Riz Ahmed Learned About ASL Accents at Deaf Poetry Slams, W Magazine

For his role in The Sound of Metal, Riz Ahmed immersed himself fully in all aspects of his character s life: he d go to AA and NA meetings, punk shows, and attend weddings and Deaf Poetry slam sessions with his American Sign Language coach. Eventually, he became fluent in the languagebut it didn t start out that way. I couldn t really express myself as well as I wanted to early on, he explains in this episode of Screen Tests with Lynn Hirschberg. I d get frustrated and I didn t know the sign for thinkingfor when you re saying um. At that point, all I knew to express how I was feeling was fk up. After the hundredth time I said I m fucking up, they said That s your sign It gives you an idea of the inventiveness, the elegance, the creativity of American Sign Language and deaf culture, to be able to encapsulate all of that in a gesture loaded with so much meaning. Subscribe to W