Riz Ahmed stars in ‘Hamlet’.
Opening in theaters on April 10th is the new modern adaption of William Shakespeare’s classic play ‘Hamlet’, which stars Oscar winner Riz Ahmed (‘Sound of Metal’) in the title role and was directed by Academy Award winning filmmaker Aneil Karia (‘The Long Goodbye’).
Release Date: Apr 10, 2026
Run Time: 1 hr 53 min
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Riz Ahmed about his work on ‘Hamlet’, taking on the iconic role, shooting the “To be or not to be” speech, and why Shakespeare’s work is so timeless and universal.
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Riz Ahmed stars in ‘Hamlet’. Photo: Focus Features.
Moviefone: To begin with, can you talk about the challenges of playing the iconic role of Hamlet, and is it a role that you’ve always wanted to play?
Riz Ahmed: I’ve wanted to play this since I was 17 and I was in English class feeling like this is some stuffy, boring museum artifact, and that Shakespeare is not for me. I had an amazing English teacher who put it in front of me and made me realize, “Wow, this is pretty close to how I’m feeling.” The central feeling, I would say for Hamlet is, “Is the world going crazy or have I lost my mind?” I think that’s how we’re all feeling. That’s how I was feeling then, and it’s how I’m feeling now, and dare I say, it’s how most of the world feels now. So, I wanted to play it because it was very relatable. I think that’s the challenge and the gift of taking on something like ‘Hamlet’, a role like this, is it’s been done so many times. I think the challenge is, what is specific and personal about your interpretation? That’s also a gift. It’s been done so many times, there’s no illusion that someone’s going to perform a definitive Hamlet. You’re liberated in a way to just do something as uniquely specific and personal to you and your experience as possible. So, it’s a strange combination of feeling like, “We’re going to step into these big old shoes that don’t belong to us.” While at the same time going, “Well, actually we get to run around in these shoes however we want.”
(L to R) Morfydd Clark and Riz Ahmed in ‘Hamlet’. Photo: Focus Features.
MF: Shakespeare’s work is universal and can be adapted to any time-period or culture. What is it about his work that you think has made it stand the test of time?
RA: I think it’s a couple of things. Firstly, a lot of the stories are drawn from myths that are not British, that are ancient. The first words you hear in our Hamlet are words from the Bhagavad Gita, which is the foundational Hindu myth. That’s because that story is very similar to the story of ‘Hamlet’. It predates ‘Hamlet’ by thousands of years. This idea of choosing family loyalty or doing the right thing, that’s a timeless theme. So, I think that’s one reason why it can cross barriers of culture. It belongs to myth that belongs to all of us. The second reason is because it’s like music. The logical understanding of every word was not something that even audiences were doing in Shakespeare’s time when it comes to these plays. Shakespeare made up like 4,000 new words. They didn’t understand half of what he was saying, but it’s music. It’s rhythm, its flow, its percussion, its energy, and it’s intention. If you hear it like music, it moves you like music and music crosses all boundaries.
(Far Left) Riz Ahmed stars in ‘Hamlet’. Photo: Focus Features.
MF: Finally, I’ve never seen the ‘To be or not to be” speech depicted the way you did it, with the character in a car speeding towards oncoming traffic. Can you talk about shooting that scene and how that added urgency to the speech?
RA: Absolutely. Our interpretation of “To be or not to be” is that it’s not about, “Should I kill myself or not?” Which is how it’s usually performed, right? It’s a much more urgent, confronting question. The question is, “Should we fight back against injustice, even if it means we might die?” That’s a contemporary, radical question. Then if you look at the language itself rather than looking at the traditional way it’s performed, that’s what it’s saying. So, we had to stage it in a way and have that confrontation and that urgency. If the speech is a game of chicken, we’re going to stage it like a game of chicken. So, he is literally doing that. He’s driving down a freeway, heading towards a lorry a hundred miles an hour, asking himself, does he have the guts to take on something bigger than himself? So, we staged it that way in a way. We’re just trying to honor the DNA of this speech rather than honoring the traditional way it’s done. We really tried to make something that’s for people who feel like Shakespeare isn’t normally for them and hopefully it gives them a visceral experience.
‘Hamlet’ opens in theaters on April 10th.
What is the plot of ‘Hamlet’?
Haunted by his father’s ghost (Avijit Dutt), Prince Hamlet (Riz Ahmed) descends from elite London society into the city’s underground, moving between Hindu temples and homeless camps. In seeking to avenge his father’s murder, he begins to question his own role in his family’s corruption.
Who is in the cast of ‘Hamlet’?
Riz Ahmed arrives on the red carpet of the 95th Oscars® at the Dolby® Theatre at Ovation Hollywood on Sunday, March 12, 2023. Credit/Provider: Kyusung Gong / ©A.M.P.A.S. Copyright: ©A.M.P.A.S.
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