‘I hope people Barbenheimer the hell out of my movie with Hamnet’

Thirteen years in the making, Riz Ahmed’s modern-day South Asian Hamlet has arrived just in time to capture the mood of the nation.

Despite first being written at the turn of the 17th century, the Oscar-winning star, 42, believes the themes Shakespeare evoked have never been more relevant in a modern-day UK that feels more divided than ever.

As the country grapples with the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform, Tommy Robinson marches and Union Jack flags lining the street, Metro asked Ahmed about the timely power of a British South Asian-Shakespeare fusion.

And how a story about a son driven mad by his father’s death – leading to deadly consequences for all – has more parallels with this community than many may realise.

‘As a teenager, I felt very out of place for many different reasons, and I was lucky enough to have a teacher who gave me [Hamlet], and I found myself in it.

‘This thing that I thought was the epitome of everything that I was on the outside of actually turned out to be something that I belonged in as much as anyone else,’ the actor shared.

He pointed out how the concepts of ‘spirituality, who you can and can’t marry, family duty and honour’ are achingly relevant to the contemporary South Asian community and made the tale ‘feel more real not just for us, but for everyone’.

Calling Shakespeare the ‘reboot king’, he posed, ‘Hamlet comes from ancient myths that span space and time, and that’s why the first words you hear in our adaptation are words from the Bhagavad Gita [ancient Hindu scripture],’ which resonates with Hamlet in ‘deep, deep ways’.

Adding: ‘If people want to take this [film] as a statement about who belongs in these stories and who these kinds of stories belong to, that’s to be welcomed.’

The entire film is infused with subcontinental culture, including the famed speech from the ghost of Hamlet’s father, which is translated entirely into Hindi.

Discussing the decision behind this radical move, director Aneil Karia shared that it was ‘a really satisfying and surprising decision to make’.

He continued: ‘It brought this unexpected, slightly transcendental kind of energy to the scene, especially in the context of a whole film that’s largely in this ancient version of English.’

But while it felt ‘magic’ it also ‘felt very, very grounded in the reality of the British Asian experience, where you’re flowing between these different languages and generations use them differently. 

‘An older relative might speak to you in one language [and] you might reply in English.’

The movie comes at a time when Hamlet is more in the cultural eye than ever, thanks to the looming Hamnet starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal and Taylor Swift’s new hit, The Fate of Ophelia. Not to mention the regular onstage adaptations.

The Sound of Metal star proclaimed: ‘We all need to have more Hamlet in our lives right now, because it’s really speaking to the moment we’re living through.

‘I would love to see people Barbenheimer the hell out of this, and go and see all of them. Listen to all of it. Thom Yorke’s even got a contemporary dance adaptation on right now as well.

He added: ‘We need this story because Hamlet, at its core, is about someone who is grieving the illusion of a fair world [and] that he’s powerless in the face of it. He’s being gaslit about it, and ultimately realises he’s complicit in it. I think that’s how millions of people feel right now.

‘As much as I’ve been trying to make this for 13 years and really wish it came out a decade ago, I think this is actually the moment for us to take a look at this story and look at the dangers of what happens when people feel powerless.

‘To look at the grief and to channel that together and feel less alone in it, and have Shakespeare remind us that, look, we might be living through a tough time, we might be feeling hopeless and helpless, but [we’re not] the first people to feel like that.

This idea of unfariness runs throughout Ophelia’s plotline as well, who ultimately ends up drowning herself in sorrow after a lifetime of being overlooked by her father and brother (portrayed by Timothy Spall and Joe Alwyn).

As Rings of Power star Morfydd Clark shared: ‘I was quite interested in the fact that I’m in my 30s, playing Ophelia, and that I think that women in their 30s – if they’ve spent a lot of their 20s making sure to keep the men around them happy – can then realise that you’re no longer as valuable to them as you once were.’

In this modern version, Ophelia is limited by ‘expectation and control’, with Clark adding: ‘In a way, I was thinking of the tragedy of the “Pick me girl” a bit. There’s no prize at the end…’

She and Alwyn spent a lot of time fleshing out their dynamic as brother and sister, with Clark reflecting: ‘Joe is just very clever and very well read.’

His brilliance at playing these ‘morally not great’ characters comes because he is ‘so kind that I think he can really see these people who are not choosing kindness.’

Meanwhile, co-star Sheeba Chaddha, who plays Hamlet’s mother Gertrude, praised Joe’s skill when it came to the play’s tenser-than-tense final standoff.

‘He was insane, just the depth of his pathos, and conflictedness was so amazing,’ she reflected.

As Art Malik, the star behind Uncle Claudius, concluded: ‘The world is made up of stories, and every culture has the right to take a story from somewhere else and put it into theirs so that they can understand it.

‘And so that we can understand we’re all the same. Humanity is humanity whichever way you look at it.’

Hamlet arrives in UK cinemas on February 6, 2026.

Got a story?

If you’ve got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we’d love to hear from you.