‘Encounter’ Director on Changing His “Default White Anti-Hero” Lead After Meeting Riz Ahmed

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Ahmed wasn't the first choice to star as a decorated Marine in Amazon's sci-fi film, but after meeting with him, director Michael Pearce questioned, 'Why can’t we diversify the choices of the people that we’re looking for for this part?'

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He continued: “I’ve been a fan of [Riz’s] for such a long time, it just became so exciting the idea of him in this role. He’s got that steel, laser focus and fortitude and grit and determination that I could really imagine him incredibly playing a Marine. And I hadn’t seen him play that before. He’s also got this warmth and humanity in all of his characters, so I thought that father-son dynamic would be very deeply felt on-screen.

After the core family was cast, Ahmed and Janina Gavankar — who plays Malik’s wife Piya Khan — came together to rename the characters of their two sons Jay and Bobby, played by Lucian-River Chauhan and Aditya Geddada, respectively. “Riz is an old friend, mostly because the Indian-Pakistani-South Asian diaspora, we’re a very tight-knit community and we’re very supportive of each other,” Gavankar said. “Riz and I have been looking for something to do together for a while. So when I signed on to this, I called him and I was like, ‘do you want to name our kids together?’”renaming her own character in the process.

And while Pearce didn’t always have Ahmed in mind for the leading role, the director said that he wrote

 

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