“In a way it kind of was just a real gift it really opened me up, yes it was a challenge in that it was different, but it wasn’t any less, it was in many ways more than communicating verbally.”
Riz Ahmed an Emmy award-winning actor, rapper, and social activist, who is best known for his roles in The Night Of, Rogue One, and Venom. He stars alongside Olivia Cooke and Paul Raci in Sound of Metal.
In the film, Ahmed portrays a heavy-metal drummer named “Ruben”, whose life is devastated when his ability to hear begins to rapidly deteriorate. When asked why he chose such a challenging role Ahmed stated that “the thing that initially drew me to doing the project was the script and how emotional it was.”
In the interview Ahmed speaks to the connections he found to his character Ruben in the film, “Issues that I’m facing they’re similar to Ruben’s, control issues or desire to kind of like you know always be productive.”
Ahmed not only learned American Sign Language (ASL) but also learned to play the drums for the role. “Learning the drums and learning sign language they’re both kinds of non-verbal communication so they both very much opened me up,” said Ahmed. He continued by saying that his involvement in the role “allowed me to kind of just embody myself differently and embody the character differently it was it was just a very enriching experience.”
When asked about the emotional tolls the roles took on each actor Olivia Cooke said, “All you have to do is watch Riz’s performance to being around that you’d be hard-pressed to not be moved. He’s a very beautiful actor.”
In addition to playing Riz’s girlfriend in the movie Cooke had to learn guitar and spoke about the nerve-wracking experience of having to perform live while filming, “It was a terrifying experience and I feel sick even thinking about it because my string snapped right before we were about to shoot.” She added, “I’m really glad that this is getting the life that it deserves because everyone worked so hard.”
An interesting perspective Riz Ahmed brought to light was how sign language affected his performance for the film on an emotional level. “When I first started communicating in sign language it got me a lot more emotional than it would have if I would have just spoken the words. My sign instructor Jeremy Stone once told me that deaf people say hearing people are emotionally repressed because they hide behind words.”
First-time director Darius Marder had Ahmed wear specialized hearing pieces that would simulate hearing loss in real-time for the actor, preventing him from hearing his own voice.
“No control but pure instinct that’s where the magic of performance can come from,” said Marder. “Riz, Olivia, and Paul are brave, brave actors who are willing to lay themselves bare for this movie.”
When asked about portraying someone from the Deaf community Marder stated, “It’s about honoring deaf culture. We’re not really representing deaf culture; we’re just allowed into deaf culture.”
One of the actors featured in the movie is Vietnam veteran Paul Raci who is the front-man for the Black Sabbath tribute band Hands of Doom. The Chicago-based group performs lyrics using American Sign Language and draws a large deaf crowd at every show.
He spoke on how personal this role was for him. “So how close is it to me? Very close, my mother was a lip reader a lot of things that Joe does in this movie are right out of my mother’s playbook.”
“I just hope that people look at this movie and appreciate their hearing for one thing and realize well how sensitive your ears are,” Raci added. “Beyond that, deaf people are not a monolith. Some of them are crazy about music if you can believe that. You can’t judge a book by its cover.”
Sound of Metal is playing in theaters now and starts streaming on Amazon Prime Video on December 4, 2020.
This article was written by Michael Taggart and edited by Jon Stenvall.
