Riz Ahmed
Rizwan Ahmed (Urdu pronunciation: [ɾɪzˌwɑːn ˈɛɦˌməd̪]; born 1 December 1982) is a British actor and rapper. He has received several awards, including an Academy Award and a Primetime Emmy Award with nominations for two Golden Globe Awards and two British Academy Film Awards. In 2017, he was named in the Time 100 listing of the most influential people in the world.[1]
This article is about the multihyphenate entertainer. For other people with a similar name, see Rizwan Ahmed (disambiguation).
Riz Ahmed
- Actor
- rapper
2006–present
Riz MC
2006–present
- Battered[a]
- Crosstown Rebels
- Tru Thoughts
- Customs
- Mongrel[a]
After studying acting at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Ahmed began his acting career with independent films such as The Road to Guantanamo (2006), Shifty (2008), Four Lions (2010), Trishna (2011), and The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012). He had his break-out role in Nightcrawler (2014), which led to roles in the 2016 big-budget films Jason Bourne and Rogue One. For starring as a young man accused of murder in the HBO miniseries The Night Of (2016), Ahmed won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series. He received another Emmy nomination in the same year for his guest role in Girls. He went on to play Carlton Drake in the superhero film Venom (2018) and a drummer who loses his hearing in the drama film Sound of Metal (2019). The latter earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. He produced, co-wrote, and starred in Mogul Mowgli (2020), which earned a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Film.
As a rapper, Ahmed is a member of the Swet Shop Boys, and has earned critical acclaim with the hip hop albums Microscope and Cashmere, and commercial success featuring in the Billboard 200 chart-topping Hamilton Mixtape, with his song "Immigrants (We Get the Job Done)" winning an MTV Video Music Award. His second studio album, The Long Goodbye, was accompanied by a short film of the same name, which won him the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.
As an activist, Ahmed is known for his political rap music, has been involved in raising awareness and funds for Rohingya and Syrian refugee children, and has advocated ‘BAME’ representation at the House of Commons.
Early life and education[edit]
Ahmed was born on 1 December 1982[2] in Wembley, a suburb in the London Borough of Brent, to a British-Pakistani family of Muhajir background.[3][4][5] His parents moved to England from Karachi, Pakistan, during the 1970s.[4] Ahmed's father is a shipping broker,[6] and he is a descendant of Shah Muhammad Sulaiman, the first Muslim Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court during British colonial rule in India.[7]
Ahmed attended Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood, through a scholarship programme. He graduated from Christ Church, Oxford University, with a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE). He experienced a culture shock at Oxford, nearly dropping out due to the isolating atmosphere. Instead, Ahmed organised parties to celebrate cultures which did not conform to the dominant "elitist, white" and "black-tie" culture of Oxford.[8] He later studied acting at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.[4]
Acting career[edit]
2000s[edit]
Ahmed's film career began in the 2006 Michael Winterbottom film The Road to Guantánamo, in which he played the part of Shafiq Rasul, a member of the Tipton Three. He and another actor involved in the film were detained at Luton Airport upon their return from the Berlin Film Festival where the film won a Silver Bear Award.[9] Ahmed alleged that during questioning, police asked him whether he had become an actor to further the Islamic cause, questioned him on his views of the Iraq War, verbally abused him, and denied him access to a telephone.[10]
In 2007, he portrayed Sohail Waheed in the Channel 4 drama, Britz. Ahmed then portrayed Riq in the five-part horror thriller Dead Set for E4 and Manesh Kunzru in ITV1's Wired in 2008. Also that year he played a primary school teacher in Staffroom Monologues for the specialist channel Teachers TV. In July 2009, he appeared in Freefall alongside Sarah Harding.[4] He featured in the title role of the 2009 independent film Shifty, directed by Eran Creevy. Ahmed plays a charismatic young drug dealer in the film which sees a life in the day of this character. He was nominated for Best Actor at the 2008 British Independent Film Awards.[11]
2010s[edit]
Continuing his film career, he featured in the 2009 Sally Potter production of Rage and in 2010, in Chris Morris' satire on terrorism, Four Lions, for which he received his second British Independent Film Award nomination for Best Actor. Ahmed also had a supporting role in Neil Marshall's historical thriller Centurion.[12] In 2012, he starred as one of the leading roles in the London-based film Ill Manors, directed by Plan B. Ahmed received his third British Independent Film Award nomination for Best Actor. He assumed the lead role in Mira Nair's adaptation of the best-selling novel by Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, alongside Kate Hudson, Kiefer Sutherland, Om Puri, Shabana Azmi, and Liev Schreiber.[13]
Ahmed is also known for his stage performances such as in the Asian Dub Foundation opera Gaddafi and a starring role as psychotic serial-killer-turned-born-again-Christian Lucius in the Lighthouse Theatre's acclaimed production of Stephen Adly Guirgis's Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train (directed by Jack William Clift and Thomas Sweatman) as well as in Shan Khan's Prayer Room.[14]
Activism[edit]
As a Muslim, Ahmed has spoken candidly about negative stereotyping of Muslims, both in a personal and societal context.[77][78] As an activist, he has been involved in raising funds for Syrian refugee children and advocating representation at the House of Commons.[1] He has also been involved in raising awareness of the displacement of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, after Rohingya genocide,[79] and raising funds for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.[80] In 2013, Ahmed provided journalist Hardeep Singh Kohli with a formal apology for a tweet he had published in which he called Singh a "bigot" and falsely accused him of attempted assault. Ahmed also agreed to pay him substantial damages for libel and his legal costs.[81][82] In 2016, he contributed an essay on racial profiling at airports, auditions and the implicit need to leave himself at a door to be waved through for the anthology book, The Good Immigrant.[83]
Personal life[edit]
In January 2021, Ahmed revealed on the podcast Grounded with Louis Theroux that he had recently married.[84] Several days later, he revealed that he had married American novelist Fatima Farheen Mirza.[85][86]