Riz Ahmed

Specialized in dramatic roles, the truth is that it has been difficult for him to assert himself and manage to play leading characters in renowned films, but Riz Ahmed has a more than interesting filmography behind him, with compositions that have left their mark on the memory of the viewer, like that of the young cameraman in Nightcrawler , one of his most cutting-edge works. He came of age in the cinema with a film with traces of independent production and original content, Sound of Metal .

His Pakistani origin is easy to deduce from his name, Rizwan Ahmed in its full version. However, Riz was born in Wembley, London, on December 1, 1982. His education is exquisite, as he graduated from Oxford University, no less, with a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. And it is clear that his good intellectual abilities run in the family, since he has a psychiatrist brother and a lawyer sister. But Riz Ahmed was drawn to the arts and very soon he enrolled in the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. His artistic side also has an important musical aspect, since under the alias Riz MC he released his first hip-hop single in 2006, “Post 9/11 Blues”. That same year he made his big film debut, with one of his few roles as the lead in the feature filmRoad to Guantanamo , by Michael Winterbottom .

In 2008 he was also the lead in Shifty , a crime drama in which he played a drug dealer. Among the highlights of his early filmography is Four Lions , shot two years later, about four British terrorists out to spread terror. The film won the BAFTA Award for Best Debut for its director, Christopher Morris . Centurion , also shot in 2010, meant the jump to the big blockbusters, although Ahmed did not have a very relevant role. The following year was a good one for the actor: he teamed up with Freida Pinto in the drama Trishna , set in India, and joined the cast of the adventurer Black Gold , byJean Jacques Annaud . The following year, he was featured in the interesting The Reticent Fundamentalist , a dramatic thriller based on the novel by Mohsin Hamid . He also made an appearance in the notable if little known Closed Circuit , alongside Eric Bana and Rebecca Hall .

From that moment on, Riz Ahmed’s filmography acquires the expected cachet. His secondary role in the Oscar-winning Nightcrawler (2014) was a great showcase for him, something that reaffirmed his important role in Jason Bourne (2016), where he was the chosen victim for an attack, and his work the same year in the spin- off Rogue One: A Star Wars Story . He also shot five chapters of the fantastic mystery series The OA  At that time, his occupation as a singer also took up his time and he shot several video clips credited by Riz MC.

Ahmed already chooses his roles without pricking the bone and so in 2018 we saw him in the wonderful western The Sisters brothers , where the poor man had a terrible time in his attempt to find gold in the lands of Oregon. And then he delved into the Marvel universe to don the look of the monstrous villain in the likable and original Venom , where he was the terrifying nemesis of a transformed Tom Hardy . Then came Sound of Metal (2019), the film for which Riz Ahmed has been nominated for an Oscar. In it, he plays the drummer of a rock group who overnight begins to experience deafness, until he loses his hearing completely. Of course his composition is extraordinary. His last work for the moment isMogul Mowgli (2020), a film that follows similar paths and where the actor also makes his debut as a screenwriter. It is seen that Ahmed has looked back at his own life as the film tells the adventures of a British rapper of Pakistani origin.