Riz Ahmed Biography

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Rizwan "Riz" Ahmed (born 1 December 1982), also known as Riz MC, is an actor and rapper of Pakistani descent. He has starred in The Road to Guantanamo, Shifty, Britz, Four Lions, Ill Manors, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and Nightcrawler. In 2016, he will appear in the first of the Star Wars anthology series with Rogue One alongside Felicity Jones and Forest Whitaker, and in the fifth film in the Bourne series titled Jason Bourne.

Early life

Ahmed was born into a Muslim family in Wembley, London. He is of Pakistani heritage, and has as one of his ancestors Sir Shah Muhammad Sulaiman, "the first Indian judge appointed by the British in Uttar Pradesh" - through him, he's also a descendant of Mulla Mahmud Jaunpuri, one of the foremost Islamic philosopher-scientists produced during the Mughal empire. His parents moved to England from Karachi, Pakistan during the 1970s. He attended Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood through a scholarship programme. He graduated from Christ Church, Oxford with a degree in PPE and studied acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama.

Acting career

Television and film

Ahmed's film career began in the Michael Winterbottom film The Road to Guantanamo in which he played the part of Shafiq Rasul, a member of the Tipton Three. He and another actor involved in the film as well as two of the Tipton Three were detained at Luton Airport upon their return from the Berlin Film Festival where the film won a Silver Bear Award. Across his years as an actor he has also featured in various TV roles. He has played Sohail Waheed in the 2007 Channel 4 drama, Britz. 2008 saw him perform as both Riq in the five-part horror thriller for E4, Dead Set and Manesh Kunzru in ITV1's finance fraud drama Wired. In July 2009 in appeared in Freefall alongside Sarah Harding. 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 for this role, alongside Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson.

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.

In 2012, he starred as one of the leading roles in the London-based film Ill Manors, directed by Plan B as "Aaron": Ahmed received his third and most recent 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.

In Nightcrawler (2014), he was cast in a major role as Rick, a cash strapped homeless young man who becomes the assistant to a driven and possibly unhinged paparazzo, Lou (Jake Gyllenhaal). The movie is about the seedy underbelly of freelance crime news reporters for whom the most violent crimes are the biggest scoops. Out of job options, he works with the maniacal Lou, who increasingly takes ethics and law into his own hands for larger news scoops. Thewrap.com called it "shocking, portrait of a sociopath's self-actualization. Gilroy ramps up the suspense while mining pearls of black humor as Louis becomes bolder in his quest for bigger paychecks and increasingly voyeuristic images." In an interview, Jake Gyllenhaal stated "Rick, is the moral center of the movie. He's the guy who tries to keep the compass straight and really tries to direct you towards something good .. and human .. and connected .. and the things he says are the most human of all characters and I think that's what Lou loves in him".

Stage

Ahmed played a role 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.

Music career

In 2006, Ahmed released a satirical social-commentary rap track entitled "Post 9/11 Blues". The song was initially banned from British airplay because the lyrics were deemed "?politically sensitive"?. Other tracks he has released include "Sour Times" which was accompanied by a video featuring Scroobius Pip, Plan B and Jim Sturgess.

He was selected as a BBC Introducing artist in 2007, playing the Glastonbury Festival and the BBC Electric Proms. He opened the Meltdown Festival with Bristol-based trip-hop group Massive Attack at the Royal Festival Hall in 2008, and was appointed 'Emerging Artist in Residence' at the Southbank Centre in London. He played at the London Camp for Climate Action in August 2009.

Ahmed also co-founded the Hit & Run night in Oxford, which has since moved to Manchester. Hit & Run has gone on to become one of Manchester's leading underground music events.

He released his debut album MICroscope in 2011.

On 1 December 2011, it was announced that Riz MC had signed to Tru Thoughts, an independent label in Brighton.

In February 2015 Dubstep artist Distance announced that he had recently finished producing an album with Ahmed called HalfLife.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2006	The Road to Guantanamo	Shafiq
2008	Shifty	Shifty	Geneva Cinma Tout Ecran Award for Best Actor Nominated"?British Independent Film Award for Best Actor
2009	Rage	Vijay
2010	Four Lions	Omar	Nominated"?British Independent Film Award for Best Actor
2010	Centurion	Tarik
2011	Black Gold	Ali
2011	Trishna	Jay
2012	Ill Manors	Aaron	Nominated"?British Independent Film Award for Best Actor
2013	The Reluctant Fundamentalist	Changez
2013	Closed Circuit	Nazrul Sharma
2014	Nightcrawler	Rick	Nominated"?Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male Nominated"?Gotham Independent Film Award for Breakthrough Actor Nominated"?London Film Critics' Circle Award for Supporting Actor of the Year Nominated"?San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor
2016	City of Tiny Lights	Tommy Akhtar	Post-production
2016	Rogue One: A Star Wars Story	Bodhi Rook	Filming
2016	Jason Bourne	Aaron Kalloor	Filming
2016	Una	Scott	Post-production

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2006	The Path to 9/11		Television film
2007	Britz	Sohail Wahid	Two-part serial
2008	Dead Set	Riq	Miniseries
2009	Freefall	Gary	Television film
2016	The Night Of		Miniseries

Stage

• Gaddafi by Asian Dub Foundation
• Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train by Stephen Adly Guirgis
• Prayer Room by Shan Khan

Discography

Albums

• Microscope (2011)

Singles

• "The Post 9/11 Blues" (2006)
• "People Like People" (2007)
• "Radar" (2008)
• "Shifty" (with Sway & Plan B) (2009)
• "Don't Sleep" (2009)
• "Hundreds and Thousands" (2010)
• "Get on It" (2010)
• "All of You" (2011)

Awards

• Geneva Cinma Tout Ecran Best Actor 2008: Was awarded best actor for his role in the urban thriller Shifty
• Shooting Stars Award 2012: Riz will receive this award at the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival in February 2012, annual acting award for up-and-coming actors by European Film Promotion.