Why Riz Ahmed Sleeps Without a Pillow

I'm actually full psycho

and I don't sleep with a pillow.

Yeah, full vampire situation, just straight on my bed.

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Hello AD, I'm Riz Ahmed

and today I am showing you what it is like

to live At Home with me.

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If your home had a personality,

how would you describe it?

So I've got to be honest

and say that

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I'm basically extremely nomadic.

You'd be shocked if you found out

how many places I've rented

in the last like five years alone.

Yeah, I don't really have one base

for most of my adult life.

I've been bouncing around a lot.

So when I do get home put down roots,

I'm sure that'll be nice,

but also a bit weird for me.

What scent is home to you?

Man, the scent of home to me is

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my mouth just watered.

It's dal.

It's a really nice dal and dal tadka, you know,

which is when you take the cumin and fry it

and you throw that in oil on top of the dal,

it's like lentils basically.

Just curry.

Just curry in general, you know,

my mom's an amazing cook.

My wife's not a bad cookie though.

I think I'm a good cook, but everyone tells me I'm crap.

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Are you a shoes on or shoes off household?

Shoes off. [upbeat music continues]

Just don't bring that field in the house,

you know what I mean like.

Are guests allowed to sit on your bed?

No, of course not.

You're sitting on the subway, you're wearing your jeans.

You know what happens on the subway?

Actually we do know what happens on the subway

and so bringing that onto the bed,

I just think this is a hygiene issue.

This is a hygiene issue.

What's the perfect house temperature?

Who's in charge of the thermostat?

The perfect house temperature is,

I'd say 22.5 degrees centigrade.

I don't know what that is in Fahrenheit.

Maybe we can run the numbers on that

for our global audience.

Who's in charge of it?

I am, yeah, I'm in charge of the thermostat.

I think my wife being from California,

I think is much more used to air conditioning.

Hasn't quite adjusted

to the fact that in the UK it's generally cold

so you don't need to turn any of that on

and also save the planet and whatnot.

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Throw pillows, yay or nay?

I'm familiar with this as a concept

that some people engage in, but I do not,

even one pillow on the bed is too much

for me to be honest.

And I'll tell you one thing about throwing pillows,

you just end up throwing them on the floor

and then they go back on the bed.

Hygiene.

What is your alarm?

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My child.

Wakes me up in the morning way

before I like to be woken up.

[bell rings]

What lives on your nightstand?

Something I try and keep by my nightstand is a journal.

Try and just write down some things at the end

of every night just to clear out my head.

Moving on.

Blackout blinds or wake up with sun?

Blackout blinds if I can get 'em.

One of the best presents someone gave us

when we had a kid was a white noise machine.

And now I can't sleep without a white noise machine

because I'm used to my kid sleeping

to the white noise machine.

So I love those things, man.

If you wanna make money, upload a YouTube video

of white noise, uninterrupted 10 hours,

billions of times I watch that.

[screen flickering]

How often do you change the sheets?

Once a week.

Is that right, that's a normal amount, right?

Suddenly felt very, very vulnerable sharing that.

What's the best thing about your bedroom?

As I said, I move around a lot.

The place I'm in right now,

there isn't much to it other than a bed.

A boring answer, but just the bed

and I just wanna keep the bedroom for nothing

but just sleeping.

What makes it hard to get outta bed in the morning?

[laughing] [upbeat music]

Endless,

deep exhaustion.

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So the bathroom, are you a bath or a shower person?

I'm gonna be honest and say I grew up without shower,

we would bathe in a balti,

which is the old school Indian thing to do.

You fill up a bucket with water

and you have a thing, a little juggle water

and you wash yourself very efficiently.

Toilet seat up or down?

Toilet seat definitely down.

And here's another thing, when you are flushing,

you have to flush with the toilet seat down.

Hygiene.

Again, I've realize I'm sounding like a bit of a germophobe.

Maybe I am.

Do you sing in the shower?

I don't really sing in the shower,

but I do talk to myself out loud.

I do have imaginary conversations with myself

and imaginary conversations with other people.

I don't know why I do that.

And it's my wife who drew my attention

to that habit, but I stand by it.

B-day, yay or nay?

I don't have a B-day.

I do respect Japanese toilets.

I was reading an article about how it's become,

you know, it's going global now,

but growing up we would use lotas.

If you don't know what a lota is, look it up.

If you do know, then you know.

Lota is the OGB date.

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What do you have the most of in your closet?

Jackets, got too many jackets.

You know it's the thing that you keep on in London as well.

That was like flashiest thing you could get.

New, fake Versace jacket from Wembley Market.

What's the most nostalgic item in your closet?

I think the most nostalgic item is a sherwani

that my dad wore.

Sherwani is a kind of South Asian formal wear,

it's white, raw silk sherwani that my dad got married in

and I got married in that same sherwani.

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Coffee or tea?

I never touched caffeine.

After becoming a dad, it's like okay, I will,

I have to have caffeine.

So I've started defaulting to just a classic black tea.

I just take it with nothing else.

It's a spot.

How long is it okay to leave dirty dishes in the sink?

Well, it depends who you ask.

If you ask my wife, she'll say week.

If you ask me, I'll say a day.

I think, man, after two days is,

something's up.

See what I mean?

Like emotionally, something's up.

And other than running the dishes you need maybe

to speak to a therapist.

Home cooked meal or takeout?

I love home cooked meals.

I love it when we do get a chance to cook embarrassing.

I used to just be like protein powder, avocado, banana,

almond butter, a couple of berries, random vegetable,

put it in a blender, that's my meal.

And then I met my wife and she said, this has to stop.

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What do you do most in this space?

TV, read, party, ha no,

nap, board games.

Lemme tell you what I would love to do in my living room.

I would love to play games, play Mafia.

My dream like night is like dinner at home,

cook meal dinner at home with friends.

And then intense Mafia session where everyone falls out

with each other by the end of it.

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Do you have any special mementos

from your films/albums?

You know the thing I kept from Relay was a jacket.

Is a very nice kind of multicolored leather jacket

in the film

that accidentally found its way into my closet.

Do you listen to music throughout the house?

If so, how?

I love having some music on.

In the morning, it really helps me wake up

and right now I'm listening to a lot of kind

of 1970s Lollywood like Pakistani film music

from the 70s and kind of Bollywood disco from the 80s.

Artists like Asha Bhosle, Nikita Dutta, Tafo Brothers.

It was just this amazing kind of Psychedelic,

crazy Neon kitsch.

The office slash studio.

Do you have a home office or music studio?

I don't right now.

I would love to.

I guess less of an office

because I don't like the idea of like sitting down

and I'd like a space where I could just walk around

and prepare my work, put my script on,

like print it out in like double-sized font

and put it on a music stand

so I can read it from further away.

And I'd like to move around when I'm preparing my work.

So that would be a dream.

And that's a good idea, AD, thank you.

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Thank you so much, AD,

hopefully has given you a little bit of an insight

into my nomadic life.

So if you ever do stop by,

you know the rules, shoes off.

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