking it off. It's actually about sharing the most personal thing possible. And that ends up being the most universal thing, you know? It's something actually I've never really talked about publicly before, Jay, but I did this film called Mogul Mogli. And it's about a guy who an artist who suddenly loses his ability to walk, becomes tremendously ill overnight and is never sure if he's gonna get his life back. It was an exploration 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 2015 and I just started filming Star Wars. I'd never done a studio movie before, never done a big franchise. I never thought it would, that would be my path. I was really happy doing Indies, like Nightcrawler and Four Lions. And I suddenly got to be in this film set with Stormtroopers and all these big things. I was like, wow, is it gonna happen for me? One week into filming that. I started getting this weird paint 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. Tries to go to a hospital, they were like, they just kind of like piled 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. So 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 that and the film is Star Wars right now. And they said, you're in a very dangerous situation right now and I explained 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 50 kilos. Wow, a hundred pounds, I couldn't lift my arms, I couldn't walk and yeah, I was kind of going to a stroke gym every day. A weird thing happens when your life falls apart like that. When you're confronted with your complete lack of control, it's really humbling. You realize, if I don't even control my own body, then maybe everything that I do have is a gift. I remember being in hospital, forget going back to film the rest of Star Wars. Forget having a career ever being able to walk again. I remember being sat there and seeing like a pigeon sat on the windowsill of this NHS hospital and being almost moved to tears with my it's beauty. It sounds crazy but maybe you can relate what I'm saying where you're just like, man, I did nothing to deserve that pigeon coming to visit me. I get to see it up close. Pigeons are actually amazing. They're like a little bit green and red. You're getting seen the sunlight shine off of me. This thing that I've taken for granted, I was just absolutely blown away by this animal, this wild animal that was there and I felt this sense of such humility and gratitude and I've always believed ever since then it's when you're brought to your knees that you're halfway towards praying. It brings you closer to the love in the universe and I went on a real journey and that's when I kind of really started meditating in earnest. I had this kind of crazy, crazy journey where I had to kind of almost grieve and let go of my life the way I thought it would be. And it was almost like I felt like God was a universe was saying all this stuff that you want. It's like happening for you now, right? Make sure you appreciate it. Don't take it for granted, you know. It was I was being taught gratitude just before being given the gift. My friends are texting me like, "Bro, I've just seen the Star Wars photos, man." Like, you're gonna be in Star Wars. I'm in a hospital desperately trying to get the nurses attention because I can't get out to go to a toilet and I 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 shame around it. I felt a deep sense of shame. And you know, I've never really talked about it publicly even now, but if anyone else going to that right now and want to kind of share that and offer that as an experience, because I felt this kind of weird shame and I felt this critical inner voice coming out that was like, you deserve this. This is what you should be. You told you belong up here, you're getting straight by a dentist, this is your faith. How dare you think, you could 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 Mugle Mugle is about. That's what Bay 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 both big fans of that book, the body keeps the 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 that I'd tell you, which is a 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, but I should have moved on with life. I was still in the back of my head. It's like, not good enough, you know, good enough. This embarrassing, you think I was gonna get back up there, do it again. - Wow. - So I had this voice in me and my is my belief that that critical inner voice led me to that hospital bed. And I had to look it in the eye and say, "Normal shame, man. "Normal shame, I'm gonna own this. "I'm gonna create work from this." And that's what sound of metal was. That's where mogul mogul was coming from that direct experience and the universe brought me sound of metal, [BLANK_AUDIO] 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've got to make work from this place. Yeah, man, I have long deep history with this critical voice and this shame, and I really think it can kill you, man. It's not something that I'm done with, but I think that critical in a voice just, he's not the guy on the megaphone, but he's a guy who's always going to be at the party. If I'm lucky, he's at the corner of the party. 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I was alone at night in the hospital, and they were pumping me full of a lot of steroids intravenously, and stories keep you up, wait, and I couldn't sleep, and I just felt completely alone. Whatever was going on with me, it was resistant to treatment. So I got a tiny bit better, and then it went, it was going south, and it started sensing that maybe there was some, it might be affecting my heart, and it might be affecting my ability to breathe, and it was certainly was affecting my ability to swallow. I remember this because the people on set of staff was God 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? Am I going to die here?" It was what I started asking myself, and I started talking to God. And I remember that rock bottom moment, again, like I said, when you brought to your knees, when you're halfway to praying, it was that moment of total helplessness that I started talking to God, and I said, "If you please give me a chance, if you please let me live, I promise you as much as I can, I will give." I want to give, and what I meant by that was, and I said, "I just feel I haven't emptied myself yet. You know, I've got more to give." And I remember just pleading with God, and just the tears, just streaming down my face and just saying, "Yeah, if you just let me live, if you let me get through this, I promise you, I will empty myself and try and give, from whatever you've given me." And it was incredibly scary, and the next morning I remember they said, they said, "Did I have to start a really intensive kind of chemo? God, man." I mean, that's like, it's a harrowing time like in your life. That's like just, when I hear about it, because I, I, not, it wasn't life-threatening, but my version of the mental turning of physical was, I developed, while I was among, I developed polyps in my throat, and so these get on your vocal chords, 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 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 the physical version, but we all know there's, 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, it's pretty like, you know, you don't feel it, you're sedated, it's not, and 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, and you can't talk, so I have a whiteboard, and I remember moving in back in my parents at the time, because I couldn't be in the monastery, and I 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 talks to the temple, and I'm like, speaking is my thing, like that's what I do. Of course. And it's all gone, of course. And it's disappeared, and 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. Again, like mine was not life-threatening, it wasn't, you know, there's a difference we're not speaking and not walking. No, but it's profound, because it's your gift turns to your curse. 100%. And it's like the thing that you are blessed with, which is this ability to communicate in this desire, this purpose you have, that is the thing that's taken from me. Correct. And so how has that affected the way that you, I mean, did that just make you even more motivated to speak and to choose your words and think about your words? Yeah, I had to go to a vocal coach to train and all of that kind of stuff. And they said that you would get your, you know, your natural voice would come back. It came back softer. I'd lost the raspiness and the depth of my voice. I sounded different. Now I sound back to normal. If anything, maybe it's a bit better now. So I'm gonna take it. But like at the time, it was like, I was like, God, I'm gonna have to learn how to talk again. Like that's how it felt. And what it did for 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 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 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, at that time, I just remember that, like hitting me. He was like, yeah, you think, well, you think you talk to God out loud. 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. It's sound and voice. And I was like, wow, that's huge to learn to talk to God with my heart. Like, what does that even mean? Yes. And then at the same time, it's what you said where it was like, OK, 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 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 start 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 there actually. I don't think I've actually thought about this. I don't even, 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, that was intense. That was intense. And, and our dog 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 it 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, when I sometimes I'm walking out of street, it doesn't happen to me a lot, but it happens to me enough times that I want to mention it. Sometimes people stop me and they say, say I'm on the phone or whatever they've heard me talking, they go, sorry, how should I tell you? You sound exactly like Jay Shetty. That is hilarious. I'll take that as a compliment. I take it as a compliment, bro. You make an amazing MC. I think you've got a great, you got a great voice for that. Will you steal a few mixed tapes in the first? Yeah, come on. So I just want to give your voice to his flowers. Yeah, the shame, you know, I think that the show is about this idea of wanting to be James Bond. I wanted that. I mean, 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. type of heroism. And that is about being this kind of invulnerable, powerful, alpha male, whatever that means. Although hilariously, I mean, 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 fit the mold, you know, for all the reasons we've already discussed to be experienced growing up. I don't want another strike against me of people somehow thinking I'm weak, you know, or I'm fragile, or I, whereas now I look at it as like, why actually I feel like I showed a lot of resources and strength and grit, mental and physical, you know, teaching yourself to walk again, or lift your arms or whatever that takes strength. And I can say that now the time I just saw the glass half empty of it, and I thought, I don't even want anyone to think that I'm weak, that I'm broken, that I'm not up to the mark. And I, 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, I mean, it's talking about this right now, my body right now is kind of like going, oh, God, yeah. Did I just say all this? Did I do all this? But I also feel a bit lighter. It's that thing of digging inside, like I said, it's an offering, you know, if there's someone going through something like this, does watching this, if it normalizes their experience, if it makes them feel less alone, that's beautiful, you know, and I want to share that. I think it was that really. I think it was kind of my, again, it was the distance between that public and the private self. And I felt that if my public self gets too close to my reality, it'll fall apart again. Yeah, well said. Yeah, no, I really believe you sharing that, especially talking about perception in that externally, everyone can be like, you're winning, your career's been amazing. You know, all this stuff and it's like to actually go, 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. So yes, the critical inner voice in bait is a severed pig's head. It was sent to the family as a racist attack. And it's about, I guess how we can internalize the criticism of us internalize the prejudice. So it starts to become almost like his best friend, like, and for me for a long time, my critical inner voice was something I didn't want to lose. I was worried that if I make peace with it, we'll turn the volume down on that too much. I'll get lazy. I'll get complacent. I remember even when we won an Oscar for our short film, it's so funny. It was almost like that Oscar was looking at me going, you made shit. The kind of elation lasted as long as me going there, collecting it, going backstage, going to Toilet, coming back and sitting down again. By the time I sit down, in fact, I would say my critical inner voice was at an all time high when I was sat there holding that Oscar in my hand because it was almost like a survival mechanism. My brain was going, well, 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 have programmed you to strive not to savor. And so now we're 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 out of control. But in the show, it's played by Seventh Pigshead. I want you to know, it was a long moment where I was like, it has to be J.C. We ended up getting Sir Patrick Stewart. I thought it has to be a really kind of super established actor, one of the greats, so it makes sure my character is feeling secure. What if you were my evil twin? I mean, there's not this slight resemblance, maybe. I was like, yeah, what if it should be J.J. should be my critical inner voice? That would be hilarious. That would have been so funny. No, Sir Patrick Stewart was the right choice. It was one of those moments in the show where you're like, what? It's such a surprise. Right, right, yeah. Talk to me about that because I think what you just identified is the high performers and overachiever's curse, where the inner critic is what drives you to extraordinary success. Do you think, usually, right? Usually from everyone I've interviewed, whether it's basketball players, whether it's tennis players, whether it's F1 drivers, they all 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 the their code switch or that is that is like, when I'm playing this point, this is the most important point in the world. And as soon as the points are over, whether I win or lost the point, that point is irrelevant. So you need the inner critic and the inner cheerleader. Totally. You've got to basically be able to toggle between them both. Yeah, it's interesting. I don't want to believe that it, the inner critic is the jet fuel. I want to believe that it's like one of the engines, right? But there's got to be that other engine. Because you know, I also feel that yes, I feel like the inner critic or that fear of failure, the possibility of shame, all these things can drive us. But I think it 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 lose that is also about being kind of loose. That's about 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 hear the voices in my head. There's a lot of them. You're one of them. But I'm trying to just find that right balance and find a right moment to bring up that cheerleader versus the critic. I'm glad you said that because I would agree with you. And I would encourage people to go there, especially if you're a high achiever, high performer, or even if you have goals and you think the only way to get there is to make yourself feel bad and beat yourself up and to actually go, well, that isn't the way I want to get there. There 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 where they got either. I think you can get you to a place, but then it will kill you. Yeah, exactly. People would whip horses to make the run faster. You're going to kill that horse somewhere. You're going to really get exhausted. Yeah. That's a great vision. I'm trying to find a way of something else kind of taking over. And honestly, I kind of feel like, well, you're talking about before with kids. That's been a great teacher for me. Play. Just on a really basic level. Play the joy of that, the curiosity of it as you're not being controlled. That's been a great teacher for me, not least because actually, I think kids come, you can't control them really. I mean, they humble you every day, right? They they to talk to you kind of, you know, is that thing where you don't raise your kids? They raise you. Yeah. So I don't know. I think that that's kind of something I'm trying to pass the baton from the critic to the to the chili that was all to the child. Yeah, to the child. I like that. Yeah. There's this. There's this beautiful quote from George Bernard. Sure I love where he said, we don't stop playing because we get old. We get old because we stop playing. And I love that. Like, it's just it's so good because I'm like, yeah, like that's why we feel old is because we stop playing. We stop being curious. We stop marvelling at the greatness of a velcro shoe that simplicity. And that's why I was looking into it actually because 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 faster. Apparently that is a proven fact that our brains subjectively experienced time differently as we get older. Yes. So in terms of subjectively, the spread of our life and how it feels to our brains is 50% of our life is lived between the age of zero and eight years old, which is crazy. That's like half of it because of how a day feels when you're a little kid, how expansive and huge it can feel. And how quick a year can feel towards the tail end. So yeah, as you're starting to feel more and more conscious of time and it's passage, like what is that doing for you? Is that just mean streamlining and focusing on the things you really want to or how are you managing with that? I want to put my life. I listen to Steve Jobs's stem for commencement speech every day for nine months. Well, in my opinion, it's the best speech 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 when I stick tradition in Eastern philosophy. Yeah, absolutely. And it's like every word mattered. Like he didn't, that was in performance. If you, 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, so I listened to that and there's a line in it that just goes like something like, and I'll butcher it so people should listen to the real thing, but he literally says something like every few days, if I, 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 I, 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, 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 were 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 the words are. And then I go, I'm just a guy who loves the heart. That's why I'm at the core of like, I'm just a guy who just wants to love and be love. That's why I'm 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 will 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. 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 20, 25 years. And some of them are new people that I just met last year. People who can make you more yourself. Yeah. Yeah. People who can make you forget yourself. Yeah. People who go beyond the affordance of you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like the person who's not getting you to play up to your avatar or your, you know, and so I'm looking, I'm always looking to care, not collectors in this. I don't need a million of those people. You got to find a few people that you just drop in. Your nervous system calms down. You know, the active mind switches are so important, so important. It's interesting. You say that because like, you know, we're in LA right now. And I had a very kind of like, you're making me think about this because I had this narrative where I was like, I don't like it. And you're actually making me think about this is like, there are periods of time when I've adored LA. And the thing that was surprising to me now is just before coming here, I was like, oh, I've got to go to LA, man. Being from London, like, like, walking and, you know, I'm like driving and everything spread out. And I was like, you don't see anything. And all these kind of clichéd criticisms, right? And yet, I woke up today in LA. I'm absolutely loving it because, um, with my wife, with my kid, I'm with family, you know, family has come to visit. The house is full. And it's suddenly like being back as a kid surrounded by clapping on these or whatever you believe. It was just, it just feels like that environment. It feels like home. And absolutely, it's the people, man. It's the people that made the place 100% and, and yeah, I was kind of confronted with that realization this morning. I was like, oh, yeah, I've just slipped into this kind of lazy narrative. It's like, it's not what it's about. Yeah. And the timepiece too that you brought up that I think is a really valuable thing is like, how much can I not try and fill time? And how much can I not try and be distracted? I find it hard like kind of doing nothing. Yeah. Something that is starting to help is reading. I'm very poorly read. No, I don't believe that. Really? Yeah. I'm kind of like through your work. I would like pick up a lot of things in like, um, I listen to a lot of music. I listen to podcasts. I watch talks. I go to talks. I talk to people. Um, but I had like growing up crazy ADHD. And I'd get into a lot of trouble at school. And now I look back. I'm like, oh, of course, that's what that was. And, you know, there's loads of different ways in which that manifests. So sitting down to read a book was like torture. It was historically getting narrative. Oh, I don't read it. I can't read. Recently, particularly being married to another list that was like, this is a bit of a deal breaker. You need to be reading book. You at least read my book. I was like, okay, I gotta sit down and do this. That is the thing that is allowing me to like sit and kind of do nothing. Again, it's forgetting myself. But I otherwise struggle with it. I can very easily fill time, create a new idea. Now let's progress here. What if we do that? What if we? And I'm sure, I don't know, how do you manage that? Is that something that you're also navigate? I had to set rules around it because I'm like that as well. I feel like I'm a creative brain. I like, I like building stuff. I like playing with stuff. But I had to start just building real parameters around that where and what do you mean? Like as you don't work off to six. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, I won't think about work or be on my phone after six p.m. 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 8 p.m. 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. Letting it sit. Best ideas come on the toilet seat, but in the shower. In the shower. Actually, we started taking our phones to the toilets. The toilets now, not the creative mecca used to be, but the shower, man. Shower is always where you go. Yeah. And actually, just to give LA's flowers, driving has been great for me in that sense, when you're just going on these long drives and you allow the thing to bubble up, David Lynch, to talk about the fish, right? These fish that were just swimming to the surface sometimes if you could just allow the water to be still enough. Riz, I want to do a set of questions 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, quicker fire. I don't want, you know, no, no, you can give longer answers, but I want to kind of get some out from you. So what's the hardest mask you've had to take off? I think it was probably around my health. Yeah. You know, kind of letting people into it, even when it was happening, I was trying to keep people at a distance. I didn't want people to see me like that. Yeah. Particularly if I thought I was like, if I might die, then I don't want people to remember me like this almost, you know, so I think it was that. I think it was when I was at my most vulnerable, letting people in on what was happening and starting to slowly share that. That's interesting, yeah. And I think a lot of people feel like that or create people feel like that. I've learned to embrace that actually. I actually feel like having a slight outside as 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, you know, I remember going to meet the queen and accidentally trying to fist bump her. That's so good. It was like a British film industry reception. Everyone lines up. She put her hand out like this from the angle that I was at. I thought she was going like this. I went like this is a security when like this and that I'm just going like this, you know, it was super. Yeah, a ring. So I don't know, man, like this is all these kind of moments of feeling like a fish out of water that now I actually kind of like I quite enjoy being like, where am I? What is this? You know, some of you can laugh about later. Yeah, it's a better story too. I think so. Yeah, if you felt totally comfortable everywhere you went and you're probably not in the right place, David Bowie says this thing of is when you can't feel the bottom of the swimming pool is you know, you're in the right place, you know, slightly out of your depth working out. That's beautiful. I love that. That's one of the reasons why I've I actually like 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 a really 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 interaction 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. So when you meet one person and you go, oh god, we're 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 on award on stage is you've rightly just said, isn't even feeling. Yeah, and so it's not being celebrated that makes gives us joy. It's not belonging to a whole room that gives us joy. It's a connection, right? It's just one person that looks at 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 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? We're like, you're chatting to people and you feel that everyone's like looking over shoulders see if there's someone else to talk to and it's like pinball, 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 said 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 it. And I always meet that person. And it's always like, it becomes a friendship or we had a great conversation and we don't talk ever again. And it's just like, yeah, God, like, I'm here for you. So you just introduce me to the one person you want to introduce me to. You're wonderful. And yeah, that kind of carries me. So this one's a good one. When was the last time you tried to people please? This is going to sound like a small thing. But clothes matter to me a lot. Me too, man. I grew up in a Wembley market where they sold all the fake designer clothes. Yeah, so I was told about that. We'd go buy some and sell them. And then we'd go, you know, and try and buy some real ones. I don't know, we were just kind of obsessed with it. You know, as teenagers trying to wear the mask or having the costume or find worth, whatever it is. Now I see it more as a kind of expression of myself. I think recently 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. Yeah. Maybe they haven't seen a show like this or have related to someone like me for my background. I'm doing something maybe target. Like, you know, this middle America or something. And I was, I tried to dilute down what I would wear. And who I would be. And luckily when I was wearing a thing, I was like, who the hell is this? What am I, what am I doing? And I took it off by, I remember. And I remember actually in that moment being quite surprised. I was like, oh, that's still a really strong instinct. Yeah. To do that, to edit and censor myself in that way. Sounds like a small thing. But do you think though you only get away with being able to make that choice when you're successful? I think chicken and egg. I think the people who become the most successful, the people who are most unapologetic in themselves. I love that. Well, a great answer. Because the specificity and the honesty and the authenticity is what people are attracted to. It just feels real, you know. That's the narrative again we tell ourselves. Oh, when I'm successful, then I'll be myself. When people accept me, I'll be me. Or if you be you, then people will accept you. Yeah. So well said, man. So well said. 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 got to go niche. We were talking about this before. We could have done a whole interview about North and Northwest London. And no one else would have got us apart from our hometown, which we love. So this is for the 15 people that know exactly what we're talking about. I'm going to start with what I said to you earlier. Kababish. Kababish is literally a place that I shout out on my last rap song. Do you know what? When I said that to you earlier, I didn't even know that. I just did a track called We Good with Casas Davis on the Bait Soundtrack actually. I name check Kababish specifically. And the amount of people from my past who reached out and texted me like, bro, Kababish. You remember those days when we used to go Kababish? The garlic mayo. My mouth is watering as I'm talking. It's actually the nine. It's the freshness of the nine. Shout out Kababish, you're eating road. Okay, yeah, that's a good one. Were you St. Anne's or St. George's? These are two shopping malls in Harrow in North West London. Yeah, yeah. Whichever one the girl I was dating wanted to go to. I was like, I was expecting it. Yeah, I was like, whichever. So that's a good one. I was actually saying, again, to shout out this area in London. It says, North West London, we have all the best J's. We have J Sean, J Paul and J Shetty. And this is the Holy Trinity, man. It's the Holy Brown Trinity. And then we have Riz and Deb Patel. Yes, we're also there holding number four, Rainer's Lane, Saturday town. But it's interesting. It's this kind of little pocket corner of the world. There's super multicultural. Because of that, I think it's like a real creative hotbed. And you get some interesting stuff happening there. Yeah, Anthony Joshua from Watford. Yeah, from Watford. Yeah, exactly. Sitting down with you is like, it is sitting down with an old friend. Like it feels that way because of the schools you went to. The people we grew up around, friends and family. But Riz, you've been amazing to talk to today. Honestly, this is an absolute honor to be talking to you. This is a been beyond my expectations to get your openness, your honesty of vulnerability. The show, Bate, is a winner already. Can't wait for more people to watch it. I can't wait for you. I mean, I know you got a 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 and truth. I appreciate it. I'm trying to receive it. Here we go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. Appreciate you. But Riz, we end every interview with the final five. These questions have to be answered in one sentence maximum. Oh, come on. 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. I'd hear a glass ceiling in my career in the UK. He was like, you should go to America. I'm like, bro, what are they going to do with the guy like me over there? You don't do nothing. I'm this. They don't have that. They have that. I'm not this. And he went, categorize yourself not my friend. And actually, when you do that, you're doing 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 go, and 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, do you remember that conversation? He was like, nah, no memory of that. I was like, great. Thanks a lot, bro. But it's those throwaway moments, right? When people kind of like see you differently to how you used to be seen. Did you feel that? Like, was that hard? I know the representation conversations overplayed. I know those conversations have happened. I was just like, you know, making it as a brown man in Hollywood. You've done that. But what is the reality of that? Because we say that. And then you're like, well, wait a minute. Actually, no, I haven't done that because I think that there's a reality that for women, for people of color, for people who are differently abled, there is a lot more resistance. I definitely do feel like sometimes I have to work, you know. Twice is hard to get half as far. But I'm also kind of starting to feel like that gives my journey more meaning. To me, but I know for a fact, also for many others. And actually, I think more and more friction is what gives life its meaning. You know, you order a meal on Deliveroo. It does not taste the same as you've taken that time to cook that for yourself. Shout out Deliveroo. I'm not saying that I don't do that. But I'm just kind of like, I just feel like it's what's given my journey. It's meaning for me and I know for others. So I wouldn't change it. I think for a long time I'd say, I wish I could swap that out. I wish I could make that different. But I don't feel that way anymore. What advice would you give to someone who is a person of color, differently abored, who is a woman agenda that may have any of these experiences, what would you say to them? Because I think the bitterness, the pain, the rejection is real. It's real. It's real. It's justified. It's not imagined. I don't want to guess like anyone who's going through that. It's hard. I would say, you know, my experience is like the gift and the curse are 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 lean into it, it could unlock something. And I would say to all of those people, the thing about you that's 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. It reminds me of the stoic statement of the obstacle is the way. Oh wow. So the 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. Question number two. What is the worst advice you've ever heard or received? It was one of the first casting directors I've ever met said. Hey nice to meet you. Just be careful about your eyes. You can't look a bit of a psychopath sometimes. Because I do this. I get excited and I start going like this. I just want to watch this interview back going, I did it there. I did it there. Sometimes I say to my wife, am I doing the crazy eyes? Don't think about the crazy eyes. Okay. But it's just maybe very self conscious. And actually, weirdly, I remember for a couple of years after I was acting like this and everything. Go and watch some of my stuff and like the early orts, bro. I'm like. That's brilliant. That's so good. I have big eyes. I can be. I get animated. It's difficult. You know, learn to try and lean into that. Yeah, yeah. I love that. Question number three. You mentioned your wife a few times. What's been the biggest lesson that you've learned from your wife? When I see the path of my wife has been on. How she's at a fight every step of the way. The dedication, the devotion. It's taken for her to tell her story with such specificity and reach the world with it. I think I've kind of understood what devotion means. Devotion to her path. her creativity is a kind of prayer, is a kind of devotion, devotion and seeing how she is with our child. I think she just operates from a 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. (laughing) She will take them all and lose them all. - Yeah. You know what 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 now. We actually met because she had lost her phone charge. - No. - I was in a cafe in New York, a laptop charger. I was in a cafe in New York, just writing a script or whatever. She came in on the phone, laptops only on the communal table. She sits down, opposite me, pulls out her laptop, starts emptying out her bag looking for her charger. It's like chaos and I was like, can I help you? Do you want to borrow my charger? After six years of marriage, bro, that hasn't changed. (laughing) She's still borrowing my charger. Now I'm trying to hide the charger from her. - That's what it is. - That's what I'm playing. - Did she know, she was like, was that no, no. I might have thought that maybe for a minute. Now that I know her, I just know. It's like a vortex of charges. No, but I'm just kind of trying to downplay and joke around. But I think, my wife has taught me so much, but the word that comes to my mind is devotion, devotion to a purpose, to a journey to a path. I love that man, beautiful answer. Question number four, what do you pray to God for today? - I went to Mecca recently and you do this thing where you kind of try and pray for everyone you know by name and I started realizing that everything is kind of co-hearing around like three basic ideas. I pray for people's health. I pray for people's ability to provide for themselves and their loved ones. In a way that allows them to have dignity and feel good about it. And the third thing that I always pray for everyone is for them to be brought closer to their purpose. And I say, God, bring me closer to my purpose 'cause that's the way of bringing me closer to myself as you intend and also closer to you, 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 said, "Arta l-Mustalkeen," which is the straight path. And you 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 rosy roti, your ability to provide and your path. - Have you been to Mecca before was that first time? - No, I went once when I was 15, but it was different experience. I went all down, actually, from a more spiritually skeptical place, how life throws you around and you kind of ask questions. And we went this December and both me and my wife were, went with openness and I would say, we are Muslim and we have spirituality in our lives, but we also feel often that organized religion and a way that is used, it's definitely brought some skepticism into our 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 such a sense of oneness there. It was really kind of beautiful. And I promised myself, I could try and bottle this feeling, but of course, as soon as you're on that plane you're like, back on your phone, but that was, it was powerful, yeah. - It's interesting, as you were talking about that, 'cause I've been thinking about this idea a lot about how modern society has made everything about upwards and forwards. And actually, when you look at spiritual traditions, everything's circumamulating. - Beautiful. - And even in India, when you go to a holy place, you circle it. - Or in a wedding, when you walk around the fire seven times. - Everything's circular. And so when you start looking at life, that way versus that way. - I love it. - It's just a fascinating mindset shift of like, "Oh, what if we saw life as cyclical and not as linear?" And everything we just talked about today. - I love what you're saying. I think of it as a spiral. - A spiral, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you kind of retread the same round in life, but hopefully from a more elevated perspective each time. - I like that. - You know, an epiphany kind of works in that way as well. And those leaps that you have of understanding, they're usually kind of not by going through, by retracing your steps and feeling different or wanting something to feel different. - I like the ascension aspect that you just added. That's not just round and round and round. It's sure that there is some ascension, which is just beautiful. Fifth and final question we ask is to every guest who's ever been on the show. I'm really excited for your answer, actually. You can think about it for as long as you want. If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be? I want to be off my phone more, but we're all locked 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 I go through periods of time where I put my phone away totally. I put it in a little safe and I lock it away for like 12 hours or 20 hours or, you know, before we had a kid, me and my wife would go away and she, as a novelist, she has to do that kind of deep work. You know, you can't kind of dip in and out of it. The way she does it at least, she can't. And so the phone would go away for like five days. We'd like check into our hotel, give it to them and say, we'll take this moment, 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 Velcro on the shoe again, you know what I mean? I would love to just do that. I don't know what that means about this show though, Jay. And he gets to see it. Maybe we'll have some just certain hours in the day. Yeah, yeah. And we can all go back home. No, that's a great answer. I love it. I feel like that's the crux of it all. Resonment, bait, excited for everything that comes from this day. I hope we stay in touch. It's been such a joy to do this with you. And I hope you felt you got to share everything and anything you wanted to do. Absolutely. And thank you for creating this space for me and for other people. It's a very enriching space and empowering one where we can just be vulnerable in our way and share. So thank you. Thank you, man. 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. We don't know what past people are walking on when they walk into our lives. We might just be a stepping stone in their path, just like stepping stones in their life.