Riz Ahmed Celebrates His Emmy Win With a Rousing Speech on Prejudice and Injustice

It's no secret that we've been fans of Riz Ahmed for a while now, so we couldn't have been happier when he took home the Emmy Award for outstanding lead actor in a limited series or movie for his work in The Night Of on Sunday night. His win wasn't just well-deserved, it was also historic. It made him the first-ever male actor of South Asian descent to win an acting Emmy, with the first actress being Archie Panjabi in 2010.

Ahmed, who's never shied away from using his celebrity status to highlight societal issues, used his speech to touch on the realities marginalized people often face. "It's always strange reaping the rewards of a story that's based on real-world suffering, but if this show has shown a light on some of the prejudice in our society [like] Islamophobia, some of the injustice in our justice system, maybe that's something," he said. He then went on to expand on his speech backstage.