Adeel Akhtar

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast from BBC Radio 4. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury, that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music's shorter than on the original broadcast, but you can find a version with longer music tracks on BBC Sounds. Listeners will also get access to episodes 28 days earlier than everyone else. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:46

My castaway this week is the actor Adeal Akhtar. He's a double BAFTA winner who made history with his first award, the first person of colour to take home the best actor prize. In acting circles, he's known as Ideal Actor because of his versatility and ability to play ordinary people dealing with profound experiences. His on-screen CV includes roles in some of the biggest TV hits of recent times, Harlan Coburn's Addictive Fool Me Once, the BBC dramas Sherwood, The Night Manager and Killing Eve, and playing the British Prime Minister in the Netflix hit series Black Doves. He's also starred in films including Four Lions, the critically acclaimed Alianeva and the one-off drama Murdered by My Father, for which he won his first BAFTA.

Presenter1:31

His parents came to the UK from Pakistan and Kenya, and though he knew from a young age that acting was his calling, at first he followed his father's wishes, studying law before pursuing his dream. It wasn't an easy route to the top, but luckily, Easy wasn't and still isn't what he's looking for. He says: If somebody offers me a part which terrifies me, I'm probably going to do it. That fear and terror crystallizes your focus. It makes you just go for it. Adeal Akhtar, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Hiya Lauren, how are you doing? I'm good, how are you? Good, you're alright, thank you. Excited to be here. Excited to be here. Good man.

Adeel Akhtar2:01

No.

Adeel Akhtar2:03

Excellent to be here.

Presenter2:07

So Adil, let's start with that terror. What happens once you've said yes to the scary part? When does the fear start to subside? Yeah, I'm not sure if it ever does. With age, I've been able to sort of temper it a little bit so the fear doesn't feel too overwhelming that I can't do what I need to do. But I did a play at the National called The Estate.

Presenter2:32

where um that was happening. So that bit before you go on stage is terrifying and if somebody said that they had an Uber

Presenter2:44

Waiting.

Adeel Akhtar2:45

Uh

Speaker 32:45

In fact,

Presenter2:47

I don't even think about it, I just jump in.

Presenter2:49

But luckily no one's done that yet. So um but that fear is what you need and then a forthright step in that direction usually pays off quite well. A friend of mine said you just have to leap. Yeah. So yeah,

Adeel Akhtar3:01

So

Presenter3:03

So a leap. But what about taking that leap? I mean, preparation wise. How method are you? How do you like to do it? How do you work? Yeah. I mean, I went to drama school in um New York and I went to quite a methody school. Oh, yeah.

Adeel Akhtar3:14

Yeah.

Presenter3:15

They did this thing called the coffee cup exercise where you had to drink an imaginary cup of coffee.

Speaker 33:17

Yeah.

Presenter3:21

What are you laughing for? Sorry. Sounds like a good idea.

Adeel Akhtar3:23

Can I make

Presenter3:25

Drink it. I'm asking you a cup of coffee. This is why I'm not an actor. But it went on for a long time. It went on for like weeks. I had to feel.

Speaker 33:28

But

Presenter3:34

I had to feel the coffee weeks. I had to feel the coffee, you know, smell it and then taste it. And it was really useful for this thing called sense memory, which is a Stanislavski thing. So you have sense memory stuff. So it's a useful.

Speaker 33:45

So it's a useful zone, getting you into the zone.

Presenter3:47

Getting you into the zone. But then, when you're on set, you're just like, well, I'll just drink a cup of coffee.

Speaker 33:56

You didn't say that to them at the time though, did you?

Presenter3:56

That's a

Presenter3:57

No, but you have to I think you have to go through that learning process to work out what you need to do and what you don't need to do. To answer your question, there's some things that are very useful and other things you can just speak.

Presenter4:09

So, Adele, there's a lot made in the criticism of your work, the positive criticism of your work, made of your lugubrious eyes. And I know that even your wife says that you've got a sleepy face. Sleepy face, yes. So I wondered what you thought of that. Would you agree? Do you agree with this?

Adeel Akhtar4:20

Sleeper face, yeah.

Presenter4:25

It's the face that I was born with, yeah. I mean I've got I do have a sleepy face, but you know what's even funnier? Me in the morning.

Presenter4:33

Imagine a sleepy face. You even sleep it, if it's possible. Has it helped you in any of your roles? I'm thinking of the lawyer you played in Show Trial. He was an insomniac, no?

Adeel Akhtar4:33

Sleepy

Speaker 34:34

But you even sleep in the middle.

Presenter4:42

Right, yeah, he was, yeah. Um some of the jobs that I've got as of late, you know, I have this disheveled quality, I think is the best way to describe some of the parts that I've done. I think I've cornered that bit of the market this of, you know, disheveledness to the point where it's actually written in stage directions.

Presenter5:03

And I don't know if they've added it in.

Presenter5:05

But it's like a really bad runner.

Presenter5:10

I'm just writing down observations, right, they're just saying what they say. Really, really disheveled. And it's like, oh, nice. But, um, it's good, it keeps, you know, pays a bill.

Adeel Akhtar5:10

And it's really

Speaker 35:10

I'm just writing down observations.

Presenter5:21

Well, do you know what? Being adapted, being disheveled is probably good for the Desert Island. So I think today it's going to come in handy. You're going to be even more disheveled. Yeah, being on a Desert Island, that's true.

Adeel Akhtar5:25

I think today it's going to come in handy. You're going to be distributing.

Presenter5:32

Alright Adele, it's time for your first disc. What's it gonna be and why? This is The Wait and it's a cover by Aretha Franklin. This is a cheeky one because I love covers. But also I was out of work for a few years and when work started happening for me I got a job in LA and I was with my wife and my little babies in the back of this car driving through LA and it was actually The Wait by the Band.

Speaker 36:00

So the original change.

Presenter6:00

The original track that we would listen to a lot, and it just reminds me of a slight upturn in my career driving with my family through LA. But this is Aretha Franklin's favorite. Yeah, but you're not going to let me play half of this and then half of the original, are you? No, it's got to be one. But Aretha never made anything worse. I would have thought the band would be pretty happy with Aretha covering their stuff. I think they would be.

Adeel Akhtar6:13

Yes, you're not good.

Adeel Akhtar6:16

Yeah.

Presenter6:24

I've been really happy with it.

Speaker 36:28

I pulled into Nazareth, I was feeling by a hair past day. I just need some place where I can lay my head.

Presenter6:39

Yeah.

Presenter6:40

Hey, mister, can you tell me where a girl might find a bed? Can you teach us Grand Dan shook my hand?

Speaker 36:51

Get on.

Presenter6:57

ARETHA FRANKLIN AND THE WAIT. So DIALACTAR, you were born in Hounslow, West London, in nineteen eighty. Your father, Humayu, is from Pakistan and your mother, Mumta, is from Kenya. How did the two of them meet?

Presenter7:09

They met in an airport, Heathrow. My dad was an immigration officer and my mum was a passenger handler, because back in the sixties used to greet people off the the plane and um my dad would sit stamping passports and he would make excuse he would like stop my mum's passengers um

Speaker 37:32

So they

Presenter7:32

Uh

Speaker 37:33

To

Presenter7:33

So we could talk to her.

Speaker 37:33

So we could talk to her. Take massive cues for me. Absolutely. Massive cues.

Presenter7:36

Massive cues just to have a little chat with somebody we fancied, and my mum got really angry about it. She's like, This fellow keeps stopping me, and I'm really annoyed. And that's how they met. Yeah. And that was it. So he was the one who really caught it. He wrote poems for her, didn't he? Yeah, bad ones. Have you written me? No, according to my mum, it was not great poems that he would write for her. And I think that added to her annoyance of him. But also, listen to this, right? She had this tiny Volkswagen Beetle, so she saved up enough money. So imagine she's come from East Africa, 17, 18, found her way in this job, saved up all this money to buy this Volkswagen Beetle. And then my dad says she needs to get it repaired. And my dad says, oh, I'll drive it. Don't worry.

Speaker 37:54

A few credits.

Adeel Akhtar7:55

Uh

Speaker 37:57

Mm.

Presenter8:29

And he drove it to the end and crushed it.

Presenter8:32

Yeah, crush your speed. How were they together? And then they stayed together. But that's been a common theme throughout the film. Like every time he's in a car, there's always some sort of ding on the car and it's like.

Presenter8:44

But yeah, then they got together and they

Presenter8:46

So tell me a little bit more about both of them. Starting with your dad, what kind of character is he? How do you describe him? Determined, obviously. Yeah, determined. Not great at driving. Willful. He came over from Pakistan in his twenties, worked really hard, became an immigration officer, and then became an immigration lawyer and was educated in Pakistan. So it was like shadow of sort of empire and, you know, academia was like... the main thing in his life and in some ways it wasn't you know quite moderate upbringing in other ways very traditional my mum on the other hand followed the line a little bit in regards to how my dad wanted to bring us up like i went to a boarding school but my mum on the other hand was kind of always looking for clues as to what i was really interested in and wanted to do so for example at a very young age if i said i'd really like to do this poetry drama course sort of thing

Adeel Akhtar8:52

Determine

Speaker 38:54

Not great at driving.

Presenter9:44

She would kind of encourage that. And she sounds really dynamic. I mean, coming here at such a young age on her own and spent her early years living in the YWCA, I think. What did she tell you about that time? Yeah, so when I was a teenager, I found this little newspaper clipping of a story that said a woman was found unconscious in the YWCA and she regained consciousness in hospital. And I brought this newspaper down to my mum. I was like, what happened here? Like, what's this story about? And it was, there was a gas leak in the YWCA. And she would have only been in the country.

Presenter10:18

Like two years, two three years and this tragic thing happened and luckily she came through it. But uh I don't know why am I saying this? I suppose that's essentially a kind of description of what my mum's about really. She's had to deal with so much and you know being a product of immigration and having travelled so far from Kenya to London and then when she got to London it being so difficult for her but never once felt sorry for herself and she just sort of cracked on with things really. What made her decide to emigrate? Why did she decide to move in the first place?

Adeel Akhtar10:45

Yeah.

Presenter10:56

Her father had died and the older brothers, as was tradition, were trying to look for a husband for her, and she wasn't having any of it, so she just got a bit of money from her mum.

Presenter11:10

and then jumped on a plane and came to London.

Presenter11:13

Alright, Adealaktar, let's take a minute for some music. Your second choice today, what's it going to be?

Presenter11:19

If I think about the household, like dad would still be listening to traditional Kavali songs, a bit of Nat King Cole sometimes, and a bit of Bob Marley. He had a massive reel to reel, and he would, all these amazing sounds were coming out of his room. And my mum would be downstairs in the kitchen listening to Mr. Radio says you call Sunrise Radio, which is in South Hall. Yeah. And she'd be listening to all the Bollywood tunes coming out of there. But one thing that brought our family together was songs that we could all share in. And I remember singing this song with my mum in the car. And it's only recently I've realised the way of what this song represents and Harry Belafonte and him, like what he represents as a person and an artist. Just the thought now in my 45-year-old brain, thinking back to me and my mum singing this song in the car. I don't know, it's very, it's a very moving thought. So this is Jamaica Farewell by Harry Belafonte.

Speaker 311:37

Which is its south

Adeel Akhtar11:38

Uh

Speaker 311:38

Yeah.

Adeel Akhtar12:17

Down the way where the nights are gay And the sun shines daily on the mountain top

Adeel Akhtar12:24

I took a trip on a sailing ship And when I reached Jamaica I made a stop but I'm sad to say I'm on my way

Presenter12:32

Yeah.

Speaker 212:32

Yeah.

Presenter12:32

Yeah.

Adeel Akhtar12:34

Won't be back for many a day My heart is down, my head is turning around I had to leave a little girl in Kingston town

Presenter12:47

Harry Belafonte and Jamaica Farewell. Adele Actor, you once said that the process of acting has parallels with the journey someone takes when they emigrate. Tell me a bit more about that. I think it's like this idea that there's nothing on the horizon to fix your gaze. So all you have is this sort of desire to push forward.

Speaker 213:09

Done.

Presenter13:10

And when I think about, I'm doing a spot of writing at the moment, and when I think about the creative act, it sort of feels.

Presenter13:17

All it is is blank horizon. The blank page. The blank page, right. And but this is kind of higher stakes. And it seems like the most purest form of love actually this is sort of promise to the future because I am the sort of product of what that I should apologise for if I'm the product of it, but you know what I mean? But my kids as well, you know, this kind of they're sort of a product of

Adeel Akhtar13:18

Uh

Speaker 213:19

The blank page right and

Adeel Akhtar13:20

Yeah.

Adeel Akhtar13:35

You know, this kind of thing.

Presenter13:38

Me and my wife, and these beautiful mixed-race kids that are product of this story of immigration, which I find like a wild thing to think about.

Presenter13:47

I mean it is so interesting. And your story, you know, so many different kind of pit stops. So you were born in Hounslow. Then when you were two, I think the family moved to Chalfont St Peter in Buckinghamshire. That's right. So two quite different environments there. What was behind the decision? My mum and dad wanted to move out of the city in Hounslow and maybe afford a better life for me and my sister. And when they moved to Chalfont St. Peter, they sort of took a little temperature gauge of what the culture was and worked out how they would fit in. And because of their ability to assimilate as well as they did, they protected me and my sister from maybe overt and less overt forms of sort of racism, I suppose.

Speaker 314:30

I suppose. So that wasn't something that you experienced growing up?

Presenter14:33

Yeah.

Presenter14:34

I mean there was there would have been moments, I mean, sort of strange moments when you're a kid, like stone throwing, but it's in the hazy sort of recesses of your brain, so you'd

Speaker 314:44

It's okay.

Presenter14:45

Kids throwing stones at you. Yeah, yeah. So it was like this thing of going, well, and it's really, it's a really difficult thing to sort of pick apart if it's what you think it is or if it's just kids being kids. But I think the the bigger thing for me was the fact that my mum was there to make sure that whatever pain or discomfort I was going through was kind of minimised. So she shielded you?

Speaker 314:45

At you.

Presenter15:12

Yeah, physically and yeah, yeah, actually, yeah. Did you discuss kind of race, culture, all those differences and challenges as a family? Yeah, I mean I would have discussed it quite a bit with my mum and dad, but the good thing about the way my mum and dad brought us up, it was something that was acknowledged, but then they sort of gave us the tools to try and work through it. And the thing which allowed us to sort of work through it was this, again, coming back to like the idea of like what the immigrant story is or whatever, it's just sheer will. It's like we're going this way, the movement is happening this way and you have to sort of go with it. Just don't stop. But then it's a certain amount of pressure to have to, you know, be the result of all of that. Like you say, that propulsive move forward and carry it forward. Did you feel that? 100%. I mean, yeah, my dad, yeah, when I was when it's university time, to the point where my dad said that had to be a lawyer, and that is the sort of pressure I think you're talking about. There wasn't really space for me to think about doing anything in the arts or being creative because that was seemed to be sort of quite frivolous. But to answer your question, yeah, that is quite a pressure to sort of have on your shoulders when all you want to do is do a bit of acting, you know.

Adeel Akhtar15:54

It just don't stop.

Adeel Akhtar16:01

I can see that propulsive move forward.

Presenter16:34

Adele, I want to find out what happened next, but first I'd like to hear some more music if you wouldn't mind. Your third choice today. What is it and why are you taking it to the island?

Adeel Akhtar16:39

It's today.

Presenter16:41

I'm taking this song to the island, Daniel Dilco by the Idols, and I managed to get my hands on some tickets to see the Idols. And I phoned up a mate of mine and I said, look, I've got some tickets. Can you come and see The Idols with me? They cancelled. Phone up another mate. They cancelled. Found up another mate. They cancelled. And then I hadn't been in touch with Kay Tempest for a very long time. I was in one of their videos years ago. So we're like friends. But then we hadn't seen each other for a long time. And I asked Kay if they wanted to join me. And 100% in. Let's go. So we went.

Presenter17:20

And I remember being in the crowd, Joe Talbot on stage, and I remember Joe saying to people,'cause it's Punt Gigs has lots of beers flying about the place.

Presenter17:33

And I remember Joe going, All right, let's calm down and let all the people on the walls come to the front of the stage and Kay bought me a T shirt. I mean, I'm just saying buzzwords now, but it was just a beautiful it was and I sometimes wear that T shirt.

Adeel Akhtar17:45

You f

Speaker 317:45

Uh

Adeel Akhtar17:45

Book

Presenter17:48

underneath all my clothes sometimes just'cause it reminds me of what a beautiful night that was. And um I think it's about kindness. I think this is what I'm trying to say. And this track in particular. This track in particular because it's about showing love.

Adeel Akhtar17:57

Uh

Presenter18:02

to immigrants. And it's a really thrashy song, but it it sometimes can make me cry because I think about this outpouring of love to immigrants.

Presenter18:21

My brother brothers and emigrants I've used there for emigrants

Speaker 318:35

My godfather's friendly Mercury, a nigger

Presenter18:46

Danny Nadelco by Idols. Adeal Actor, you mentioned that your parents sent you to boarding school, so this is when you were 11. You became a boarder at Cheltenham College. Did you enjoy it?

Presenter18:58

I think at the time you sort of normalized lots of things and I made some friends there. A little bit homesick at the start and then it was more the idea of like I was a sort of a minority there a little bit. And it's only with age and stuff like that you can sort of see how that might affect a kid's development or their sense of who they are. Well tell me about that. What happened? How did you feel?

Adeel Akhtar19:22

Oh tell me

Presenter19:25

I mean, well recently, you know, I was got an award there recently, and about that, and at the run-up to the ceremony, we all got in a room together, a lot of British Asian actors and directors and people who work in radio and T V. And it was there to honour Mira, Mira Sayal. And it was the first time I had been in a room with predominantly British Asian people. And I don't know, there was an unspoken sort of feeling amongst all of us of a sense of achievement and pride almost. And when you're a minority, that's quite a important feeling to foster. But you need to have the feeling to recognize it, you know. And I sw and I think when I was at boarding school,

Adeel Akhtar20:16

Innovation

Presenter20:20

What I didn't realise was that I didn't really understand what that feeling was. That feeling of pride, do you mean? Yeah.

Presenter20:28

And seeing yourself reflected back on yourself in some way.

Presenter20:33

So from what I've read, it sounds like you've learned over the years how not to internalize other people's judgments. I wonder how you do that. You talked about approaching difficult interactions and people's ignorance with curiosity rather than

Presenter20:49

Being upset necessarily.

Presenter20:52

And through that curiosity I think you can settle in a place of understanding which then leads to empathy, you know.

Presenter21:00

Yeah, I think that's what I meant by that. That's a tough thing to do, though, isn't it? I mean, you know. Oh, yeah, should have seen me this morning.

Speaker 321:01

Yeah.

Speaker 321:03

Yeah

Adeel Akhtar21:03

Uh

Presenter21:05

Yeah, yeah. I mean I'm not saying I'm great at it. I'm saying that's what I'm trying to do. Can you give us an example then? I suppose a time I can think of was when I was going up an escalator and these boys were coming down and me and Lex, it was maybe like our second or third date and these fellas shouted some stuff at me and at that point I had a big old beard and looked dishevelled. Trademark Lawrence. Trademark. And it was a time when Osama bin Lagen was in the news and shout things like Osama and I mean even before that there was moments where people would just come up and sort of yank pull my beard and look at it. Yeah yeah and I suppose those are the moments where in the moment you react instinctively but then with if you give yourself a bit of a breath and can emotionally distance yourself from why somebody has the need to do that or say those sorts of things it can give you a bit of a understanding as to what motivates them, what motivates like an impulse like why would anybody see anything being so threatening to themselves or their identity that they would act in a way like that.

Speaker 321:32

Trademark letter

Adeel Akhtar21:32

Check.

Adeel Akhtar21:38

I think so.

Adeel Akhtar21:44

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 322:23

Yeah.

Adeel Akhtar22:23

Uh

Speaker 322:23

Uh

Adeel Akhtar22:23

Goodbye.

Presenter22:24

Um happily you discovered acting at school, which I think helped you fit in a bit more. What was the light bulb moment for you?

Presenter22:32

So I wanted to audition for um Hamlet, which is the big school production, and I didn't get Hamlet, but I got the gravedigger. Great park, not knocking the park, not knocking the park. I wanted Hamlet.

Presenter22:49

Yeah.

Presenter22:50

And I didn't get Hamlet, but I did do the Grave so I did the Gravedigger, but then a bunch of us decided to put on a play called The Homecoming by Harold Pinter.

Presenter23:00

And it was in a space about maybe a tiny bit smaller than this. And it was this moment where I was going for the big part over there. Didn't get a good grave digger, which was fine. And fine about it. I said I'm fine about it. I'm still alright about it, Laura. I'm alright about it. I would say you look happy about it. Over it, actually.

Speaker 323:13

I said I'm fine about it. I'm all right.

Adeel Akhtar23:15

Yeah.

Speaker 323:17

Yeah.

Presenter23:18

And um

Presenter23:20

And then but then all these teachers came and sit down, watch our sort of ramshackle little play that we were putting on. They laughed at different points and took me serious at different points and I remember that being like a

Presenter23:32

A moment.

Presenter23:34

Well a deal. Disc number four. What is it? So we got First Big Weekend by Arab Strap and I went to a boarding school and they would have strict lights out but I used to take a sort of little radio into my room and out of this radio would be John Peel would come through and so this was one of the songs that he put on and actually when we did the homecoming we took the lights out and we put blue lights in the in the theatre and we played

Adeel Akhtar23:50

And so

Presenter24:03

This song. I don't know, it's a weird one because I was just a tiny little Asian kid at posh school and I just fell in love with this song.

Speaker 224:15

Then at 10 o'clock in the morning we went downstairs to buy some drink. We had intended to watch a football in the afternoon but we'd passed out by then and sled right through it. I winked to find the Englishman won't 2-0.

Speaker 224:27

Then went to get the train home, had a few in the station bar. We had some stuff left for the previous night's supplies so we when we got home we decided to go down to John Zandy disco. Same story it's Friday, lots of hugging, lots of dancing, etc. etc. We couldn't sleep again so we went to the park to look at the town.

Presenter24:44

Arab Strap and the first big weekend.

Presenter24:49

So ideal actor, off you went to university to study law.

Presenter24:53

You know, your dad was a lawyer. His dad had been a lawyer, I think. And he was pretty determined that you were going to become a lawyer, too. How did you feel about his intentions for you? Yeah, I was kind of what I had to do, you know, that was just the culture within our family. So you'd accepted it, yeah. Yeah, yeah, he sort of filled my UCAS form out for me and was like, this is what you're doing, sort of thing.

Adeel Akhtar24:57

And he was

Adeel Akhtar25:05

Yeah. Yeah.

Presenter25:13

And and I get it now because like I've got a nine and a seven year old and the only thing that you want to do is like protect them and love them. And my dad that's the way that my dad could protect and love me by sort of saying, It worked for me.

Presenter25:26

And that was going to be the start of the rest of my life, being a lawyer. Well, it wasn't all you'd been studying, though, was it? Because by this point you had spent a few summers performing with the National Youth Theatre. Now, your dad didn't know about this. Yes.

Adeel Akhtar25:32

Yeah.

Adeel Akhtar25:39

No.

Presenter25:42

Yeah, mum did. Yeah, shout out to that. She talked me through that. Shout out to my mum for doing this. Round about the time when I did the homecoming. I was like, I love this. I want to do more of it. And I found out about National Youth Theatre around about the same time. I said to my mum, there's a place that you can go to in the summer where they do courses. And if you do a course, then sometimes you can do a bit of theatre in the West End or whatever. And she then told my dad that I was going on like a summer camp. You know, summer camps where you had like quad biking and stuff like that.

Adeel Akhtar25:43

Talk me through that.

Presenter26:17

That type of archery. That type of thing. And he went for that. He bought that. Yeah.

Presenter26:25

So Adeal, in two thousand two, just before your finals, you went to New York. Now you were going with your then girlfriend. She had an audition at the Actors' Studio, which is the drama school that Robert De Niro, Paul Newman, Jane Fonda all went to. But your arrival in the city did not get off to a good start. What happened?

Presenter26:45

Just before I got on the plane, some security people took my passport off me and said that I'll get it back once I arrived at JFK. Once we landed at JFK, the plane sort of taxied off into a sort of secluded part of the runway and then we see this convoy of cars coming through. These fellas come onto the uh plane and they said that they were gonna handcuff me but um for their own protection and then took me into the airport and then questioned me.

Presenter27:16

And that was the sort of scary bit because that went on a bit longer than it felt comfortable. How long do you think it was?

Speaker 327:20

There was another.

Presenter27:22

I don't know, moment took in.

Presenter27:24

Four or five hours of like not solid questioning but a lot of waiting. What kind of thing were they asking you?

Presenter27:30

Just if I had any sort of affiliations to terrorist organizations and um

Presenter27:37

whether I was a practicing Muslim or not. And this was during the time of sort of Guatanamo and things like that. So I was aw I was aware of what they were trying to get at and yeah, just sort of held my nerve and just answered the questions as honestly as I could and then got out of there.

Adeel Akhtar27:42

And things that

Adeel Akhtar27:43

We skimmed.

Presenter27:54

What kind of mental state did you walk out of the building in? I think l looking back on it, I must have been in shock. I just knew that I had the audition the next day, so I carried on with the audition.

Presenter28:04

And obviously, I mean, your dad, as we've heard, was a lawyer and he tried to take legal action against the FBI, but he was unsuccessful. How did he react emotionally to what you'd been through? He must have been really upset.

Adeel Akhtar28:04

I know he's like

Presenter28:15

My dad has a sort of blind faith in the idea of doing good and the rule of law, and I saw him in uh an office, some a QC's office, and he yeah, I just saw this really proud man.

Presenter28:34

Not believe what he'd believed in for years and years and years. So he'd gone to for advice, had he, to see if he could make a case.

Adeel Akhtar28:38

So

Adeel Akhtar28:40

See if you could make it.

Presenter28:41

I mean his expression of love was to protect me and do the right thing and he was unable to sort of do either. And so if you can't love your kid in the way that you should be able to, then it makes you kind of emotionally withdrawn a little bit. And I just saw him slightly slightly beaten at that point.

Adeel Akhtar28:45

Mm.

Presenter29:04

The deal, let's take a minute for some music. It's your fifth choice today. What's next and why?

Adeel Akhtar29:07

Yeah.

Presenter29:10

This track is when I was studying in New York and I had got there and I lost all my music on my iPod and then a mate of mine said that he could put loads of music on my iPod and he did. So I started, and it was his dad's music library. So I started like learning about music that came from New York at that time. So you got like Velvet Underground, television, Patty Smith. But anyway, this Mo Tucker, who was the drummer of Velvet Underground, sang this song and it just made me think it doesn't matter how rock and roll anyone is or this is kind of what underpins most people just like wanting to find that person that you can be with and close the door and make worlds with.

Speaker 330:04

One, two, three. If you close the door...

Speaker 330:10

The night could last forever, leave the sun.

Speaker 330:15

Shine out!

Speaker 330:18

And say hello to never.

Speaker 330:21

All the people are dancing and are having such fun I wish it could happen to me

Presenter30:30

But if you close the door

Presenter30:34

The Velvet Underground and After Hours. So, Adeal Actor, you got a place at the actor's studio too. What happened? They just said, Would you? I was a scene partner, and I had essentially had my back to the audience because it was my girlfriend's audition. So, the idea is to just make sure you're on your lines, give them the right cue. So, that's what I was concentrating on doing. But then, I got back and I was like, Right, well, it's LPC time, it's legal practice certificate time. I'm just gonna get stuck in my head in the game, gonna be a lawyer now. And then they got my number from my girlfriend, and they phoned me up and they said, Would you like to take a place here at this drama school? And then I told my mum and my dad, and then they we discussed it. Well, I say discussed it, my dad said no. My mum was like, Are you sure? to my dad, and he said no again. And then I was just like, I think I'm gonna do it, so I did it and ran away and did that. Yeah.

Adeel Akhtar30:42

Yeah. See

Adeel Akhtar31:00

We're just gonna get

Adeel Akhtar31:02

Get stuck in

Adeel Akhtar31:31

Yeah.

Presenter31:33

I ran away and did it. Oh, okay. He was just like, I can do no more. Okay, so he was quite on your own head, be it. Sort of world, yeah, yeah.

Adeel Akhtar31:34

Uh

Adeel Akhtar31:38

Okay, so

Adeel Akhtar31:40

Sort of world, yeah.

Presenter31:42

So Adele, your first screen role was playing a hijacker in the nine eleven docudrama Let's Roll The Story of Flight ninety three. Did you have any qualms about taking that job on after what you'd been through yourself?

Adeel Akhtar31:42

So

Presenter31:55

I did have qualms, but it was kind of I just needed to do it. I needed the money and I needed to How did you feel about the roles that were available to South Asian actors at the time? I mean, they were all in that s similar vein, really. Were you worrying about that back then?

Adeel Akhtar32:05

We borrowed.

Presenter32:10

Yeah, I was I was slightly worried about again, I don't know if I was worried about it from a kind of of a racial sort of identity perspective or whether I was worried about it from like a creative perspective. A career career point or a creative perspective, you know. Yeah. Either way it's limiting, but that that was the state of play at the time. It's just something I sort of had to go through a little bit to get to the other side.

Speaker 332:22

Korea point of

Adeel Akhtar32:25

Yeah.

Speaker 332:25

Yeah.

Presenter32:34

You know, this is the early, early noughties, I suppose. So you came back to the UK in 2006. How easy was it finding work here?

Adeel Akhtar32:39

Yeah.

Presenter32:42

I was out of work for for years. Twenty sixteen, seventy eight, twenty nine, thirty so f a good five years. Oh, that's a long time. That's a long time, doing odd jobs, not doing the thing that I wanted to be doing.

Adeel Akhtar32:47

Yeah.

Adeel Akhtar32:48

That's a lot.

Presenter32:53

It must have just felt like it wasn't going to come together for you. Yeah, so for that time, it was.

Presenter32:58

Coming back to this idea of like the immigrants' journey and the legacy of like coming from immigrants, the idea is that you can't really fail. But also this idea that on the other side of hardship, on the other side of this idea of not belonging, not feeling as though you can do it, everything feeling overwhelming on the other side of that is something worth there's some value in that. There was some sort of thing of going on the other side of this hardship is something valuable that is worth pursuing. But again, like coming back to that idea of

Adeel Akhtar33:28

There was silence.

Presenter33:39

Either my my mum or, you know, her father and her father coming over from India to to Kenya, like this legacy of being an immigrant is it is just a horizon.

Adeel Akhtar33:49

Mm-hmm.

Presenter33:50

And all you've got is your will and your desire to push forward. You've got to just keep going. Got to keep going. Pioneer spirit.

Adeel Akhtar33:53

But

Adeel Akhtar33:54

Goku.

Presenter33:57

Adeal, it's time for some more music. Your sixth choice to do. What's next? It's called Time to Pretend by MGMT. But now I listened to this song just recently, obviously, because we were doing this. And I was like, I remember it being like this really sort of full-on, exuberant, throw caution to the wind type song. And now I'm 45, 40. There's some really sad bits in it.

Presenter34:22

It's about childhood, isn't it, really? It's about childhood, and then there's like the decline of. I mean, right at the end, it gets a bit sad, and I'm like, oh, go easy on yourself.

Adeel Akhtar34:24

Yes, one

Presenter34:35

Be kind to yourself.

Adeel Akhtar34:45

Yeah, I'm the border man for freedom and the time spin alone.

Presenter35:00

That must be forgotten!

Presenter35:02

You know we start up anew

Presenter35:06

MGMT and Time to Pretend. At El Akta in 2010, you got what became your breakthrough role playing a would-be suicide bomber in Chris Morris's black comedy Four Lions. How did you feel about taking on the part? What attracted you to it? It was a bit scary because of the stuff that we were saying before. Maybe this was a subject matter that kind of was a bit of a narrow take on what it meant to be Muslim and British Asian. But Riz Ahmed was attached to it pretty early on and I thought, wow, if he's doing it, it's probably going to be all right.

Adeel Akhtar35:40

I'll probably do it then.

Presenter35:42

But looking back on it, I remember these sort of moments, these really special moments of going

Presenter35:48

Oh, this is a subject matter that should not be made fun of and is being made fun of. And that was quite an exciting.

Adeel Akhtar35:52

Nothing else.

Presenter35:55

sort of tension to be in. And on one side you got these bunch of disillusioned Muslim wannabe terrorists, and on the other hand you got a bunch of boys trying to organize anything.

Presenter36:09

And it's both of them it's gonna be pretty b bad. And that laughter makes it even more tragic when that creative impulse is misdirected. And if it's misdirected in a way that's like in a place towards either destruction or self-destruction or whatever, that's what makes it tragic. But actually we're just dealing with

Adeel Akhtar36:21

And I feel like

Adeel Akhtar36:29

Actually

Presenter36:31

A bunch of boys who can't organize anything.

Presenter36:34

And then, you know, it all went from there. In 2013, that was another moment for you. You played Wilson Wilson in the Channel 4 drama series Utopia, and you've described that role as a departure for you. In what way?

Presenter36:47

The character Wilson Wilson was just the character. There was nothing, you know, before that I was playing roles that were quite stereotypical and I felt freedom in characterizing a part that wasn't super reliant on like my culture or my race or anything like that, which but and it wasn't denying that either. And that's what I see. I don't really see a demarcation between those things. They're sort of fluidly moving between both at the same time. Sometimes none of those things, sometimes all of those things.

Presenter37:25

We talked earlier about when you were just starting out and the roles just weren't there. The stuff that you felt you could do just wasn't available to you. I wonder what your view is on how things have changed. I mean, we're seeing much more color blind cast in now. Do you think that's a good thing?

Adeel Akhtar37:38

Yeah.

Speaker 337:39

Yeah.

Presenter37:40

Yeah, that term is quite interesting as well. This idea that you have to sort of be blind to something because if you're blind to that thing, then you can do it this way, which is the right way of doing it. I think we're just moving into a world where we're just

Presenter37:57

a soupy mess of experiences. The idea is that if you're British and you're from a place, the hope is that there's no need f to be blind to anything. It's just the idea to be open to everything.

Presenter38:14

Adil, in twenty seventeen you won your first BAFTA, Best Actor, for your role as a Muslim father who murders his daughter in a so-called honor killing. You were the first non-white actor to win the award, and you've said you had mixed feelings about winning. Why was that?

Presenter38:32

I mean, it's bittersweet. I love winning prizes. So let's get that out of the way.

Presenter38:37

I do love it. By the way, BAFTA, I love a BAFTA.

Adeel Akhtar38:37

Yeah.

Adeel Akhtar38:38

Deserve to know.

Presenter38:42

But I knew that being an actor didn't a British Asian actor didn't start with me, you know.

Speaker 238:47

Yeah.

Presenter38:47

Even if I think about it, like one of the movies I really, really love was my beautiful Laundrette with Rush and Seth and say, Joffrey, and all these sort of old school British Asian actors that I knew were doing really, really amazing work.

Adeel Akhtar39:04

Mm-hmm.

Presenter39:05

So it was a sweet moment in the sense that um

Presenter39:10

I mean, just winning a BATTA's brilliant, isn't it? It can't never not be the the most amazing feeling in the world. And a bitter moment in the sense that that's strange that happened in twenty seventeen. Yeah.

Speaker 239:21

Yeah.

Adeel Akhtar39:21

So twenty seventeen, yeah.

Presenter39:24

Let's have some more music, Adele. This is your penultimate disc, your seventh today. What's it gonna be?

Presenter39:30

Kay Tempest and People's Faces.

Presenter39:33

This is a song that I put on I think maybe because it now I'm getting a bit older I sort of feel that any work or creative work that's underpinned by kindness and a feeling of trying to bring people together is something that I really really value and this song epitomizes that feeling for me.

Speaker 339:57

I saw it roaring.

Speaker 340:00

I felt it clawing at my clothes like a grieving friend.

Speaker 340:05

It said there are no new beginnings.

Speaker 340:08

And so everybody sees that the old ways need to end. But it's hard to accept that we're all one and the same flesh given the rampant divisions between oppressor and oppressed, but we are though.

Speaker 340:22

More empathy, less greed.

Speaker 340:25

More respect.

Presenter40:27

Kay Tempest and People's Faces. Adeal Aktar, you won your second BAFTA as Best Supporting Actor for playing Andy Fisher in the BBC drama series Sherwood. What did that feel like?

Presenter40:39

I don't know, it's a mad one because it's only in moments like this that you really get time to talk about it and reflect on it. And maybe it is connected to that sort of chat that I was saying before about on the other side of the hardship there is um

Speaker 340:45

And ref

Presenter40:53

Something yeah, there is something something good yeah, you know.

Speaker 340:54

There is some

Adeel Akhtar40:55

But

Presenter40:57

Has your dad come round to your path, the path that you've chosen? Occasional sort of words of, you know, I'm proud of you and this sort of stuff. But again, that idea of his journey and where he's come from and the place that he's arrived at, you see these sort of behavioural things that he does, which are just really beautiful and are in their own way an acknowledgement. So he'll ring me up at like four o'clock in the afternoon, which is a weird time. So you know, so everything all right? And he'll be like, Do you need any pens?

Presenter41:29

What do you mean? He goes, Pens, do you need any pens? I go, Wha why? He goes,'Cause um a friend of mine can let me into their stationery cupboard, get me another pen. I go, No, we're all right for pens. He goes, No, ballpoint pens Like, that's gonna make a difference. I said, I don't need any pens and um

Speaker 341:44

But I said I

Speaker 341:47

Are you sure?

Presenter41:48

Well you're saying it, I don't know, I don't think I need pens. And we just cleaned out the cupboards and we've got about a kilo worth of dates in the cupboards that he's sort of So this is him demonstrating his love? Yeah.

Presenter42:03

Yeah. But what's really lovely is that you can um cut through the noise of that and see what the reach is, if that makes sense. Absolutely. And what about your mum? She must be she'll just fully say it.

Adeel Akhtar42:12

And

Adeel Akhtar42:15

Ah, so

Speaker 342:16

Everything with price.

Presenter42:18

Too much, actually. She completely

Speaker 342:20

Did she complain about sneaking you off to drama camp?

Presenter42:23

Do you know what? Time has moved on so much that he would have probably forgotten about it.

Presenter42:28

It's just like it doesn't make a difference. It's doing all right now, isn't it? But she's bursting with pride.

Adeel Akhtar42:31

Uh

Presenter42:33

Yeah, she was ill not long ago and she'd been to see everything that I have done since forever. And the one thing that she couldn't see was the cherry orchard, uh the play that I was doing in Covent Garden'cause she was ill in hospital. She'd been in hospital for like twenty to thirty days at that point. And even though she I mean I was seriously ill and she kept on working at how she could get to amazing, get to Covent Garden to see

Adeel Akhtar42:47

Mm-hmm.

Presenter43:00

to see the cherry orchard and it was that's the only thing that she hasn't seen.

Adeel Akhtar43:01

And it was

Presenter43:05

Adeal, it's time for me to cast you away. How are you feeling about island life? I feel okay about it. I think I would my wife said something very funny to me. She said that you'll say that you'll be all right, but the first thing that you'll say when you realize that you're really alone is this

Presenter43:24

Legs

Presenter43:26

Very quiet voice on this island behind the mouth. Legs?

Adeel Akhtar43:28

On this island behind a bottle of mine.

Presenter43:34

No, but I think I'll be fine. Are you someone who will make the most of your time on the island? You talked a lot about, you know, that idea of the horizon and your kind of impulse to just keep going, keep making the best of wherever you are and pushing forward. Yeah, I d but yeah, but I'm just entering this sort of spot in my head where like paying attention to stuff is a form of like

Adeel Akhtar43:49

Yeah.

Speaker 343:49

Yeah.

Presenter44:00

I don't know, like a form of love or something, you where you where you pay attention or fix your gaze on something. And I find now I'm entering this sort of world at this sort of stage in my life, that I'm finding the world

Presenter44:10

Endlessly more fascinating than I ever have done before. So I'd like to think that that's what would go on on the island, but in reality it would just be this if we listen.

Speaker 244:12

Done.

Presenter44:19

Legs.

Presenter44:22

Let's go.

Presenter44:24

At Delactar, I'll give you one more track before we cast you away. Your final choice today, please. What have you gone for?

Presenter44:30

Do You Realize by the Flaming Lips? And this was our first dance when we got married. But we realized as we were holding each other, we had a really sort of like low-key eight-grand wedding. We just got our mates in and like a little bit of street food, and some people playing some songs and stuff like this. So, really, when you do a first dance, you've got to practice, don't you? You've got to know what the song is. All these days have routines, don't we? It's beautiful. I love it. I love it. We didn't have the bandwidth or the time to do it. And we just said, That's a really good song. Let's make that our first dance. And we love this song so much. And so, we're in the middle of the dance, we're holding each other, and the song comes on, and we're like, We can't dance to it. So, what did we do? We were just kind of like holding each other, staring at each other, no movement, but just sort of staring at each other's faces.

Adeel Akhtar44:57

People these days have routine stuff.

Adeel Akhtar45:16

So what's do we do?

Presenter45:38

Do you really

Presenter45:46

That you have the most

Presenter45:51

Beautiful face.

Presenter45:56

The flaming lips, and do you realize? So, Adeal Aktar, I'm going to send you away to the island. I'm giving you the Quran, the complete works of Shakespeare, and you can take one other book. What's that going to be?

Presenter46:08

It is A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by George Saunders. And this book is basically, he you haven't asked for this, I'm going to give it to you. He studies that, he teaches at Syracuse University and he thought to himself, how can I teach people how to write beautiful stories, short stories, but give it out to the world and just not silo it in like this idea that only people who go to university have access to it. So it's a collection of these Russian short stories and he just breaks it down and talks about why they're really good. And he's a really kind guy and an expression of kindness is just paying attention, I think is all he's trying to say in how he writes these books. So that's the book I'd read.

Presenter46:56

You can also have a luxury item to make your stay on the island more enjoyable. What will that be? My luxury item.

Presenter47:03

I was thinking I would just use the adrenaline of the moment to work out what what I would take. Oh, good, okay. And it hasn't it's not helping. Oh, all right.

Adeel Akhtar47:10

Oh good, okay.

Presenter47:13

So what I was going to do. Do you want me to nip you or something? What can we do to get it? It's going to be a panic one and it's going to be my air fryer.

Adeel Akhtar47:15

Yeah.

Adeel Akhtar47:17

What can we do to get it going?

Presenter47:23

Do I have somewhere to plug it in?

Adeel Akhtar47:24

Domit plug it in

Presenter47:25

Very much not. A solar-powered air fryer I could do. I could do a solar-powered air fryer. You should have meant that.

Adeel Akhtar47:30

There's

Presenter47:31

Well, take it camping. They could take it camping.

Adeel Akhtar47:32

I think it can power.

Presenter47:34

Great idea, let's pattern that. Okay, great. Done. And finally, which one track of the eight that we've heard today would you save from the waves first if you needed to? It's gotta be between, please don't do this. People's faces or do you realise? But because I was looking at Lex's face when we the do you realize it has to be do you realise? Because I was looking at Lex's face when the song came on on our first dance. That's it, thank you.

Presenter48:03

A deal, Actor, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Presenter48:30

Hello, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Adeal. I'm sure he'll cook up something absolutely delicious in that air fryer. We've cast away so many actors over the years: Killian Murphy, Stephen Graham, Leslie Manville, and Helen McCrory. Adeal's friend Mira Sayal is there, they're all in our archive. The studio manager for today's programme was Jackie Marjoram, the assistant producer was Christine Pavlovsky, the executive production coordinator was Susie Roylance, the content editor was Mugabe Turia, and the producer was Paula McGinley. Next time, my guest will be the politician and leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenock. I do hope you'll join us.

Adeel Akhtar49:16

I'm Dr. Chris Van Tulliken and I'm Dr. Zand Van Tulliken. Chris, it's that time of year when we set resolutions. It certainly is, Zand and that is why in January our four episodes of What's Up Docs are going to be on the key themes that feature in resolutions. Alcohol, food, exercise and the whole notion of resolutions themselves.

Adeel Akhtar49:36

Can we change? Should we change? Well, a lot of us think we should. That's what we're doing the whole month, paying attention or thinking we should pay attention to our health and well-being. In addition, we will be dropping a daily dose of expert wisdom from previous episodes because Zahn and I have felt and found that we need a reminder. Reminding about all the things that we've learned from difficult conversations to how to look after our knees, protein, the power of nature, snackable-sized episodes. Every day, we've got you covered.

Adeel Akhtar50:09

And these daily doses are going to be dropping into the medicine cabinet that is the WhatsUp Docs feed on BBC Sounds.