Kosar Ali Talks Are You Watching?, Online Culture and Finding Honesty Through Storytelling

Kosar Ali is a British Somali actor, writer, director and producer whose work is rooted in bold, socially engaged storytelling.

After her breakthrough performance in Rocks (2019), Ali has continued to build a career portraying young women navigating the complexities of identity, belonging and modern life, while also developing her own work behind the camera. Now starring in Are You Watching? at The Royal Court Theatre, she takes on a play that examines the impact of social media, online violence and our growing desensitisation to the world around us.

Ali reflects on the play’s urgent themes, her evolving relationship with storytelling, and why honesty remains at the heart of the characters she is most drawn to tell.

Please introduce yourself…
Kosar Ali. Don’t believe in star signs, but a Sagittarius, Somali, East London, Forest Gate BRUP BRUP.

Describe your life right now in one word or sentence…
Shedding.

Why are we here?
That’s a hard question in the world. I mean, it’s on fire, so I guess to be here for one another, to take care of one another, and that means standing up for each other. Are You Watching interrogates how we process digital content, the line between abuse and entertainment and overall our passiveness or complicity towards it.

Are You Watching explores everything from AI and deepfakes to violence against women and our obsession with consuming tragedy online. What conversations were you having in rehearsals about the world we’re living in?
We didn’t have the conversations because the play already does that. Instead, our rehearsal room was really fun. It’s a heavy play; we carry it every night, so it was important to carry joy alongside it. Saying that, though, we did talk about media, our relationship to it and our values. Palestine, Congo and Sudan were a big conversation for me mostly because it’s current and unnamed. May they all be free.

Are You Watching? captures how young people process difficult realities through humour, memes and internet culture. What do you think it gets right about growing up online today?
Honestly, in our generation today there’s an immediate desensitisation to very violent content partly because of the overwhelming amounts, the access we have to it and that it’s often done through humour (memes). It’s the easiest thing we can access when we don’t know how to articulate what we’re seeing as young people, but these things grow and fester, and it shows in our relationships with ourselves and towards others. It’s really scary. It’s making us inhuman.

By the end of the play, Georgia Wilmot’s clinical white-tiled set is literally stained red, forcing audiences to confront the violence and trauma they’ve been observing throughout. What is it like performing those final moments each night?
Yeah, rolling around in the blood every night was fun to begin with; now it’s taxing but necessary. I think the relationship with the blood is painful but powerful. It’s about release, regaining control of the darkness from the world that seeps out from us.

What do you think the play is ultimately saying about our fascination with stories of violence, particularly those involving women?
Ultimately, it’s saying we need better measures in place, especially for young people. It’s destroying them, stunting growth, traumatising them. How we view women’s bodies and minds is becoming increasingly dangerous, and our relationship to viewing violence is becoming completely normalised.

Most people first discovered you through Rocks. Looking back now, how do you reflect on that breakthrough moment and everything that’s happened since?
It’s been a ride. I’m grateful for that moment; it launched me into a position a lot of people work hard for. It’s crazy how long ago that feels now. I feel like I’ve completely changed as a person and my relationship to my craft. I spent so much time moving away from that 13-year-old version of me who was improvising, but now I find myself coming back to her, my instinct and play and, weirdly, my lack of care for the business of it; instead I’m trying to genuinely enjoy myself.

You’ve played young people navigating very different versions of modern life what is it about those kinds of stories and characters that continues to resonate with you?
They all reflect different stages of my life. From 13 to 23, it’s all been about characters finding themselves or rather being confronted by the growing pains of young adulthood. I’m always interested in real stories and real people who are flawed, who are complicated, who don’t understand themselves because it’s honest. I think honesty is what I search for.

As a Somali-British actress, what has it meant to see the industry gradually make more space for stories and voices that haven’t always been centred?
Feels good. Still a lot of work needs to be done, but it’s lovely. From when I did Rocks to now, it’s been so exciting seeing more Somalis and East Africans on screens, in plays, etc. We are in the most privileged industry where we get to create fantasies or bring real stories to life. We have so many opportunities in what that looks like, so it’s about time to start seeing the real world reflected on our screens.

Alongside acting, you’re developing your own work as a writer, director and producer. How has stepping behind the camera changed the way you approach acting and the stories you’re drawn to tell?
Massively. Actors can be the least important in making these stories, but sometimes feel we are because we are the ones plastered everywhere; but so much goes into creating what we see on screen. It’s taught me to become a more giving and patient actor. The respect I had before has only grown, as has my curiosity. I’m completely in love with directing right now. It feels like I’m even closer to actors and therefore acting in a very intimate way.

How do you personally use social media and how has working on Are You Watching? affected your own relationship with social media, if at all?
Social media isn’t, or hasn’t really had control over my life, which I’m grateful for, but it definitely still has too much presence. I use it mostly for work or cooking videos or to keep up with what’s happening with the world. However, after doing this play, and generally, I’m trying not to let it even be an option anymore. We lived such a long time without it, and we can continue to. I’m not one of those social media haters, but it definitely has created a lot of expectations for us with work, personal lives, people feeling like they have to showcase everything they do. Parasocial relationships with people we don’t know, mixed with scrolling down and seeing your good friend had a baby and then seeing innocent children being murdered in Palestine. It’s not healthy for the mind, so I’m creating better distance with it whilst still keeping myself informed and buying cookbooks.

GETTING TO KNOW YOU …

If not this, then what? A Zoologist.

What’s made you sad, mad, & glad this week? A lot of things make me sad lately. Mad – the world. Glad – my friends.

What are you watching? Toy Story marathon.

What are you reading? Love in a Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez. He’s a incredible incredible writer.

The last film you watched? Stand by Me (1987), directed by Rob Reiner.

The last play you saw? My friend Afi in her Rada showcase; she’s incredible.

The last live music event? Tyler the Creator concert at the 02.

What’s currently on your playlist? Janet Jackson, Cesária Evora and Minnie Riperton have been on repeat and a specific song: So What by Miles Davis featuring Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley, and John Coltrane.

Which podcast are you listening to? Just listened to Offline with John Favreau – How Screens Have Warped Reality.

What’s on your bucket list? Doing an Asia tour.

Where’s your happy place? The ocean.

Celebrate someone else … So many people, but it will have to be Bukky Bakray and Tamara Lawrance, my sisters and incredible artists.

What’s next? Writing a horror folklore feature film with BBC produced by my sister Tobi Kyeremateng. Got a short I wrote and directed starring Tamara Lawrance and Naomi Scott, produced by Glance Film, on the way and doing another play soon to be announced this autumn.

Where can we find you? Kosarali__ Instagram x