‘Encounter’ Director Michael Pearce on Diversifying American Hero Narrative With Riz Ahmed (Exclusive)

While Hollywood has worked hard to become more inclusive in the past few years in front of and behind the camera with diverse stories augmenting representation, film and television have long celebrated our American heroes through the lens of white male heteronormativity — or “white saviors” who enter the milieu through defining sacrifices and journeys. Respectfully their own tale and experiences playing to age-old narratives, director Michael Pearce amplifies another aspect of what it looks like and means to be an American hero with his latest feature Encounter starring Riz Ahmed set to premiere on Amazon Prime Video on Dec. 10.

Encounter follows Malik Khan (Ahmed), a decorated Marine corps veteran out on a mission to save his two young sons from a mysterious threat of alien parasites. The trio’s journey from their mother’s home in California to an allegedly secure Army base in Nevada takes them in increasingly dangerous directions where the boys will leave their childhoods behind. In an exclusive with PopCulture.com about the film, which initially debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival this past September, Pearce reveals how casting Ahmed — a Muslim, British-Pakistani actor — added a welcomed depth to the story of an American Marine trying to balance fatherhood and PTSD through its diverse casting choice.

“It was something that came about through casting Riz. I think the character was kind of written for a default white male and then when I met Riz about the project, we read the script, and I just really asked the question, ‘Why can’t we diversify the choices of people that we’re looking for this role.’ And I think casting Riz just brought so many new layers of complexity,” Pearce told PopCulture of the film, which takes a sharp tonal shift from science-fiction to psychological drama. “It increased the level of alienation his character has from the world around him. It amplifies the level of tension with regard to the people he encounters on his journey and in some ways, as the film was trying to sort of defy genre expectations, we felt like there was a great opportunity to defy expectations of who you get to see playing this type of role.”

Pearce goes on to share how it “always” struck him that when we look toward the “best anti-heroes in cinema, they’re usually played by white actors.” Though he believes they’re “the best, most meaty roles,” it’s a narrative done over and over. “It just seemed so much more fascinating and complex and new to see a south Asian actor play that role,” he said. “Equally, me and Riz, we didn’t want — just because it’s a South Asian actor — we felt there was no reason that this couldn’t be a universal story. And whilst we wanted his ethnicity to be touched upon in the film, we didn’t feel it needed to be the defining characteristic.”

The BAFTA-winning director, best known for 2017’s Beast adds how a lot of his own South Asian friends have “equally” connected to the film because of the overarching themes of fatherhood that are universal in their elements of humanity. “It’s not that that character is defined by their ethnicity — he’s a man that’s trying to save his kids and equally with the portrait of the children, it’s not a film about culture clash,” he said. “And not that there aren’t great movies about that, but in some ways they’re just kids, and they’re on this adventure and they’re in a perilous situation, and they’re trying to figure out who their father really is. So we were trying to speak honestly about the character’s ethnicity, but not let it eclipse the universal story of a father and his sons.”

Hoping that audiences will have a “connection” with the characters, Pearce admits he found the original script by Joe Barton (The Ritual) to be a real page-turner upon first receiving it. “Equally I want the audiences to find the film really gripping and for them not to know where it’s going next, but ultimately at the end, I want them to be really tuned into the characters and to be affected about this coming of age moment that all three characters have had to go through.”

Adding how Ahmed’s character had to “learn to expose” his own insecurities and vulnerabilities to his kids, which proves to be really difficult for him, Pearce says it’s all about coming to terms with ourselves even at the lowest of times. “For the younger character [Jay played by Lucian-River Chauhan], it’s really a moment where he learns that his father’s just a human being and that means he’s flawed, and sometimes that means that he needs help. And there’s something in that that I think a lot of people can relate to.”

Encounter is now playing in select theaters across the U.S. and is available to watch starting Dec. 10 on Amazon Prime Video. For more on all your movie news and the latest in entertainment, keep it locked to PopCulture.com for more.