RIZ AHMED:Oh, thank you.
Its a great feeling that its been received so well.
Its an amazing feeling, man.
Craig Blankenhorn/HBO
How do you rank this in your career?
Id rank it as the most challenging experience Ive ever had as an actor.
It was an endurance test.
Craig Blankenhorn/HBO
It was quite emotionally and physically draining work.
I cant even begin to think what it must be like for people who live in that situation.
Just experiencing that for eight months and to shoot for eight months was new for me.
Craig Blankenhorn/HBO
Frankly, it is.
This is a pleasant and quite unexpected upside.
you might never expect a project to catch the zeitgeist like this one did.
And ultimately you cant control that.
How have things changed for you, walking around in the streets in the last eight weeks?
Do people recognize you as Naz and want to talk about the show?
Thats the weird thing.
In America, Ive always been able to just go about my business without being stopped or anything.
But thats totally changed, I must say, in a way thats totally surprising to me.
How often does it happen?
Im walking around with shades and a cap on at the moment.
Its flattering, but Im really confused.
Its very sweet but its a strange creature of the night for me.
Naz remains an enigma.
Yeah, and haunted.
Hes haunted by the experience of Rikers.
I visited Rikers and there are a lot of people that shouldnt be in there.
They should be in rehab.
Thats one big theme.
And the other is how the series showed Pakistanis as working-class Americans and was very sensitive to their experience.
Its something thats very admirable about the American culture is its ability to absorb new identities and groups.
And you dont think twice about it.
Thats a tradition that I hope weve continued.
It sure is timely, especially given the fact that Naz is Muslim.
And having said that, Muslims are not a new group in this country.
Forty percent of the Africans who were brought here as slaves were Muslim.
Jefferson celebrated Eid [a dinner during Ramadan] at the White House.
Its time that we shed a light on all of this.
Did you watch the British seriesCriminal Justice, which theThe Night Ofis based on?
I just missed it.
The ending is a little different.
Or rather, could he have?
[Long pause] You know, Im not going to answer that question directly.
We all carry the same seeds within us, give or take.
So does Naz have it in him to be a killer?
From what went down in Rikers, we kind of know he does.
Right, we see in the end that hes an accessory to a murder in Rikers.
Does that mean that he isa killer?
And does that mean he is guilty?
In the right or wrong circumstances, anything is possible.
But how did you ride that arc as it pertains to Naz?
Right, hes pretty quick to come back at those two passersby in the street outside of Andreas apartment.
Yeah, he has an edge.
Maybe you have to as a working-class person of color in the United States.
Whats really clever about the show is that we bring preconceptions to everything.
How we generally think of this young, South Asian male is either as emasculated or like a terrorist.
The show toys with those two extremes.
Naz isnt either of those and there are a lot of little complexities in there from the beginning.
Things are looking pretty sad for Naz at the very end.
But then theres always the cat.
[Laughs] Yes, there is.
If the cat can be saved, then theres hope for everybody.
So what about a second season?
Can you imagine playing Naz again?
I havent imagined it.
Im only entitled to imagine that if Steven and Richard have something further they want to explore.
But, to me, the piece feels complete.
I think its come to a satisfactory conclusion.
We made something that worked on so many levels and sometimes its good to just quit while youre ahead.
