For Riz Ahmed, representation is not enough: 'Does the room change you, or do you change it?'

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In this week’s episode of The Envelope podcast, Riz Ahmed talks about drawing on his own experience for “Bait,” his Prime Video series about a British Muslim actor whose life is upended when he’s rumored to be the next James Bond.Kelvin Washington: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the next episode of The Envelope.Kelvin Washington, Yvonne Villarreal, we have Mark Olsen.

And Mark, I’ll stay with you for a second.You had a chance to speak with Riz Ahmed, who is the creator and the star of “Bait,” which centers around the idea of who could be the next James Bond.

So then, dang it, I’m asking you two the same question: Who could be, should be the next James Bond? Is there somebody or somebodies that you’ve thought about for a while and said, “Well, that would fit, that could work”?Mark Olsen: It was recently announced that they have begun the casting process to replace Daniel Craig in the beloved and long-running James Bond franchise.And there have already been at least one sort of confirmed person, the actor Tom Francis, auditioned.

But then there’s a lot of other names being thrown around, like Callum Turner, Jacob Elordi, Aaron Taylor-Johnson.Kind of everybody about that age bracket you could think of.

You know, it’s funny, in the last movie, “No Time to Die,” Lashana Lynch was given the number 007, so she was not James Bond, but she was 007.And I always thought, actually, in the last couple of movies, that Léa Seydoux would make a perfect [00 agent] — she’s cool, she feels kind of dangerous.

She would have seemed to me like a great person for that kind of role.But then also, that’s obviously not James Bond.

So who knows who it could be.Yvonne, what do you think? Do you have anybody in mind?Yvonne Villarreal: Can it be a toss-up between you two? How would you fare?Olsen: I don’t know if I’d pass basic training.Washington: They have doub...