Riz Ahmed has become the first man of Asian and Muslim origin to win an acting award at the Emmys.
Ahmed was awarded the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for The Night Of in which he plays Nasir "Naz" Khan, a Pakistani/Iranian-American college student accused of murdering a young woman. The show actually partly examines the brutal effects of racism within the criminal justice system. It tackles the same racism Riz says he has experienced himself as a youth, according to his interview with The Sun.
Wembley boy Ahmed, was born to a British Pakistani family in 1982. His parents moved to the UK from Karachi during the 1970s. He is a descendant of Sir Shah Muhammed Sulaiman the first British Indian to become the Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court in Uttar Pradesh during the colonial era.
He attended Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood through a scholarship programme. He graduated from Christ Church College, University of Oxford with a degree in PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) which he has said he found to be a bizarre experience. He later studied acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama.
In an exclusive interview with The Sun, he explained: “When you first start seeing black or Muslim characters in mainstream culture, they can start off as the stereotypical portrayal — it’s the cab driver, the shopkeeper, the drug dealer.
“And then sometimes, hopefully, you move beyond that, and it’s still storylines that are tied to that character’s ethnicity, but they’re working against those stereotypes.
“I was lucky that I came into the game just when we were moving from that stage one caricature into stage two.”
At his acceptance speech Ahmed added, "I want to say it is always strange reaping the rewards of a story based on real world suffering.
"But if this show has shown a light on some of the prejudice in our societies, xenophobia, some of the injustice in our justice system, then maybe that is something."
He also thanked the South Asian Youth Action and The Innocence Project for helping him prepare.
Backstage, commenting on his win, according to The Independent news report, Ahmed said: "I don’t know if any one person’s win of an award, or one person snagging one role, or one person doing very well changes something that’s a systemic issue...I think that’s something that happens slowly over time."
"In terms of US and the UK, I’m really proud to be a Londoner. I’m really proud to be from the UK. I’m also really aware that actors of color often have more opportunity in the US, but I think ultimately now we see that TV in particular is a global medium," he added.
"People are streaming shows or watching them all around the world. Hopefully we’ll see a globalisation of our storytelling."
Ahmed told journalists after the Emmys that “what we’re starting to see is more awareness around how beneficial it can be to tell a diverse range of stories and to tell them in a way that’s authentic.”
“And I think awareness is the first step to real change,” he added.
Only two other actors of Asian descent have won at the Emmys before: Archie Panjabi in 2010 for The Good Wife and Shohreh Aghdashloo in 2009 for House of Saddam.
Taking the twitter speaking about Ahmed's great win, actress and author Meera Syal wrote, “Lump in throat remembering being kid with big dreams, brown skin and no map. And now this...”
Television and host of the Subaltern podcast and author, Nikesh Shukla wrote, “Shame he had to go and get accolades in America for Britain to notice. Wish more roles had been available for him here.”
Ahmed's win in the US is indeed a proof that glass ceilings still exist for Asian actors in the UK, which many have been fighting against for years. However Ahmed's victory a week after the 16th anniversary of 9/11 feels particularly noteworthy, as a man whose chances of being “randomly” searched in any airport remains really possible in this Islamophobic world, Ahmed has instead been bestowed with a shimmering golden trophy. However it remains a pity, that Ahmed's talents were much less acknowledged in the UK (e.g. with our own Bafta), and he had to move to the US, to establish his abilities.
Akram Khan MBE, a famous dancer and choreographer of Bangladeshi origin in the UK, in an exclusive interview with the newspaper earlier said, though such glass ceilings are much less seen in the world of dance, he has definitely heard about it from his actor friends in the UK.
Ahmed’s win wasn’t the only breakthrough of the night. Aziz Ansari, the son of Indian immigrants in the US, won the comedy writing award for Netflix’s “Master of None,” after making history last year as the first South Asian person nominated for a leading role in a television series. He shared this year’s comedy writing award with Lena Waithe, who became the first black woman to win an Emmy for writing on a comedy series.
