British Pakistani actor, rapper and activist Riz Ahmed stars in Mogul Mowgli: 'The View From My Window in LA'

Riz Ahmed who stars in Mogul Mowgli. Photo / Supplied

British Pakistani actor, rapper and activist, Riz Ahmed, stars in Mogul Mowgli - the story of a British Pakistani rapper on the cusp of his first world tour, who is struck down by an illness that threatens to derail his big break.

This is not my house and this is not my window, but the view from this window is foliage, green, there's a fig tree, there's a lemon tree. I'm renting a house while I'm in LA and it's my last 10 days here before I go back to London, where the view out my window will probably be a gigantic building site, because I've heard they started building a massive office block out my window.

I came out to LA to do a project in September. I was only going to be here for two and a half months. Then I needed to be here for photo shoots to promote the film, and then there was the Covid lockdown. Then, for my album live stream [The Long Goodbye], we found a really great venue for that in San Francisco and then, after the Oscar nomination [for Sound of Metal currently showing on Amazon Prime], they said if you go back to London, you can't come back for the Oscars. So I basically found myself having to extend for work reasons and now I've been here for nine months, which is crazy. What an unpredictable year. I have not stayed in the same place for more than two weeks. It's been incredibly draining.

I always miss home when I'm away from London and then as soon as I go back I'm like, "F***, the weather is miserable." I think it's difficult with cities like London and New York, so much of what's special about them was taken away in Covid, whereas somewhere like Los Angeles is already a very socially distanced place and the weather doesn't go away. Whereas in London, you're not there for the weather, you're there for the culture, for the people, for the connection and if that gets taken away, it's trickier. So I feel very lucky in a way that I'll be going back at a time when things have opened up again. I always miss it because I think it has a very special energy. It's the most global city in the world, I think, unquestionably. And I think that in itself is such a testament to what the world could be.

Mogul Mowgli, which is set in London, is very personal. [Director] Bassam [Tariq] is investing in trying to create his own cinematic grammar for our experience as children of immigrants, as people who've grown up around stories and mythology, and have a heritage of Asian and Islamic art; taking inspiration of Mughal miniatures and Islamic art and some of the mythology that infuses our worldview from a young age in our culture. Mogul Mowgli is much more personal in that I co-wrote it and it's an attempt to kind of put up an experience on the screen that really hasn't been shown before.

Zed, the protagonist of Mogul Mowgli, is trying to find himself out there in the world through the validation of others, and through performance and through his art, which is his way of metabolising his experience and digesting and processing it. But I think he needs to go within. In a way that's the journey for me, making this film. I can play these characters that are handed to me, but can I go within? Can I actually try and open up the universe inside? The film deals with this interplay between art and identity: how does your identity shape your art, and how does your art shape your identity? And I think the second half of that equation is really interesting, because it really empowers us to define who we are through the stories we choose to tell. They can be healing stories, they can be empowering, or they can be hurtful and disempowering stories. I think Zed is finding a way of braiding together different sides of his story - and it's a painful thing to do.

This is the pre-Covid Covid movie, you know what I mean. It's about how a sudden health crisis throws a workaholic off-track, forces him to sit with himself and think about what really matters and what he's taking for granted. I think a lot of people will be able to relate to that right now, coming off this pandemic, and hopefully entering a different stage of it that's a bit less punishing. I hope something that we all take away from this film is: how can we come out of this crazy experience we've all been through and hold on to some of the lessons it's given us?

As told to George Fenwick

Mogul Mowgli premieres on Rialto Channel, Sunday June 27, 8.30pm. Sky Starter customers can access Rialto Channel all weekend. For more information: rialtochannel.co.nz