Ahmed also speaks about how he helped shape his character, including that powerful AA meeting monologue.

Relay star Riz Ahmed and director David Mackenzie break down that twisty ending

Ahmed also speaks about how he helped shape his character, including that powerful AA meeting monologue.

By Jessica Wang

Jessica is a staff writer at , where she covers TV, movies, and pop culture. Her work has appeared in Bustle, NYLON, Cosmopolitan, InStyle, and more. She lives in California with her dog.

EW's editorial guidelines

Published on August 22, 2025 03:24PM EDT

Leave a Comment

Riz Ahmed in 'Relay'. Credit:

Bleecker Street

**This article contains spoilers from *Relay.* **

Director David Mackenzie’s old-school thriller *Relay* takes an unexpected turn by the time the end credits roll.

Riz Ahmed stars in the film as Ash, an off-the-grid fixer who brokers deals between whistleblowers and corrupt corporations. The film opens with Ash facilitating the stealth exchange of sensitive documents between a man named Hoffman (played by Matthew Maher) and an executive (Victor Garber) at his former place of work, Optimo Pharmaceutical, that implicates the company in fraud.

This scene helps lay the framework for the type of work Ash is involved in before introducing his next client, Sarah (Lily James), and the case at the center of the film. Sarah, a scientist at a biotech company, contacts Ash’s firm to blow the whistle on an unlawful cover-up at her job. She develops a relationship with the guarded Ash through the anonymous relay messaging system they use to communicate. All the while, Sarah is being hunted by corporate intimidators Dawson (Sam Worthington) and Rosetti (Willa Fitzgerald), who want to ensure her silence. Or so it seems.

Turns out, Sarah is part of a larger campaign with Optimo Pharmaceutical. Working in cahoots with Dawson and Rosetti, she double-crosses the unassuming Ash so the trio can get their hands on his copy of Hoffman’s documents. Were Sarah’s feelings for Ash ever real? **

Lily James in 'Relay'.

Bleecker Street

"It's interesting because when we were shooting, we didn't have an answer to that question," Mackenzie, the director behind such features as *Hell or High Water *and *Outlaw King*, tells **. "We felt that there was more, and we actually played her so that there was more. I felt like it was communicated by just those looks between them at the end. But in the process of the editing, I thought that any more than that would've undermined the character." Ultimately, "We made the decision to minimize that rather than make a bit of melodrama about it."**

Riz Ahmed doesn't speak for first half hour of 'gripping' new thriller 'Relay': See the first look

The 40 best thriller movies of all time, ranked

Ahmed offers his own interpretation, saying he'd like to believe there was a genuine connection. "Whether Sarah is a victim being hunted by the powers that be or a mercenary working for the powers that be, I'm guessing it's a lonely place to be either way," he tells EW in a separate interview. "That's the interesting thing: sometimes the oppressor and the oppressed are two sides of the same coin of isolation, loneliness, anger, hurt. Whether she's the hunter or hunted, I think there's some hurt and vulnerability there, and she wants to connect just as much as my character does." **

Riz Ahmed in 'Relay'.

Bleecker Street

*** Sign up for **'s free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.***

******"In the four years of making it, the script evolved quite a lot," Mackenzie says of the thriller. The script was written by Justin Piasecki, who departed the project in 2020, allowing the director to take the reins on the story and "evolve it." It was also a collaborative effort with Ahmed, who helped shape, among other character elements, Ash's powerful monologue at his weekly Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, about how he first turned to booze as a young Muslim kid coming-of-age in a post-9/11 New York.

"David is a really collaborative filmmaker. We would spend most weekends poring over the script and trying out ideas," Ahmed says. "Playing this character that hides in plain sight amongst the immigrant working class of New York City, there's a specificity in that. I always think it's interesting to bring yourself to the role in that way rather than resist the reality of who you are. Let's own it. Let's celebrate it. Let's explore it. Let's interrogate it."

By the time Mackenzie reached the grand finale, the inclination was to "not to tie it up so neatly," he says. It sees Ash escape the double-cross unscathed while Optimo's fraud is exposed. Mackenzie says of a possible follow-up, "It would be great to carry on the story of what he does next and how [he continues] to live that life."**

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Movies”