Riz Ahmed facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Riz Ahmed
|
|
|---|---|
Ahmed at an event in 2018
|
|
| Born |
Rizwan Ahmed
1 December 1982 London, England
|
| Alma mater |
|
| Occupation |
|
| Years active | 2006–present |
| Spouse(s) |
Fatima Farheen Mirza
(m. 2020) |
| Awards | Full list |
| Musical career | |
| Also known as | Riz MC |
| Genres | |
| Years active | 2006–present |
| Labels |
|
Rizwan "Riz" Ahmed (born December 1, 1982) is a talented British actor and rapper. He has won many important awards, like an Academy Award and a Primetime Emmy Award. He was also nominated for two Golden Globe Awards and two British Academy Film Awards. In 2017, Time magazine named him one of the most influential people in the world.
Riz Ahmed studied acting at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. He started his acting journey in independent films. Some of his early movies include The Road to Guantanamo (2006) and Four Lions (2010). He became widely known after his role in Nightcrawler (2014). This led to bigger roles in movies like Jason Bourne and Rogue One in 2016.
He won an Emmy Award for his role in the TV miniseries The Night Of (2016), where he played a young man accused of murder. He also played Carlton Drake in the superhero movie Venom (2018). In the drama film Sound of Metal (2019), he played a drummer who loses his hearing. This role earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. He also helped create and star in Mogul Mowgli (2020).
As a rapper, Riz Ahmed is known as Riz MC. He is part of the group Swet Shop Boys. His hip hop albums, Microscope and Cashmere, have been praised by critics. He also had a song called "Immigrants (We Get the Job Done)" on The Hamilton Mixtape, which was very popular. This song won an MTV Video Music Award. His second album, The Long Goodbye, came with a short film. This short film won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.
Riz Ahmed is also an activist. He uses his music to talk about important issues. He has helped raise money and awareness for Rohingya and Syrian refugee children. He also speaks up for better representation of different groups in the media.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Riz Ahmed was born on December 1, 1982, in Wembley, a part of London. His family is British-Pakistani. His parents moved to England from Karachi, Pakistan, in the 1970s. His father works as a shipping broker. Riz Ahmed is also related to Shah Muhammad Sulaiman, who was the first Muslim Chief Justice in India during British rule.
Riz Ahmed went to Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood on a scholarship. He then studied at Oxford University, where he earned a degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. He found it a bit hard to fit in at Oxford at first. So, he started organizing parties to celebrate different cultures. Later, he went on to study acting at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
Acting Career
Early Roles
Riz Ahmed's first film role was in the 2006 movie The Road to Guantánamo. He played Shafiq Rasul, one of the "Tipton Three." After returning from a film festival, he said police questioned him at Luton Airport.
In 2007, he acted in the TV drama Britz. He also appeared in the horror thriller Dead Set in 2008. That same year, he played a teacher in Staffroom Monologues. In 2009, he was in Freefall and played the main character in the independent film Shifty. For Shifty, he was nominated for Best Actor at the 2008 British Independent Film Awards.
Big Movies and TV Shows
Riz Ahmed continued his film career in 2009 with Rage. In 2010, he starred in Four Lions, a comedy about terrorism, earning another Best Actor nomination. He also had a role in the historical thriller Centurion. In 2012, he was a lead in the London-based film Ill Manors. He also played the main role in The Reluctant Fundamentalist, based on a popular novel.
.jpg)
Riz Ahmed also directed and wrote a short film called Daytimer in 2014. It won an award at the Nashville Film Festival. In 2014, he appeared in Nightcrawler. He received great reviews for his acting in this film. To get ready for the role, he met with homeless people to understand their lives.
In 2016, he joined the Star Wars universe in Rogue One. He played Bodhi Rook, a pilot who leaves the Empire. The movie was very popular and made over $1 billion worldwide. It was one of the highest-grossing films of 2016.
Also in 2016, Riz Ahmed starred in the HBO miniseries The Night Of. His performance was highly praised, and he received nominations for Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild awards. He won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for The Night Of. This made him the first Asian and first Muslim actor to win in that category. He also appeared in the final season of Girls, earning another Emmy nomination.
In 2018, Riz Ahmed starred in Venom. He played Carlton Drake, a scientist who experiments with alien creatures called symbiotes. He also voiced Riot, a symbiote. By 2018, films he was in had made over $2.4 billion around the world.
He also has a TV series called Englistan coming to BBC Two. It will tell the story of three generations of a British Pakistani family.
Recent Work
In 2020, Riz Ahmed starred in the American drama film Sound of Metal. He played a drummer who loses his hearing. Critics loved his performance. For this role, he was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a BAFTA Award. He was the first Muslim and British Pakistani actor to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
In 2021, he was an executive producer for the animated documentary film Flee. This film was praised by critics and nominated for three Academy Awards. He also won an award for best debut screenwriter for Mogul Mowgli in 2021.
His short film The Long Goodbye won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 2022. In 2023, he voiced Ballister Boldheart in Nimona and starred in Fingernails. He also has an upcoming role in the film Relay.
Music Journey
Riz Ahmed started his music career as a teenager, inspired by jungle and hip hop music. He performed on pirate radio and in freestyle rap battles. At Oxford University, he helped start a music event called Hit & Run. He was also part of a jazz-house band. After college, he won many rap battle contests as Riz MC.
In 2006, he wrote a rap song called "Post 9/11 Blues" after being questioned at Luton Airport. The song talked about social issues and was initially banned from British radio. But it became popular online. He then started his own music label, Battered Records, and released the song. He won Best MC at the 2006 Asian Music Awards. He released another song, "People Like People," in 2007. He performed at big festivals like Glastonbury Festival and the BBC Electric Proms.
In 2011, he released his first album, Microscope. He is also one half of the hip hop group Swet Shop Boys, formed in 2014. Their first album, Cashmere, was released in 2016 and received good reviews. In 2016, he also released a mixtape called Englistan. He was featured on the song "Immigrants (We Get The Job Done)" from The Hamilton Mixtape, which was a huge hit. This made him the first person to have a number-one album (The Hamilton Mixtape) and a number-one movie (Rogue One) at the same time! The song "Immigrants" also won an MTV Video Music Award.
Making a Difference
Riz Ahmed is a Muslim and has often spoken about unfair stereotypes of Muslims in the media and in society.
He is an activist who works to help others. He has raised money for Syrian refugee children and for Rohingya Muslims who have been forced to leave their homes in Myanmar. He also speaks up for better representation of different groups in the House of Commons.
In 2016, he wrote an essay about racial profiling at airports and auditions for a book called The Good Immigrant. During the Israel-Hamas war, Riz Ahmed spoke out, asking for an end to the bombing of civilians in Gaza and the blocking of food and water. He called these actions "morally indefensible war crimes".
The Riz Test
In 2018, two researchers, Sadia Habib and Shaf Choudry, created something called "The Riz Test." They were inspired by Riz Ahmed's speech in 2017 about the lack of diversity in film and TV. This test helps to see if Muslim characters in movies and TV shows are shown in fair ways, or if they rely on old stereotypes. It's similar to the Bechdel test.
The Riz Test has five questions:
- Is a Muslim character shown talking about, being a victim of, or doing terrorism?
- Are they shown as being very angry for no good reason?
- Are they shown as old-fashioned, superstitious, or against modern ideas?
- Are they shown as a danger to a Western way of life?
- If the character is male, is he shown as being unfair to women? Or if female, is she shown as being controlled by men?
One of the creators, Shaf Choudry, said the test is meant to start conversations about how Muslims are shown. Riz Ahmed was surprised but happy to see the test named after him, saying it was "much needed."
Personal Life
Riz Ahmed is married to American novelist Fatima Farheen Mirza. They got married in 2020.
He went to school with British-American journalist Mehdi Hasan in the 1990s.
Images for kids
-
Ahmed at an event in 2018
-
Ahmed at the 2014 Toronto Film Festival
-
Ahmed at the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con
-
Ahmed performing at Occupy London NYE Party 2011.
See also
In Spanish: Riz Ahmed para niños
- List of British Pakistanis
