Adeel Akhtar, actor

·50 min·5 clips

Adeel was handcuffed and interrogated by the FBI at JFK, accused of terrorist affiliations.

Adeel Akhtar is introduced gently. Lauren Laverne places him in the Desert Island frame as a double BAFTA winner, including the Best Actor prize that made history. The mood stays quiet and attentive. Before long, the excerpt turns toward belonging. Akhtar remembers walking into a room full of British Asian actors, directors, and people who work in radio and TV, gathered to honour Mira Sayal. He describes a feeling of achievement and pride that did not need to be spoken aloud. It mattered because recognition can land differently when minority experience has made it harder to come by. Pride, he says, had needed a mirror. Looking back to boarding school, he had not understood that feeling yet, or the need to see himself reflected back. Laverne follows the thread carefully. She picks up his own words and asks about not taking in other people's judgments, and about meeting ignorance with curiosity. Akhtar keeps it modest. Curiosity, he suggests, can become understanding, and understanding can inch toward empathy. Laverne notices how hard that is without turning it into a slogan. Akhtar laughs and says he is trying, not claiming to have mastered it, joking that the morning had already tested him. Then he remembers the escalator, on a date with Lex, with boys coming down as he went up and shouting at him while he looked bearded and disheveled. The story stays quiet. What lingers is the effort not to let judgment take over the whole story.

As heard by us

A thoughtful portrait of pride, resilience, and the quiet work of being seen.

Adeel Akhtar's turn on Desert Island Discs is a measured, revealing conversation with Lauren Laverne about boarding school, family feeling, pride, and the effort of not taking on other people's judgments.

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