Riz Ahmed - Updated Oct 2024

Updated On June 3, 2024
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Riz Ahmed

Riz Ahmed is a notable British actor and rapper. Riz Ahmed is widely known for his roles in the movies such as “Sound of Metal”, “The Night Of”, “Four Lions”, “The Long Goodbye”, and many more. Moreover, he was included in the Time 100 list of the world’s most influential people in 2017.

Early Life and Education

Riz Ahmed was born Rizwan Ahmed on December 1, 1982, in Wembley, United Kingdom. His age is currently 41 years old. He was born in a British-Pakistani family of Muhajir background. He holds British nationality but his ethnicity is unknown. In the 1970s, his parents relocated from Karachi, Pakistan, to England.

Ahmed’s father works as a shipping broker and originates from Shah Muhammad Sulaiman, the first Muslim Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court during British colonial rule in India. His sister is a lawyer and his brother, Kamran Ahmed is a psychiatrist. They relocated to the UK in the 1970s. Through a scholarship program, Ahmed attended Merchant Taylors’ School in Northwood.

He received a Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) degree from Christ Church, Oxford University. At Oxford, he went through a culture shock and almost dropped out because of the isolating environment. Instead, Ahmed hosted events to honor cultures that weren’t related to Oxford’s predominate “elitist, white,” and “black-tie” culture. At the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, he later studied acting.

Career and Professional Life

Professionally, Riz is a famous actor and rapper. In the documentary, The Road to Guantánamo from 2006, Riz Ahmed made his acting debut as Shafiq Rasul. The film, which was produced in the fall of 2005 in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran, premiered on Channel 4 to 1.6 million viewers. He appeared in two additional television productions in 2006 as well. The first was a two-part miniseries called The Path to 9/11, which dramatizes the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 attack. The other is Berry’s Way, a TV movie.

He established his independent record label, Battered Records, in 2006 and produced the satirical rap track Post 9/11 Blues, which won the 2006 Asian Music Awards. He is also very active in the music scene. The following year, he would release People Like People, his second single, a garage rap song.

Riz Ahmed

Caption: Riz Ahmed on one of his movies, Venom
Source: Book News

More about his career

Additionally, his fourth production, Britz, a two-part television drama film in which he played the lead character Sohail Wahid, was released in 2007. 2008 saw the release of Shifty, which featured the title character. He appeared equally frequently on television as Riq Rahman in Dead Set and Manesh Kunzru in Wired. He also released his third single, Radar, in 2008.

In 2009, two more singles, Shifty and Don’t Sleep, and in 2010, Hundreds and Thousands and Get on It, would come after it. Riz then released his first studio album, Microscope, in January 2011. He kept acting throughout, playing Vijay in Rage (2009), Omar in Four Lions (2010), and Tarak in Centurion (2010). Ahmed appeared in leading roles in both of the two additional movies he released in 2011 Black Gold and Trishna. He received a lot of praise in 2012 for his performance as Aaron in Ill Manors. Another significant event that year was playing the main character in Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

More about his career

He made his directing debut in 2014 with the Daytimer short film, which won several awards. He received a lot of praise from critics for his portrayal of Rick in the American neo-noir psychological thriller movie Nightcrawler that same year. Roz co-founded the hip-hop group the Swet Shop Boys in 2014, and the following year, the group released an eponymous single.

Their debut album, Cashmere, was released two years later and peaked at number 45 on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. Ahmed oversaw the 2016 theatrical releases of Jason Bourne, Una, City of Tiny Lights, and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. He made a comeback to television in the same year, appearing in eight episodes of the crime drama miniseries The Night of as Nasir Khan.

Having received several nominations for his performance as Bodhi Rock in Rogue One and an MTV award for Immigrants (We Get the Job Done), he had established himself as a significant figure in the entertainment industry by 2017. Again in 2019, he received numerous nominations and awards for his leading performance in Sound of Metal. He made his mark as a writer once more in 2020 with Mogul Mowgli, which he also starred in as Zed. He also released his second studio album that year, A Long Goodbye, along with a short film of the same name.

Major Works

For his 2020 film Mogul Mowgli, Riz Ahmed is arguably best known. In 2017, he first had the idea for the movie and later co-wrote the script with the film’s director, Bassam Tariq. Later, he co-wrote the script, co-starred in, and co-produced the movie. He won awards both for his work as a screenwriter and as an actor.

Achievements

For his short film, The Long Goodbye, Riz Ahmed won an Academy Award in 2022 for Best Live Action Short Film. He was nominated for the same award the year before, but in the Best Actor category, for his performance in Sound of Metal. He received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie in 2017 for his performance in The Night Of.

In addition to these, his work in movies like Ill Manors, Shifty, Sound of Metal, Daytimer, Mogul Mowgli, etc. has earned him several festival and critics awards as well as nominations for two Golden Globe Awards, two Bafta Awards, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Personal Life

Riz is a straight-gender person. As for his marital status, he is a married man. He tied the knot with American writer Fatima Farheen Mirza. The couple met for the first time in Brooklyn in 2016. They don’t have any children as of now.

Riz Ahmed

Caption: Riz Ahmed with his wife
Source: People

Riz Ahmed – Net Worth 2024

This veteran American actor and rapper has earned a decent amount of money throughout his successful career. He has a net worth of $3 million as of 2023. But he hasn’t shared his salary and other asset values.

Social Media

Talking about his social media presence, he is active on almost every social media site like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. His official Facebook page ‘Riz Ahmed’ has more than 112K followers to date. Likewise, his Instagram account ‘@rizahmed’ has gained more than 766K followers and has shared 295 posts.

Similarly, he joined Twitter in April 2009 and has more than 256.8K followers on his account ‘@rizwanahmed’. Moreover, he created his self-titled YouTube channel ‘Riz Ahmed’ on October 3, 2018. As of now, this channel has amassed more than 47.8K subscribers.

Riz Ahmed – Body Measurements

Moving into his physical appearance, he has a dazzling body personality. He stands at a height of  5 feet 8 inches and weights 66kg. Likewise, his body measurements are 38-30-13 inches (chest-waist-hip). Similarly, he has a pair of dark brown eyes with dark brown colored hair.

Riz Ahmed

Caption: Riz Ahmed posing for a photo
Source: Daily Mail