Bait

Premise

After Shah Latif, a struggling actor from a west London Pakistani Muslim family, auditions for the role of James Bond, he must navigate public backlash and family relationships while suffering an existential crisis. The series sardonically examines his life over four days through the intersection of fame, publicity, and the British Asian immigrant experience as viewed through Shah's interpersonal relationships.

Cast

Riz Ahmed as Shah Latif

Muhammad Abdur-Rahman Toheed plays a 12 year old Shah in flashbacks.

Guz Khan as Zulfikar "Zulfi", Shah's entrepreneurial cousin and friend

Ashwin Chandrasekaran plays a 13 year Zulfi in flashbacks.

Aasiya Shah as Q, Shah's cousin.

Sheeba Chaddha as Tahira Latif, Shah's mother; Q and Zulfi's aunt

Sajid Hasan as Parvez Latif, Shah's father; Q and Zulfi's uncle

Ritu Arya as Yasmin Khan, Shah's ex-girlfriend

Weruche Opia as Felicia, Shah's agent and friend

Nabhaan Rizwan as Salim, a family friend of the Latifs

Maxine Peake as Helen, the director of the new Bond film

Rafe Spall as Nigel, a security consultant

Soni Razdan as Naila, a family friend of the Latifs

Himesh Patel as Raj Thakkar, a rival actor auditioning for the Bond role

Sian Clifford as Vivian, the director of the King's Museum

Patrick Stewart as the voice of "Pigtrick", a severed pig's head who verbalises Shah's self-doubt

Gina Bramhill as the actress playing "Severine", a role in the Bond film

Production

Development

The idea for Bait was conceived when Ahmed was told by a friend, "the distance between your public and private self is the amount of shame you carry" and he realised that "either I need to get therapy or I need to make a TV show about it." Ahmed has stated that he has been thinking about the show since the mid-2010s, and that it was inspired in part by several specific incidents he experienced during his rise to fame. Scenes that Ahmed said were inspired by personal experiences included Shah's panic attack at a music venue, the racially-motivated beating he received in his childhood, and attempted recruitment by MI5.

However, Ahmed has downplayed the similarities of Shah Latif's character and himself, saying that while some scenes in the show are based on incidents he experienced, Bait is not autofiction. He stated that while Shah views Bond as a symbol of success, acceptance, "cinematic achievement, [and] alpha masculinity", Shah's pursuit of the role "is actually about wishing he was someone else".

The series was developed at Jax Media in association with Left Handed Films for Amazon MGM Studios and their streaming platform Amazon Prime Video. It is executive produced by Ahmed and Allie Moore for Left Handed, and Jake Fuller on behalf of Jax Media. Ben Karlin is an executive producer, writer and is showrunning with Ahmed. The series writers include Dipika Guha, Prashanth Venkataramanujam, Karen Joseph Adcock and Azam Mahmood. Roopesh Parekh is also an executive producer. Nikesh Shukla, editor of the 2016 essay collection The Good Immigrant which Ahmed contributed to, is a consulting producer. The credits also thank Jesse Armstrong and Chris Morris, who had previously worked with Ahmed on the 2010 satirical black comedy Four Lions.

While reviewers have noted that the premise of Bait is "itself kind of bait", Ahmed says that the show is not really about James Bond, nor is it completely about the conversation regarding whether a non-white character should play the role, and emphasises that the use of Bond as a framing element "brings in a spy thriller aspect to the show—it allows drama and action and suspense to live alongside the comedy".

After Ahmed began writing the script, he met Barbara Broccoli, the producer who held creative control of the James Bond film franchise, to request her consent regarding use of the Bond name. She granted her permission with the sole request that she not be referenced in the series. He explained that the show was not really about Bond but about self-love, "about trying to be something you’re not...And really what it’s about—taking it away from questions of identity—is how life feels like one big audition."

Casting

Guz Khan, Sheeba Chaddha, Aasiya Shah, Ritu Arya, Weruche Opia and Sajid Hasan joined the cast in August 2024.

Ahmed wrote Pigtrick with Patrick Stewart in mind and sent him a letter asking him to play the role. Stewart accepted and reportedly stated that "he'd never read anything quite like this."

Filming

Principal photography took place in London during September 2024 under the working title Quarter Life. Filming locations included Wembley, the Central Mosque of Brent, and the O2 Forum Kentish Town.

Music

Bait features a score by Shruti Kumar and a soundtrack containing a mix of orchestral music, psychedelic 1970s Pakistani film music, and songs from British and South Asian artists. The music also draws from Qawwali, '80s synth pop, U.K. drum and bass, and Bhangra. Bait (Music from the Original Series) was released on 25 March 2026, with an extended edition of the soundtrack set for release on 16 April. It includes "Price of It All" by Jorja Smith, an Urdu cover of "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" by Anish Kumar featuring Arooj Aftab, and "Pulling Me Back" by Jay Sean featuring Véyah, along with a track by Casisdead.

Title

In British slang, the meaning of "bait" means to be blatant, "in your face", and attention seeking, and it can also mean online trolling. "Bayt" and "bayit/beit" means "home" in Arabic and Hebrew, and "loyalty" or "allegiance" in Urdu. In its literal meaning, bait is a component of a trap, alluding to the spy thriller aspect of the series.

In The Guardian, Jones notes the double meaning of the series title, that Shah is "afraid of becoming “bait”, both in the London slang sense of “obvious”, “naff”, a “sell-out”, and also in the closer-to-OED sense of a lure, used – in this case – by the British state to co-opt legitimate dissent".

Release

The series had its world premiere at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival under the title Bait. Bait was released exclusively on Amazon Prime Video on 25 March 2026.

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 94% of 49 critics' reviews are positive. The website's consensus reads: "Riz Ahmed creates and stars in this compassionate, humor-filled meta-satire that dazzlingly lures in its audience like delicious BAIT." On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 85 out of 100 based on 18 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".Reviews for Bait in the Collider, The Cut, The Telegraph and Men's Journal were overwhelmingly positive. Jack King's review on GQ described Bait as "a darkly funny, sometimes sad, whip-smart urban odyssey that asks questions of cultural identity, assimilation, identity politics, masculinity, class, and all of the intersections therein." King additionally noted that "much of the brilliance of Bait lies in its richly-written specificity", as well as Shah's "complex inner turmoil, which manifests in ways both devastatingly blunt and thrillingly abstract". The Los Angeles Times was similarly effusive in its praise, highlighting how the series " plays with the language of film — gritty procedural, a burst of Bollywood, romantic comedy — though not necessarily to the usual ends. Frame-filling titles identify the London neighborhoods where the action takes place — Wembley, Kentish Town, Brick Lane, Ladbroke Grove — as Paris, Moscow and Mexico City might appear in an international thriller."

In The Guardian, Ellen E. Jones described the series as "part semi-autobiographical sitcom...part surrealist industry satire" and praised the humour and dialogue as " a dazzling display of second-gen immigrant linguistic dexterity, which slips between Urdu, Arabic, MLE (Multicultural London English) and RP". Jones also praised the casting and performance, concluding that the series was best when "Ahmed-the-writer is exposing his most petty, narcissistic and self-absorbed instincts" with a note that some scenes felt overly self-congratulatory.

In a review for The A.V. Club, Saloni Gajjar praised the show for offering "an incisive, wry analysis of the treatment of Brown actors, the value of being seen on the screen, and, crucially, the burden of carrying that torch of representation", calling it a counterpart to We Are Lady Parts. He wrote: "The show offers a stylishly filmed, bleakly funny journey into [Shah's] psyche, with Ahmed giving a profoundly open, committed, and comedic performance." The RogerEbert.com review was similarly positive, describing the show as "an engaging mix of “Uncut Gems” and “Fleabag”".

Mike Hale from The New York Times praised the casting but was more critical of the series, stating the script did not make the audience care about Shah or his redemption, and called the use of the severed pig's head "an objectively bad idea". While the Radio Times noted that it was a surreal and outlandish choice that could divide some viewers, it also labelled it a bold move that was demonstrative of the show's reluctance to take itself too seriously.