Bassam Tariq is never not going through some form of ego death. The director has had to learn to let go of layer after layer of who he thought he was, not only through his filmmaking, but also through fatherhood; experiences that inspired him to write and direct his new film Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, starring Mahershala Ali. The project follows a devout Muslim who’s a part-time hitman and full-time father of three, including a newborn baby girl. With the abrupt passing of his wife, he is forced to take on the role of single parent while still juggling his faith and professional responsibilities. To talk about his new project, the director reunited with his old friend and longtime collaborator, Riz Ahmed. In conversation, the pair touched on learning to keep your ego in check, finding beauty in the mundane, and the many deaths of a Samurai.
TUESDAY 1:45 PM SEPTEMBER 29, 2026 HOUSTON
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RIZ AHMED: Hey, bro, what’s happening?
BASSAM TARIQ: Not much, man. How are you? Where are you?
AHMED: I’m in L.A. right now. We just had the Digger premiere last night.
TARIQ: That’s crazy. I was actually with a journalist who saw it and they were like, “That performance by Riz is the one to watch out for.” I was punching the air, I was so happy to hear it.
AHMED: Yeah, it’s a big swing, so it’s a lot of fun, man. But bro, you just opened as well, huh? It’s been going well?
TARIQ: It’s been cool, man. It’s a real cathartic experience.
AHMED: How does it feel to have people receive this?
TARIQ: It’s affirming, man. I feel like for a long time I’ve been hiding. [There was] a period of my life where I was like, “I got to move to London, get out of the States.” And starting to work on this project, I realized I was a real American filmmaker. I’m really American.
AHMED: Wow. What do you mean by that?
TARIQ: What I mean by that is this film’s actually really funny, and I didn’t realize how much people would laugh. I don’t know if it would necessarily work in the UK. I realized my humor actually translates better here.
AHMED: I feel like UK humor is either extremely dry or extremely absurd. But I mean, you always bring jokes, man. You brought so much humor and so much flair to Bait when we worked on that. I feel like we were able to take big swings because we had each other to go, “Well, I like it.” So it’s not just you, do you know what I mean? Who did you have with you on your shoulder to make a film that’s such a cool genre mashup? Who did you have with you on that journey to take those swings?
TARIQ: I think Bait, I was really nervous about because I knew it wasn’t just going to be you and me. We also had studios, we had other people on top of us. So there was a concern that I had of like, “Fuck, is that going to affect the friendship? Is that going to hurt something?” But I think because we looked to each other, and we had faith in each other, I realized there is a way to operate with people that you love in these systems. You just have to have a code of conduct.
It also made me actually have the courage to reach out to Mahershala [Ali] and be like, “Yo, let’s build this together.” And without him and the shorthand we built on this, I don’t think we would’ve been able to really go to the places that we needed to go. And having a Black Muslim protagonist, it’s like I didn’t have to explain anything, dude. When you’re not stuck worrying about explaining, then you’re at that next level of, like, “How do we actually excel in these ideas?” or “How do we push it further?”
AHMED: I feel like this film is such a reflection of you in the mix of genres, the Houston of it all, the humor, the kind of intense, quite brutal action in it as well. But overall, the heart. How does it feel seeing the response to it?
TARIQ: That was wild, man. I think when we were at TIFF and we had our premiere, I was really concerned about if people would get it. Because I think when we did Mogul Mowgli, a lot of people got it, but then there’d be little comments that were quite snide. Little things, like, “Well, that’s maybe for the South Asians.” You remember that, right?
AHMED: Right.
TARIQ: I wanted to make something that was accessible, but I also felt there was all this pressure and anticipation because of Mahershala. Everyone started saying, “Oh, this is like the Muslim Blade, or this is John Wick, or this is—”
AHMED: It’s its own thing.
TARIQ: Yeah, it’s its own thing. But there was this fear that if it didn’t have the right amount of action—and the fact that we take a big swing in the ending.
AHMED: Don’t spoil it for people. So you’re saying there was a lot of pressure and there was a lot of uncertainty about whether people would get it?
TARIQ: Yeah.
AHMED: But they really are getting it. Let’s talk a little bit about some of the themes at the heart of the movie, if that’s okay?
TARIQ: Yeah.
AHMED: I want to talk about fatherhood, man. I know that we’ve spoken a lot about your journey as a father. I’ve spoken to you a lot about mine as well.
TARIQ: Yeah.
AHMED: Tell me why you felt like you had to make a film about fatherhood? Where does that come from?
TARIQ: Now that my kids are older, they’re 12 and nine, they have the ability to—this is crazy to say—they have the ability to fall out of love with me. Does that make sense? They can make choices like, “Nah, I don’t want Baba to be here.” Whereas when they’re younger, it’s like, “Okay, cool, we’re just going to do this thing.” But there’s a certain point where it’s like, he can be home on his own, and I have to learn how to give him his space.
What I’m learning is that love isn’t guaranteed. I’ve been thinking a lot about how rough I can be and how difficult I can be. I’ve always thought about a father where, if the kid starts seeing the monster side of him, is the father irredeemable? He goes so far in the end, there’s this question of, “How does he come back from something like that?” What I believe is that [kids] will always love you, you just have to keep showing up in all your broken ways. The other thing that I’ve been realizing is that sometimes they’re the ones that rescue you. They’re the ones that piece you back together.
AHMED: I think your humility is a really amazingly rare quality. A lot of the time, the greatest talent the director can have is being uncompromising in their vision, or at least just continuing to push. But there’s also that fine line where you need to have the humility to receive, to listen, to serve the story rather than your ego. And I think that cocktail is a really potent one that you have. You’re also great at listening to the movie, listening to your collaborators, listening to your audience.
TARIQ: I think my problem is I sometimes compromise too much or I don’t know how to listen to myself. How do you do that?
AHMED: I feel like I’m always switching between that Jekyll and that Hyde. You need both. If you only got one, you’re lost, you’re chasing your tail. You need both the ego that says, “My will shall be done,” and the angel saying, “Thy will shall be done.” I want to talk to you about the ego and keeping the ego in check. It’s such a core part of the film. Someone said to me, “It’s like a samurai movie about killing your ego,” which I thought was beautiful. Talk to me about that.
TARIQ: I mean, at one point, bro, I didn’t know if I was going to make films again. I’m just going to be real honest with you. I wanted to make a samurai film about all the versions of this man that he has to kill to be the father that he needs to be. Something that I feel, even when you’re making a film, is that you’re shedding layers of yourself and you just have to surrender. Mogul Mowgli was such a revelatory thing because I came in all high and mighty like, “I know what the fuck I’m doing.” I was super self-righteous. And at every turn, I was challenged. At the same time, I saw you pick me up and you showed me compassion.
AHMED: We went at it in that movie. We were both cracking each other up and going like, “You were being an asshole.” But then we would also be crying and hugging each other, and it was a beautiful train to ride.
TARIQ: I really cherished that because there was so much grace you showed me. There’s this beautiful saying, I don’t even know who said it, where it’s like, “If you’re not embarrassed of the person you were a year ago, you’re not growing enough.”
AHMED: Does that count if I’m embarrassed about the person I was yesterday?
TARIQ: Yeah, I know, right?
AHMED: I’m embarrassed about who I am right now. I must really be growing.
TARIQ: It’s good growth, man.
AHMED: Shedding the ego, evolving. All those different deaths you can die.
TARIQ: I think being a father, you know this too, it’s like there’s a version of your child that you want them to be, but that’s not who they will be. They will be whatever god has willed them to be, and you have to be curious and be in awe of the phenomena of who they are. Because if you’re not, then they will start to feel like, “Oh, I’m a piece of shit. I’m not enough. My dad hates me,” because they also need our approval. Which is also, I think, the hardest thing. I feel like I’m so much more generous to my crews and my cast, but I don’t know if I extend that same generosity to my family sometimes.
AHMED: Wow. Yeah. Ethan Hawke once said that real life can often have a scratchiness, and a friction, and a lack of grace to it that makes the work more appealing as a place to escape to.
TARIQ: That’s so true. The other thing that we have to not forget is everyone’s getting paid to be there. Not to be cynical about it, but it’s like they have to make it work. Whereas when you’re in a relationship with your partner, your kids, they could bounce after a certain age. They don’t have to be there.
AHMED: You could say that there’s a kind of smoothness and a grace to working relationships because we all have to do it, get paid, and make the movie. But I also think there’s something about the creative process that only works when egos are kept in check a little bit, right?
TARIQ: Yeah.
AHMED: That sense of grace that we sometimes find in a flow state of work is so important to bring home too. I had this thing after I became a father where I was realizing like, “Oh, man. I used to think of my everyday actual real life as just a thing that’s serving my work in a way. This is just where I’m in the wings off-stage.” And then things started changing for me and I was like, “Oh, I’m not trying to bring my life to my work so much anymore as I’m trying to bring the flow and grace and collaboration that I have to embody at work into my life.” Maybe life isn’t the training ground for your work, maybe work is the training ground for your life.
TARIQ: I would say that marital counseling helped me be a better director. So much of working with actors, working with crew, is a very intimate relationship. So I use those Gottman tools.
AHMED: That’s interesting though, right? I feel like what we’re talking about is bridging that gap between who you are at work and who you are, and so much of the film is about that.
TARIQ: Yeah.
AHMED: I feel like you’ve taken that quintessential split personality, split life that everyone feels and took it to an extreme. He’s a single dad at home, he’s a hit man at work. I remember you once telling me, “You know why so many filmmakers make work that’s a love letter to home?” And I was like, “Why?” You said, “Writing a love letter is a lot easier than being there.” There is that push and pull between home and the unconditional acceptance of it, but also how it sees through your bullshit. Do you feel like this film is about that in order to be a father, you have to kill a part of yourself?
TARIQ: Yeah. There’s also this compartmentalization that a lot of us do, and then I think that combusts. It’s good to compartmentalize to a certain degree, but what I’ve been finding is that it’s all kind of connected.
AHMED: Wow.
TARIQ: Yeah, what I’ve been learning more and more about my work, and I think it’s also because AI is giving us this blessing to make us really ask, like, “What the fuck are we doing on this earth? What does it really mean about who we are as humans?” And I think what it is, it’s like our work has to feel sacred. The process has to feel important.
AHMED: The process of friction is what gives something meaning.
TARIQ: Yes, exactly. I think we’re losing the value of labor and work, and I think that’s where I’m trying to make sure that I’m valuing all the work that I do because I’ve been blessed with the ability to do it. Even fucking cleaning dishes, which I hate, or doing laundry, which I hate, it’s like to find the sacred in the banal.
AHMED: Diapers, bro. There’s a righteous crusade for you. The sacred in the mundane is something that is obviously in the film thematically, but it’s also in it visually. Tell me a little bit about some of the decisions you made around the visual language, how you shot this and how you brought it to life in such a vivid way.
TARIQ: I think what we wanted to do was we looked at Jim Jarmusch‘s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. There was something really—
AHMED: Beautiful film.
TARIQ: —beautiful about that film, but we also looked at some classic samurai movies. There was this one called Harakiri, and it’s a very stately film, but it builds to this incredible fight at the end, and it’s just shot in such an elegant way.
AHMED: I want to carry on talking about craft a little bit and how it works with your actors. Now, having worked with you several times as an actor, I know how much feeling you bring as a director. Talk to me about your process.
TARIQ: I would say that working with the actors was the best part in this entire experience, and working with you was a fucking masterclass. For each actor, you learn there’s a different way to speak to them because you want to respect their process. So with Mahershala, we did a lot of read-throughs. He knew the character in and out. And I think allowing actors to be together in rehearsal where they ask questions of each other and see how they can make things better. I always point at the belly because I do think that the best performances come from our stomach.
AHMED: From the guts, yeah. The body itself.
TARIQ: From the body itself, right.
AHMED: You said that to me a few times. You [said], “Put it in your stomach.” I was like, “I think I understand what you mean.”
TARIQ: I’ve been learning to say very little because I hate it when someone says so much to me. So the fact that it was only me in their ear, I wanted to make sure that they had the space to really try shit, push shit.
AHMED: Beautiful, man. And how was the process with Mahershala?
TARIQ: It was great, man. It’s interesting because he hasn’t been the lead in many films, so he doesn’t get much interface, [he doesn’t] talk to the director that much. So he’s learned how to build a process on his own. He’s not used to somebody knocking on his door like, “Hey, what’s up? You need help? What’s going on here?” So in the beginning, he wanted a lot of time on his own, but then I was like, “Hey, my door’s open for you.” We slowly started to build that trust where we realized we needed each other. That was an interesting thing because, for you and I, we would check in in the mornings and the afternoons. Whereas I learned that with his process, he really needs his space.
AHMED: It’s like hearing a father talk about how every kid needs something different, right?
TARIQ: Yeah.
AHMED: And you know what? Sometimes the kids save your ass.
TARIQ: Yes.
AHMED: So, Bassam, it sounds to me like you tried to make a story about bridging the gap between the way you operate at home and outside the home. And just listening to you talk over the course of this interview, it feels like you did that. You brought that openness and that nuance to the way you crafted this with all your collaborators. Bro, I just want to say, I don’t think there’s ever been a film like this. I’m excited to see you go on the journey with this one.
TARIQ: Thank you, man.
AHMED: Much love, man. Thank you, Interview magazine, for letting me catch up with my boy. This is the only way.
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