Oscar- and Emmy-winning actor, writer and producer Riz Ahmed knew he had to lay it all out there for his Prime Video series Bait. “We’re all performing this public version of ourselves,” he said during Deadline’s Contenders TV panel.
A revelation that was compounded when he was banned from his local supermarket for suspected shoplifting the same week that photos of him from the upcoming Star Wars leaked.
So when someone shared with Ahmed the idea that “the distance between your public and private self is the amount of shame your carrying,” the idea for Bait was born. Ahmed was so moved that he realized “either I need to get therapy or I need to make a TV show about it.” With that we have the creation of Shah Latif, the neurotic struggling actor who auditions for James Bond and was built so much from Ahmed’s own real-life
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