Faran Tahir isn't here for watered-down representation. The Pakistani-American actor, best known for playing the menacing Raza in Iron Man, is steadily rewriting the Hollywood script for South Asian and Muslim actors, and doing it on his terms. "Some people see our colour or our faith as weaknesses," he told Jamal Ouazzani on the Jins podcast. "But there's another way to look at it. These are your uniqueness. Find the strength in it rather than be dejected by it."

In fact, his primary advice to young South Asian and Muslim actors is to learn to say "no" when you must, and show up when it matters. "When I started, there weren't too many good roles we could bring our talents to," he recalled. Rather than accept the one-dimensional parts often thrown his way, Tahir leaned into theatre, where he could tackle complex roles and grow as an artist. "If I could handle verse, do Shakespeare, there was a place for actors like me."

His breakout role in Iron Man was a tightrope walk. Playing a villain while being visibly Muslim required nuance. "I wanted to strip away any real allusions to faith. Raza was a mercenary, a soldier of fortune, not a religious zealot," he explained. By adding linguistic and cultural ambiguity, he worked with the production to avoid lazy tropes.