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Riz Ahmed talks turning Bait's chilling hate crime scene into the surreal: 'It's about internalised racism and prejudice'
The six-episode British series uses a surreal narrative device to examine internalised racism and identity through a struggling actor's response to a hate crime, streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
- On March 25, 2026, Prime Video released Bait, a comedy series created by and starring Riz Ahmed. The show follows London-based actor Shah Latif as he faces an existential crisis after auditioning for the role of the next James Bond.
- Ahmed spent 12 years developing the series, drawing from his own experiences starting around 2014. He sought to dramatize the "stressful" gap between his public persona and his actual, often chaotic private self.
- Voiced by Sir Patrick Stewart, a pig's head embodies Shah's harsh inner critic throughout the series. Ahmed cast real-life friend Guz Khan as Zulfi, believing only Khan could authentically represent a character fully at ease with himself.
- After paparazzi photos of the audition spread, Shah encounters a media storm fueled by online Islamophobia and racism. The spectacle escalates when a hate crime occurs: a pig's head is thrown through his parents' window.
- The series explores the fraught relationship between politics and Brown identity in a contemporary global context. Ahmed aims to create "category killers," blending comedy and family drama to examine what he calls "a playground of shame.
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The IndependentReposted by 
The Independent (US)
The Independent (US)Riz Ahmed’s hilarious Bond comedy Bait shows why playing 007 can be poisoned chalice
In ‘Bait’, Oscar winner Ahmed plays a British Asian actor whose life is upended when he auditions to play James Bond. Beyond the spy franchise hook, the show has sharp gags and a deeper point to make, writes Kevin E G Perry
·London, United Kingdom
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Riz Ahmed talks turning Bait's chilling hate crime scene into the surreal: 'It's about internalised racism and prejudice'
**Warning: This article contains spoilers for Bait.**As the world starts closing in on Shah Latif (Riz Ahmed) in Prime Video's Bait, things start to go from ordinary to slightly surreal as the struggling actor has to deal with being thrown into the spotlight.Having engineered a studio exit to be captured by paparazzi so the James Bond rumour mill could involve him, Shah is taken aback as he realises that not everyone is pleased at the prospect o…
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Total News Sources13
Leaning Left5Leaning Right0Center3Last UpdatedBias Distribution63% Left
Bias Distribution
- 63% of the sources lean Left
63% Left
L 63%
C 37%
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