Riz Ahmed stars in Encounter as Malik Khan, a Marine Corps veteran and ex-convict who thinks he has discovered an alien invasion is underway. Unable to trust anyone, Khan takes his sons from their mother on a road trip to protect them from the invasion with the military and probation officer Hattie (Octavia Spencer) chasing after them.

In time for the film’s premiere, Screen Rant spoke exclusively with stars Riz Ahmed, Lucian-River Chauhan, and Aditya Geddada to discuss Encounter, how the trio related to their characters, and the musical fun they had on set together.

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Screen Rant: This film is really quite the moving experience and quite the heavy one at times, what about it really drew you all to want to be a part of it?

Riz Ahmed: I wanted to work with Michael Pearce, I thought he’s fantastic. His last film, Beast, really blew my mind. This script was cool and I thought it would be really fresh if you had a family that looks like this in a movie like this. You don’t normally see that and it’s such an interesting story that keeps you guessing till the end. So there were a lot of reasons.

Lucian-River Chauhan: There were so many great things that that I really loved about my character. One was that he really loves his dad, and I really love my dad as well, and Jay expresses himself through his drawing and through his emotions on the page and I like to express myself through performing as well. So that’s something that I related to my character and also something that drew me to this character.

Aditya Geddada: Well, I became an actor by accident, because Encounter was the first audition. But I just did the audition and I think Michael really loved me and luckily I got cast. How do I relate to my character, I had to think over it.

Riz Ahmed: You’ve got a lot in common with your character. You like candy. You’re funny. And you throw tantrums.

Aditya Geddada: I don’t!

Riz Ahmed: He could relate in lots of ways. [Chuckles]

Lucian-River Chauhan: What about you, Riz, how can you relate to your character?

Riz Ahmed: I can relate to my character because I care about my family and I want to protect my family and that’s what this film is about.

One of my favorite elements of the film is both the dad and the sons introducing their their various music tastes to each other. Did you have a similar relationship on set where you were introducing different kinds of music to one another?

Riz Ahmed: I didn’t realize Aditya is such a big Barbra Streisand fan. [Laughs] But we did do some rap battles and stuff, didn’t we?

Lucian-River Chauhan: Yes we did.

Riz Ahmed: We made up a lot of songs on set.

Aditya Geddada: Remember when I said, “You’re really good at acting but you’re really bad at rapping”?

Riz Ahmed: Yeah, that was a burn, we had a rap battle that got really mean. But we made up a lot of songs, we were just hanging out, it was a lot of fun.

Encounter arrives on Prime Video on Friday, December 10.

Key Release Dates
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  • Encounter (2021)Release date: Dec 03, 2021
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About The Author


Grant Hermanns
(1574 Articles Published)

Grant Hermanns is a News Writer, Interviewer and Hiring Manager for Screen Rant, having joined the team in early 2021. Way back in 2015 while still in his college days, Grant got his start in the entertainment journalism industry with creator-friendly site Moviepilot until it shuttered nearly three years later. From there he joined the staff at ComingSoon.net and was its Associate Editor prior to coming over to Screen Rant.

To say he’s a lover of film and television would be an understatement and when he’s not mass consuming either you can find him exploring the world of Dungeons & Dragons with friends or slowly making his way through his gaming backlog.

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