Riz Ahmed

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Actor

Riz Ahmed

Riz Ahmed

Riz Ahmed Riz Ahmed – Biography

Award-winning rapper and actor Riz Ahmed is of British and Pakistani descent.

Riz Ahmed Riz Ahmed- Birth, Age, Ethnicity, Siblings

Rizwan Ahmed is a British Pakistani actor and rapper who was born in Wembley, northeastern London, on December 1, 1982. He began in independent films before becoming well-known for his roles in blockbusters like Nightcrawler (2014), Jason Bourne (2016), and Rogue One: 

A Star Wars Story (2016). With the Sound of Metal (2019), he became the first Muslim actor to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. In 2022, The Long Goodbye earned him the award for Best Live-Action Short. As the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for The Night Of, he made history as the first Muslim man to receive an acting Emmy (2016).

Along with his work as an actor, Riz MC, Ahmed is a member of the rap groups Swet Shop Boys and Halflife. He made a splash on the Billboard charts in 2017 with the song and music video “Immigrants (We Get the Job Done)” from The Hamilton Mixtape, which also featured Daveed Diggs and K’naan.

Through his work with The Blueprint for Muslim Inclusion, Ahmed has also fought against the glorification of Islamophobia in Hollywood.

Education Details

Ahmed, a Pakistani-born child, spoke Urdu as a child and picked up English when he began attending school at age 6. At the age of 11, he was given a scholarship at Merchant Taylors, a private school.

According to him, he had “volcanic energy” in school and once tried to smash a chair through a glass. His teachers assisted him in directing that zeal toward extracurricular pursuits like drama and debate. He told the newspaper, “It was, truly, really, genuinely just healing for me.” It was an environment in which anything is conceivable.

Ahmed later attended Oxford University to study philosophy, politics, and economics while acting on the side. He applied to the Central School of Speech and Drama in London for a one-year master’s program in classical acting, even though he never imagined he’d be accepted.

Riz Ahmed Riz Ahmed- Professional Career

Due to the dearth of British South Asian male parts in the mid-2000s, Ahmed never believed acting could be a vocation he could pursue. When the opportunity to star in Slumdog Millionaire arose in 2007, Ahmed believed it to be his only chance to succeed. When Dev Patel was cast in the lead role, Ahmed believed all hope was lost, according to The Guardian.

Indies like The Road to Guantanamo (2006), Shifty (2008), Four Lions (2010), Trishna (2011), and Ill Manors (2012) had been hiring him up until that point, but by 2013, he felt as though things were slowing down for him in the UK. He was urged to try his luck in Hollywood by a fellow Brit.

“Man, I’m not going to travel to America,” I recall thinking when I spoke with Idris Elba in London. How will they treat a person like me over there? This concept of having no concrete examples or something that has already been established was dreadful, he said to Variety. However, Elba claimed to have had a similar ache and advised him to avoid self-categorization, asking, “What have you got to lose?”

Mainstream Achievement and an Emmy

In a risky move, Ahmed withdrew his whole savings and traveled to Los Angeles. He was hired immediately for the character of Rick in Jake Gyllenhaal’s 2014 film Nightcrawler. The big-budget movies Jason Bourne (as Aaron Kallor), Rogue One:

 A Star Wars Story (as Bodhi Rock), and the HBO crime miniseries The Night Of, in which he portrayed Nasir Khan, a college student charged with murder, are what made him famous in 2016. Because of his performance, he began to receive recognition, and in 2017 he won the Emmy for Outstanding Actor in a Limited Series or Series. 

He was also the first South Asian and Muslim to receive a lead acting award thanks to that achievement. His appearance in the Girls episode “All I Ever Wanted” earned him an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series in the same year.

He told Variety, “I had a sense of momentum once The Night Of popped. “The business’s roller-coaster nature keeps you alert and prevents you from becoming comfortable.”

On May 18, 2019, American actor Miles Teller smiles for the camera during a photocall for the movie “Too Old To Die, Young – North of Hollywood, West of Hell” at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France.

WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 02: On March 2, 2011, in Washington, DC, ranking member U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) interrogates U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke during his testimony at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on receiving “the Monetary Policy Report to the Congress required under the Humphrey-Hawkins Act.” Republican criticism of the Federal Reserve’s monetary strategy drew a response from Bernanke. (Image courtesy of Getty Images/Jonathan Ernst)

On October 2, 2010, in New York City, actor Ben Whishaw attended the premiere of “The Tempest” as part of the 48th New York Film Festival. (Image courtesy of Getty Images/Astrid Stawiarz) Local captioning Whishaw, Ben

Ahmed soon began to secure coveted roles, such as the dual roles of Carlton Drake and Riot in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Venom in 2018, as well as a ground-breaking lead role in the film Sound of Metal as a heavy metal drummer named Ruben who is deaf.

Given that the script had been circulating in Hollywood for more than ten years and that first-time director Darius Marder was behind the camera, the movie wasn’t a clear Oscar front-runner. Additionally, since the part of Ruben needed intensive study of both sign language and the drums, it had proven challenging to fill. But Ahmed gave it his all, practicing for eight months, spending two hours each day.

Ahmed said to The Guardian that “no one wanted to do this movie.” “For whatever reason, people didn’t understand it.” However, when it was released, it was a success, garnering six Oscar nominations, including Ahmed, the first Muslim to be nominated in the category of Best Actor.

The Music Career of Riz MC

Ahmed has a second profession as a rapper in addition to acting. He began performing at open mic nights and went on to win events like Oxford’s Hit & Run, which he co-founded in 2005. He also won the Best MC award at the 2006 Asian Music Awards.

In 2011, MICroscope, his debut album as Riz MC, was released. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he was a member of the band Sweet Shop Boys, whose 2014 EP was influenced by Hindi and Sufi poetry. Additionally, he is a member of the dance-rap group Halflife, whose first song “Subtle” was released in 2015. 

He also appeared in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton Mixtape song “Immigrants (We Get the Job Done),” which comments on the country’s immigration laws. The song was released in 2016 and peaked at No. 22 on Billboard’s Rap Digital Song Sales. It features Daveed Diggs, K’naan, Snow Tha Product, and Residente.

A movie with a musical theme and an Oscar

2018 saw the adaptation of his 2016 mixtape Englistan into a BBC Two series. According to a press release from Ahmed, “Englistan is an undiscovered British narrative with worldwide themes and relevance.” It’s a privilege to get the chance to tell the story I’ve always wanted to tell.

While that was still in the works, Ahmed released a 2020 concept album titled The Long Goodbye, which was motivated by the post-Brexit anti-immigration stance of far-right organizations. He and filmmaker Aneil Karia worked together to create the same-titled short film, which follows a British South Asian family as they get ready for a celebration when a white militia knocks on their home.

We came up with this notion through a series of quiet meandering, increasingly weird chats, he said, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

However, the subdued plodding soon gave way to a tremendous ovation as it took home the Best Live-Action Short Oscar in 2022. During his acceptance speech, Ahmed said, “This is for everyone who feels like they don’t belong.” “Anyone who feels trapped in a hostile environment. It’s not just you. There, we’ll meet you. The future lies there. Peace.”

Representation of Muslims

Although Ahmed can now portray his background, such as a British-Pakistani rapper in the movie Mogul Mowgli from 2021, that wasn’t always the case. He has raised concerns about Hollywood’s persistence in maintaining negative perceptions of Muslims. through his production business Left Handed Films, which together with Pillars Fund, USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, and the Ford Foundation prepared and published.

The Blueprint for Muslim Inclusion is a list of guidelines for the film industry to abide by. Only 19 of the 200 highest-grossing movies looked at, according to the report, contained just one Muslim character.

A five-point “Riz Test” was taken from Ahmed’s 2017 House of Commons diversity speech by two movie enthusiasts to evaluate how Muslims are portrayed in the media. In a 2018 tweet, Ahmed acknowledged the test that was named in his honor.

He stated in a 2016 article for The Guardian titled “Typecast as a Terrorist” that “As a minority, no sooner do you learn to polish and adore one chip on your shoulder than it’s yanked off you and swapped for another.”

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