Tea With BAFTA: Adeel Akhtar
In an interview with EE BAFTA’s Leading Actor Nominee for his work in Ali & Ava, Adeel Akhtar speaks with BAFTA member Martina Silcock as a part of BAFTA’s Tea with BAFTA segment. Adeel shares how his family finding a rocking chair ended up in the Ali & Ava script, his respect and appreciation for working with director Clio Barnard, and his advice to those beginning their film careers.
“Just nice to be nominated, nice to be recognized, nice for the film to be seen on that sort of platform.”
After a brief discussion about Adeel being in New Zealand to shoot a Netflix series, the interview begins with Martina congratulating Adeel on the nomination. Adeel felt strange hearing the news of his nomination, especially when he started seeing images of himself on advertisements and social media. Despite the surrealism he experienced from receiving the news, Adeel is excited that their small-budget film made such a big splash in the film industry.
“I suppose there’s a sort of rigidity that you’re attached to a process of filmmaking. There’s a script and everything is scripted, and then you just go to the edit room, and you do it.”
The discussion moves on to Martina’s favorite scene from Ali & Ava where Adeel’s character is dancing on top of a car. Adeel revealed that the scene was completely unscripted and occurred due to director Clio Barnard’s filming process. In his experience, he felt the filming of Ali & Ava was very easy to follow and slow-moving. However, by the time the product finished, nuance and complications were able to be seen. Adeel felt taken aback by some of the content when comparing the simplicity of filming it to seeing the work come together.
“She’s just a really good listener, and everything that she’s listening to, she’ll sort of drop it into scripts and drop into the film at some point.”
Following up on director Clio Barnard, Cleo begins discussing t her talent as a listener. He provides an example by reciting a time he and his wife had dinner with Cleo. Their talk led to Clio adding a story into the script about a rocking chair given to Adeel and his wife. The story was about how Adeel’s wife’s remark about needing a rocking led to her uncle and Adeel’s father dropping off a new rocking chair within minutes. Once Clio hears the story, she immediately announces the inclusion of the story in the script. Adeel praises Clio’s skills as a director and listener. He commends Clio’s investigative desire to know people. Elements of what Clio heard and investigated are peppered through Ali & Ava. Adeel describes Clio’s approach as akin to giving out open invitations to contribute to the film.
“Just knowing that there’s probably something in you that’s uniquely you. I knew this when I was a child. I used to pay lip service to it a little bit…But I really believe it now.”
After briefly discussing their respective talents in musical instruments, Martina closes the interview by asking Adeel what his best advice for newcomers in the film industry is. As a child, Adeel knew that if you believe you have something unique and you take the time to work it out, then individuals can find something they can contribute to. Something to provide more than anyone else. While it might be terrifying to attempt this, Adeel believes that if someone leans on that uniqueness, your efforts will pay you back.