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Background:
During Riz Ahmed’s childhood, the Academy Award-winning actor usually felt like an outsider, not simply in class however in his native England. When an English literature trainer launched him to Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” Ahmed was struck by how strongly it resonated together with his expertise as a British South Asian.
“‘Hamlet’ is about somebody who is grieving the illusion that the world is a fair place. That’s how I feel right now. I think that’s how millions of us feel. He feels powerless in the face of this increasingly shameless injustice. He feels gaslit by it,” he shared final month at BoF Voices 2025 in Oxfordshire, UK. “And most of all, worst of all, toughest of all for him, he realises he is complicit in all the injustice.”
Ahmed spoke on stage at BoF Voices 2025 about the goal of storytelling and the significance of remembering our sense of shared humanity throughout divisive instances.
Key Insights:
- Ahead of the theatrical launch of the Ahmed-produced 2025 movie “Hamlet” — its first cinematic adaptation starring an individual of color — the actor argued that the play’s well-known soliloquy just isn’t about suicide, however relatively about summoning the braveness to defy injustice. “‘To be or not to be’ is about resistance. The most famous lines ever written by a human being have been defanged, deradicalised. It’s about fighting back against oppression,” he mentioned.
- The “To be or not to be” monologue, he argued, illustrates the significance of storytelling throughout a time when dominant cultural narratives try and divide individuals and to emphasize the phantasm of in-groups and out-groups. “In the same way that we need to rediscover the radical truth of this speech, I believe we need to rediscover the radical purpose and truth at the heart of storytelling,” he mentioned. “Storytelling has been lost to content and distraction and entertainment, but at its heart when it works best, it is reminding us of a very profound and very radical spiritual truth, which is that we are one.”
- Ahmed concluded that what individuals achieve in attaining their goal as storytellers — to imagine of their shared humanity — is invaluable, regardless of the private losses which may be incurred by doing so. “Honestly the things that we are afraid of, the things that we stand to lose were never really ours. We will lose them, but what we stand to gain when we step into our purpose is something so profound,” he mentioned. “What does it mean to rediscover not just the radical truth at the heart of the most famous speech ever written, but what does it mean to rediscover our radical purpose as storytellers, insisting on our oneness in a time when people might try and divide us?”