From Hollywood to Home: Black Voices in Entertainment
- Riz Ahmed turned personal disconnect and shame into storytelling, framing the series as therapeutic and candid self-examination.
- Ben Carlin introduced the Bond motif as a focal vessel to explore the protagonist's inner struggles.
- Bassam Tariq balanced absurdity and realism, using diverse episode styles to mirror the lead's identity crisis and elicit genuine shock.
- Kira Elwis blended classic Pakistani and Bollywood scores with underground artists; Bond imagery and surveillance themes conveyed cultural paranoia and recognition.
The team behind Prime Video’s limited series “Bait” — which follows a British-Pakistani actor as he auditions for the role of James Bond and faces backlash from the public and his family —came together for a panel discussion at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles to offer audiences a look into the creation of the show.
Star Riz Ahmed was joined by co-showrunner Ben Carlin, producer Allie Moore, director Bassam Tariq, and music supervisor Kira Elwis for a conversation moderated by film director Daniel Kwan.
Ahmed explained that the original concept for the show was not about James Bond, but the inspiration came to him after starring in “Rogue One” and “The Night Of.”
Ahmed said he experienced a disconnect between the way people perceived him and his everyday reality, saying while people imagined him “on a yacht with Han Solo,” he was actually “walking around in flip-flops and cycle shorts” and joked about getting “banned from Tescos for being a suspected shoplifter the same week ‘Star Wars’ comes out.”
Said Ahmed: “Somebody told me that distance is the amount of shame that you carry. I thought, ‘yeah, that’s true. I need to get therapy or make a TV show about it.’”
Carlin later brought the Bond angle in, telling Ahmed the show needed “one focal point, vessel or symbol with which to tell this story… It’s less about how the outside world is reacting… and more to what it’s doing to him,” Carlin said, explaining the show ultimately began reflecting internal struggles.
The team also spoke to experimenting with the show’s tone, with Ahmed saying that because the protagonist undergoes an identity crisis, the show should also. Each episode adopted a different style, ranging from “a Bollywood soap opera episode” to “a Linklater ‘Before Sunrise’ walk-and-talk.”
Moore said the team’s guiding principles were always “character and tone,” while Tariq described the challenge of balancing absurdity and emotional realism. Referring to one dramatic Bollywood-esque sequence, he explained they wanted audiences to react with genuine emotional shock: “You want to make sure that it doesn’t feel Bollywood, that you go, ‘Fuck.’”
Music also played a major role in shaping the show’s identity. Elwis described diving deep into classic Pakistani and Bollywood soundtracks while also incorporating contemporary underground artists.
Ahmed also brought elements of his personal life into the show: “Being Muslim in the West feels like you’re stuck in a spy thriller,” he said. The show subsequently used Bond imagery and surveillance themes to reflect “the paranoia, the surveillance, the sense of being looked at but not really seen.”
The panel wrapped up with Ahmed talking about the audience’s reaction to show’s screening in Texas, with people saying they saw themselves represented on-screen: “To be able to recognize yourself in the stranger is the purpose of story.”
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