10 Best TV Performances Of 2016
9. Riz Ahmed - The Night Of
The Night Of didn't quite stick the landing. HBO's crime drama had one of the year's truly great TV pilots, but couldn't live up to that in the weeks that followed (it was still good, at times flirting with greatness, but no episode delivered on what that pilot promised).
Always consistently excellent throughout, however, was the series' protagonist Riz Ahmed.
At the outset, it's incredibly easy to root for Ahmed's Nas. As he's accused of murdering the woman he spent the night with, his skinny, wide-eyed shock, and general naivety convince us he's innocent.
That's impressive enough from Ahmed, but his real skill is in gradually flipping that over the next seven episodes. He goes through a complete physical and mental transformation as he learns to navigate life in prison while awaiting a trial. He's harder, colder, and more menacing.
He skips across the line between the two, and both are utterly convincing and captivating.