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Dec 31, 2020 By Mark Redfern Riz Ahmed

If you’ve seen the acclaimed new film Sound of Metal you may have spotted a cameo from Under the Radar, specifically our print magazine. The film is about Ruben Stone (played by Riz Ahmed), a drummer who is going deaf. He and his bandmate/girlfriend Lou (Olivia Cooke) are the fictional metal duo Blackgammon and they go on tour in an old airstream RV. Posted to the walls of the RV are various press clippings for the band, including a fake Under the Radar cover with Blackgammon on it.

The cover shows up in the background in a few shots, but is clearly visible in one scene about two-thirds of the way through the movie. When they were making Sound of Metal the filmmakers reached out to us to ask permission and we consulted on the design of the fictional cover, which also features the names of many other fictional bands the filmmakers came up with. We weren’t sure if the cover made the final cut until the film was released. It debuted at the 2019 Toronto film festival and had a brief run in pandemic affected movie theaters in November before coming to Amazon Prime this month, where it can be streamed by all Prime members.

Sound of Metal is getting some serious awards buzz, with Ahmed currently considered one of the front runners for a Best Actor nomination at the 2021 Oscars, according to industry websites such as Gold Derby. Cooke is also in the running for Best Supporting Actress and Paul Raci is also a potential Best Supporting Actor nominee for his role as Joe, who runs a rural community for deaf recovering addicts and alcoholics (Raci has already won Best Supporting Actor at both the Boston Society of Film Critics Awards and the Florida Film Critics Circle Awards). The film also has a shot at a Best Picture nomination. Sound of Metal has also won praise from the deaf community for its realism and for employing mainly deaf actors to play the deaf parts (the scene with our cameo also features deaf actress Chelsea Lee. Darius Marder directed the film and co-wrote it with Abraham Marder. It is Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with a 97% rating and has an 81 on Metacritic, which equals Universal Acclaim. It’s a terrific film and we’re honored to be a part of it. Check out some screenshots from Under the Radar’s cameo above and below.

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