When you grow up ping-ponging between three very different worlds on one very small island, you learn a lot about your place – or lack thereof – in life. Turns out you also learn a lot about acting. Not that Riz Ahmed ever assumed that was an option; despite the joy he found in school plays, he took a look at the entertainment cultural complex and just didn’t see playing Taxi Driver Number Three as a feasible way to make a living. Then again, he didn’t see much future as a desk jockey either, and over the last 10 years, he’s built one of the most diverse and acclaimed artistic careers we’ve ever had the pleasure of digging into. He’s come to realize that specific personal experience resonates across all borders, and why shouldn’t it? As he points out, we’re all mongrels in one way or another. We sit down with Riz to talk about how his culture informs his art, how life is likely to change after The Night Of and Star Wars, and how one night in a London club taught him that the place where you think you don’t belong is exactly the place where you should be.