Photo of Riz Ahmed
Acting

Riz Ahmed

Profession
Acting
Born
December 1, 1982 · Wembley, London, England, UK

Biography

Rizwan Ahmed (born 1 December 1982) 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. Description above from the Wikipedia article Riz Ahmed, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Known for

Venom poster
Venom
Film · 2018 · ★ 6.8
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story poster
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Film · 2016 · ★ 7.5
Nightcrawler poster
Nightcrawler
Film · 2014 · ★ 7.7
Jason Bourne poster
Jason Bourne
Film · 2016 · ★ 6.4
Sound of Metal poster
Sound of Metal
Film · 2020 · ★ 7.7
The Sisters Brothers poster
The Sisters Brothers
Film · 2018 · ★ 6.8
Centurion poster
Centurion
Film · 2010 · ★ 6.2
Nimona poster
Nimona
Film · 2023 · ★ 7.8
The OA poster
The OA
Series · 2016 · ★ 7.5
The Night Of poster
The Night Of
Series · 2016 · ★ 8.0
Four Lions poster
Four Lions
Film · 2010 · ★ 7.0
The Phoenician Scheme poster
The Phoenician Scheme
Film · 2025 · ★ 6.5

Filmography