Riz Ahmed

Riz Ahmed

From Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud by Bella Freud

March 25, 2026 · 1h 6m

About this episode

Riz Ahmed discusses his multifaceted career as an actor, musician, and writer.

Riz Ahmed is an Academy and Emmy Award winning actor, director, musician, and writer. Born and raised in Wembley, Ahmed studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University, going on to study acting at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Ahmed’s breakthrough role was in the 2006 film The Road to Guantanamo. He has starred in the satirical film Four Lions, the HBO award-nominated series The Night Of, and The Sound of Metal, for which Ahmed received a Best Actor nomination at the Academy Awards. More recently, Ahmed has featured in Wes Anderson’s latest film The Phoenician Scheme, and plays the titular role in Aneil Karia’s modern adaptation of Hamlet. In October, Riz will be seen alongside Tom Cruise and Sandra Hüller in DIGGER, Alejandro Iñárritu’s first English language film since The Revenant. Ahmed is the founder of the award-winning production company, Left-Handed Films, which has produced films including the 2020 feature film Mogul Mowgli, and the 2020 short The Long Goodbye, both of which were written by and starred Ahmed, which won an Academy Award for Best Short Film. Ahmed has written, produced, and starred in a forthcoming comedy series for Amazon…

People in this episode

Host: Bella Freud

Guest: Riz Ahmed

Topics covered

  • acting
  • film
  • music
  • existential crisis
  • production

Keywords

  • Riz Ahmed
  • acting
  • film
  • music
  • existential crisis
  • BAIT
  • Left-Handed Films

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Left-Handed Films

Books & works: The Road to Guantanamo, Four Lions, The Night Of, The Sound of Metal, The Phoenician Scheme, Hamlet, Mogul Mowgli, The Long Goodbye, BAIT

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