Rizwan Ahmed (born ) is a British actor and rapper. He has received several awards, including an Academy Award and a Primetime Emmy Award, and nominations for two Golden Globe Awards and two British Academy Film Awards. In 2017, he was named by Time as one of the most influential people in the world. He also created the TV series Englistan in 2018 for the BBC, which was also his writing debut.
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.
Early life and education Ahmed was born on 1 December 1982 in Wembley, a suburb in the London Borough of Brent, to a British Pakistani family of Muhajir background. His parents moved to England from Karachi, Pakistan, during the 1970s. Ahmed's father was a shipping broker, and he is a descendant of Shah Muhammad Sulaiman, the first Indian Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court. His older brother, Kamran, is a psychiatrist, and his older sister is a lawyer.
Ahmed attended Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood, through a scholarship programme. Ahmed and journalist Mehdi Hasan were classmates, and Hasan's mother was Ahmed's general practitioner. 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. He later studied acting at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
Acting career 2000s 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. 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."Guantánamo actors questioned under terror act after film festival", The Guardian, 21 February 2006
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. He featured in the title role of the 2009 independent film Shifty, directed by Eran Creevy, where he plays a day in the life of a charismatic young drug dealer. He was nominated for Best Actor at the 2008 British Independent Film Awards.
2010s
Continuing his film career, he featured in the 2009 Sally Potter production of Rage and in 2010, starred 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. 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.
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.
Ahmed directed and wrote a 2014 short film, Daytimer. It won the Best Live Action Short award at Nashville Film Festival, and was nominated for the Short Film Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2014, Ahmed appeared in Dan Gilroy's Nightcrawler. Ahmed received acclaim for his portrayal in the film and gained numerous awards nominations during awards season. Riz Ahmed was one of seventy-five actors to audition for the role of Rick. The British actor was attending a friend's wedding in Los Angeles, when his talent agent suggested he meet Gilroy to discuss the film's script. Gilroy told Ahmed that he had seen his previous work; he was not fit for the role, but still allowed him to audition. Within the first minute of his audition tape, however, Gilroy felt confident in the actor's abilities. To prepare for the role, Ahmed met with homeless people in Skid Row, and researched homeless shelters to "understand the system". He found that most of the people dealt with abandonment issues, and attempted to replicate this in Rick's abusive relationship with Lou.
In 2016, he appeared in Rogue One, the first film in the new Star Wars anthology films as Bodhi Rook, a defected imperial pilot. The film garnered critical acclaim and earned Ahmed a nomination for the Best Male Newcomer at the Empire Awards. The film was a commercial success and became Disney's fourth of 2016 to earn $1 billion in ticket sales. It is the second highest-grossing film of 2016, the third highest-grossing Star Wars film, and the 22nd highest-grossing film of all time, all unadjusted for inflation. In the United States, it was the top-grossing film of 2016. Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit of the film to be $319.6 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues for the film, making it the 3rd most profitable release of 2016.
In 2016, Ahmed played the role of Nasir "Naz" Khan in the HBO miniseries The Night Of, and once again received universal praise for his performance, earning him Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. He also appeared in the final season of Girls, earning him another Emmy nomination. At the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards, Ahmed won the award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for his performance in The Night Of, winning over Robert De Niro, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ewan McGregor, Geoffrey Rush and co-star John Turturro. This made Ahmed the first Asian and first Muslim to win in the category, the first South Asian male to win an acting Emmy, and the first Muslim and first South Asian to win a lead acting Emmy; the only previous South Asian to win an acting Emmy was British Asian actress Archie Panjabi for a supporting role in 2010.
In 2017, it was rumoured that Ahmed was to play Hamlet in a Netflix adaptation of the Shakespeare play, which Ahmed later confirmed.
In 2018, Ahmed starred in Venom in the dual role of Carlton Drake, the Life Foundation's leader experimenting on symbiotes, and Riot, a symbiote team leader allied with Drake who seeks to invade Earth. Ahmed explained that Drake is trying to save the future of humanity when he discovers the symbiote, with Fleischer adding that Drake has a positive goal but a "moral ambiguity" that leads to him testing his science on other people.
As of 2018, films that Ahmed had been involved in had collectively grossed at the worldwide box office.
Following his mixtape under the same name, Ahmed's Englistan, an original TV series was commissioned by BBC Two and Left Handed Films in 2018. The series will tell the story of three generations of a British Pakistani family. Ahmed describes the series as "a period drama – unlike any other period drama you have seen before." More currently, his production company secured a first look deal with Amazon.
2020s Ahmed starred in the American drama film Sound of Metal, which was distributed by Amazon Studios and released in 2020, after having premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019. Ahmed plays a drummer who loses his hearing. The film co-stars Olivia Cooke as his girlfriend, and Paul Raci as the leader of a Deaf retreat. IndieWire film critic Eric Kohn praised Ahmed's performance, writing "Ahmed's so believable that he keeps the suspense of the drama in play even as it pushes into contrived circumstances during the prolonged final act, and eventually takes a melodramatic plunge." For his performance he has received Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, BAFTA Award, Critics Choice Award, and Independent Spirit Award nominations. He is the first Muslim and British Pakistani actor to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
In 2021, Ahmed also executive produced the animated documentary film Flee which made its international debut at the Sundance Film Festival. The film was universally praised by critics and nominated for Best International Feature Film, Best Documentary Feature and Best Animated Feature at the 94th Academy Awards .
In February 2021, Ahmed was nominated and won in the best debut screenwriter category for the film Mogul Mowgli at the delayed British Independent Film Awards 2020. Starring in the main role as a British-Pakistani rapper, The Guardian film critic Wendy Ide praised his "blistering performance" on screen.
In August 2021, Ahmed was named as head of the Platform Prize jury for the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival.Dade Hayes, "Toronto Film Festival Sets Platform Competition Slate, With Riz Ahmed Heading Jury; ‘Dune’ Imax Run, NBA 75th Anniversary Join Lineup" . Deadline Hollywood, August 11, 2021. In November 2021, Ahmed was announced as a recipient of the Richard Harris Award, which is given to an actor or actress who has "contributed significantly to British films throughout their career".
The Long Goodbye also was adapted into a short film, directed by Aneil Karia. It won Best Live Action Short Film at the 94th Academy Awards. Ahmed voiced Ballister Boldheart in Nimona, which released on 30 June 2023 on Netflix. He also starred in Fingernails, which was released on 27 October 2023 by Apple Original Films. He has an upcoming role in the independent film Relay. In November 2023 Riz Ahmed and his company Left Handed Films joined the 2023 SXSW audience award winner Mustache. In August 2025, it was announced that Ahmed would be voicing Professor Snape in Harry Potter: The Full-Cast Audio Editions, a production of Audible and J.K. Rowling's Pottermore.