Riz Ahmed discusses his role as Ruben in Sound of Metal, for which he has received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role.
Watching Sound of Metal, it’s hard not to recognise that there is a little bit of Ruben in all of us. A heavy metal drummer who suddenly loses his hearing, Ruben now has to grapple with what this shift in identity means for him – and how, or if, he can ‘fix’ it. It may not be an exact mirror to your, or our, experiences but it is one that we can relate to.
It’s what Riz Ahmed, whose role as Ruben in Sound of Metal granted him a Best Actor nomination at this year’s Oscars, sees in every character. “Every time you take on a character, you kind of go in thinking about all the ways in which you need to change, and all the ways in which they might be different from you. And where you end up is always realising, ‘Oh my God, this is me’.”
With Sound of Metal, Ahmed started off with “I don’t know how to play drums. I was never a heroin addict. I never lived in an RV trailer. I don’t know anything about punk music. I didn’t grow up in the military. I don’t speak sign language.
“And then hopefully by taking some steps towards learning some of that, it brings you a little bit closer to realising where the overlaps are. And hopefully, that’s a similar journey to the one that the audience goes on. In fact, it is the same journey that the audience goes on.”
Lauded as it was, it’s clear that Sound of Metal does what Ahmed says it does. “I think that’s what the point of stories is – it’s to kind of take you on a journey quite far from your point of origin, and seemingly far away from yourself, only to find that emotionally and empathically you arrive back at yourself.”
While we aren’t talking about representation, it is an obvious thread that exists in Sound of Metal, which is a film that portrays a unique and specific part of the deaf community through Deaf actors. But Ahmed is quick to point out: “The film isn’t about the deaf community. In a way, you can’t make a film that’s hoping to summarise such a diverse and rich and varied and multifaceted group of people.”
Ahmed’s co-star Paul Raci, for example, is a hearing child of Deaf adults, and brought with him to the role a real understanding of what it means to be a bridge between both the hearing and Deaf communities. Ahmed’s Ruben is on the other side of that bridge; hearing loss is the catalyst of the story and Ruben’s development, more than Sound of Metal is about a deaf character’s life.
“It’s a good way of putting it,” Ahmed agrees, and this distinction is something he brings to his work. “I think our personalities are quite context and situation-dependent, and different things, as you say, can catalyse different elements of how we might behave, and so I never try to pin down, ‘Right, this is what Ruben’s character is. It’s like this shape, and I’m going to colour within those lines.’ I like to leave all possibilities open.
Read more here. The 93rd Academy Awards will take place on April 25th.
