Riz Ahmed explains his "fresh" and "radical" reinterpretation of 'To be or not to be' soliloquy in modern day Hamlet retelling

A few years after they collaborated on Oscar-winning short film The Long Goodbye back in 2020, Riz Ahmed and director Aneil Karia have teamed up for another new project – and this time they've taken on one of the most revered texts in the history of the English language.

The pair's new version of Hamlet – which arrives in UK cinemas today – is an abridged adaptation of the tragic masterpiece, with screenwriter Michael Lesslie having kept the Shakespearian verse mostly in tact.

Set in modern day London and filtered through a British Asian lens, it's a striking new take on the timeless source material that intends to make the play more accessible to a wider audience, including those who might previously have felt Shakespeare wasn't for them.

There are a number of ways in which Karia staged the action to make it feel fresh and exciting, and one key scene is the film's iteration of the iconic 'To be or not to be' soliloquy – which Ahmed's Hamlet delivers while recklessly driving a car at full speed down a long stretch of road.

Speaking about the thought process that went into this mesmerising sequence, Ahmed told RadioTimes.com that one of the biggest challenges had been a logistical one – finding a stretch of road long enough to get the speech in one take. And in a sense, this being the biggest focus helped him when it came to his actual performance.

"It's interesting, because sometimes, with those restrictions and parameters, it can actually bring something out creatively," he explained during an exclusive interview at last year's London Film Festival.

"Because you don't have five to seven minutes to like, ruminate over every word. It's a condensed, intense delivery because of where we're staging it, and what we're saying with the piece."

Ahmed added that he'd had a lot of feedback from those who'd seen the film at early festival screenings explaining how they'd found his iteration of the speech "fresh". And interestingly, he reckoned the way in which he'd interpreted the words had as much of a bearing on this as the brilliant staging.

"We've fallen into a pattern of thinking that that speech is about suicide and giving up on life," he said. "And I really strongly think it's not about that at all. If you look at the words... it's, do we go and just keep our head down and suffer injustice, go along to get along? Or do we fight back, even if that means that we're going to lose everything?

"That is the question of our times right now, and that's very different to saying, 'I'm feeling down and I might give up on life.' That's a valid way of feeling.

"I'm not denigrating anyone who feels like that. But when we read that speech, it's about something much more radical, and so it stands to reason that we would stage it in a way that feels propulsive and passionate and kinetic."

Speaking more generally about the responses he'd seen to the film, Ahmed revealed that it was the "range" of different people who had connected with it that especially delighted both he and Karia. In particular, they've been excited by viewers saying it had changed the way they thought about Shakespeare.

"People who say, 'Look, Shakespeare's never been for me, I've always thought that I haven't really understood it. I don't really get it. It's something that I've always felt on the outside of. And now, after seeing your film, I feel like I went on that emotional journey, I connected with that character, I understood the play in a different way.'

"That's what gets us most excited, because I think in a way, what my greatest hope is, is that you know this beautiful piece of writing, one of the most beautiful things ever written in any language, is something that more people are able to connect to and feel like it belongs to them."

What's intriguing – and perhaps one of the reasons why the film accomplishes it's goals – is that Karia himself confesses to being one of those people who previously thought Shakespeare wasn't his thing.

"I was kind of one of those people, really, who left school thinking, 'Okay, maybe this is for me. Maybe I'm not quite intellectual enough, or whatever it is," he explained.

"And so when Riz first said he was going to send me Hamlet, my instinct was, 'I'm not sure I'm the guy for this.' But then I started reading it and finding it kind of personal and relevant and surprising in ways I just totally hadn't expected.

"And I began to feel really excited about the idea of trying to root this revered ancient text in a modern setting, in a way that felt cinematic, visceral, urgent, propulsive and felt at home in in the modern age that you and I live and breathe."

He added that, when it came to trying to navigate the contrast between the Shakespearian verse and the modern setting, the vital thing was not to overthink things too much.

"It's all about feeling," he said. "And if you do that honestly, then the setting is just going to be the setting, right? So it was about finding a way into it that made this film an emotional experience, rather than this intellectual exercise – and then the rest takes care of itself."

Hamlet is now showing in UK cinemas.

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