Riz Ahmed Age, Wife, Net Worth & Biography

Riz Ahmed is 43 years old. The British actor and rapper, born Rizwan Ahmed in Wembley, London, on December 1, 1982, has been married to American novelist Fatima Farheen Mirza since 2020, and his net worth is approximately $10 million (Celebrity Net Worth, 2026). Ahmed is best known for the HBO miniseries The Night Of, for which he won an Emmy, for Sound of Metal, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, and for Rogue One — a career that spans prestige drama, blockbusters and a parallel life as the rapper Riz MC.

Riz Ahmed Quick Facts

Full Name	Rizwan Ahmed
Date of Birth	December 1, 1982
Age	43 years old
Birthplace	London, England
Wife	Fatima Farheen Mirza (m. 2020)
Children	1
Occupation	Actor, rapper
Net Worth	Approx. $10 million (Celebrity Net Worth, 2026)
Known For	The Night Of; Sound of Metal; Rogue One

Who Is Riz Ahmed?

Riz Ahmed is a British actor and rapper whose work has earned him an Emmy Award, an Academy Award nomination and an Oscar win — in three different disciplines. He won the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series for playing Nasir “Naz” Khan in HBO’s The Night Of (2016), becoming the first Muslim and the first South Asian to win an Emmy for lead acting. Three years later he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Sound of Metal (2019), the first Muslim and British Pakistani actor to receive that nomination. And in 2022 he won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for The Long Goodbye, a film he co-wrote and starred in. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2017.

Alongside his acting, Ahmed has built a serious career in music under the name Riz MC, releasing two solo albums and recording with the hip-hop group Swet Shop Boys. He has also become one of the most outspoken voices in the film industry on representation: the Riz Test, a measure of how Muslim characters are portrayed on screen, is named after him. Like fellow British actors Dev Patel and Jeremy Allen White, Ahmed has moved between independent film, prestige television and major franchises without ever settling into one lane.

Riz Ahmed’s Early Life & Background

Rizwan Ahmed was born on December 1, 1982, in Wembley, London, to a British Pakistani family of Muhajir background. His parents had moved to Britain from Karachi, Pakistan, in the 1970s; his father worked as a shipping broker. He is a descendant of Shah Muhammad Sulaiman, the first Indian Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court. His older brother is a psychiatrist and his older sister is a lawyer. Ahmed attended Merchant Taylors’ School in Northwood on a scholarship — one of his classmates was the journalist Mehdi Hasan — and went on to study philosophy, politics and economics at Christ Church, Oxford.

Oxford was, by his own account, a culture shock: he has described feeling isolated by the university’s black-tie social world and nearly dropping out. After graduating he trained as an actor at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London. He had already begun rapping as a teenager, appearing on pirate radio and in freestyle rap battles, and his early music — including the 2006 single “Post 9/11 Blues”, which was banned from British airplay — was as politically charged as the acting career that would follow.

Riz Ahmed’s Career

Ahmed made his film debut in Michael Winterbottom’s docudrama The Road to Guantánamo (2006), the same year he appeared on television in the miniseries The Path to 9/11. His early film roles included the lead in Shifty (2008), for which he was nominated for a British Independent Film Award, the satire Four Lions (2010) and Trishna (2011), opposite Freida Pinto. His breakout in Hollywood came as Rick in the neo-noir thriller Nightcrawler (2014), and 2016 proved to be his breakthrough year: he appeared in Jason Bourne and as the pilot Bodhi Rook in Rogue One, and he played Naz Khan in HBO’s The Night Of, winning the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor and earning a Golden Globe nomination.

He followed that with a guest role on Girls (2017), which brought a second Emmy nomination, and the villain Carlton Drake in Venom (2018). In 2019 he played Ruben Stone, a heavy-metal drummer losing his hearing, in Sound of Metal — a performance that earned him the Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, along with BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations. The following year he co-wrote, produced and starred in Mogul Mowgli (2020), playing a British Pakistani rapper whose career is derailed by illness; the film was nominated for the BAFTA for Outstanding British Film. His short film The Long Goodbye (2020) won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 2022, and he executive-produced the animated documentary Flee (2021), which received three Oscar nominations.

His recent work includes voicing Ballister Boldheart in Nimona (2023), the science-fiction romance Fingernails (2023), the thriller Relay (2024) and Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme (2025). In 2025 he played Prince Hamlet in a film adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, which he also produced, and in 2026 he created, wrote and executive-produced the limited series Bait, in which he plays Shah Latif, an actor set to play a non-white James Bond — a role that earned him a second Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor. As a musician, he has released the albums Microscope (2011) and The Long Goodbye (2020) as Riz MC, recorded the album Cashmere (2016) with Swet Shop Boys, and contributed “Immigrants (We Get the Job Done)” to The Hamilton Mixtape, which won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Fight Against the System in 2017.

Facts About Riz Ahmed

• He was the first Muslim and the first South Asian to win an Emmy for lead acting, for The Night Of in 2017.
• His debut single, “Post 9/11 Blues” (2006), was banned from British airplay.
• He was named one of Time‘s 100 most influential people in the world in 2017.
• The Riz Test, a measure of Muslim representation on screen, is named after him, inspired by his 2017 speech to the House of Commons on diversity in British media.
• He wrote, produced and starred in Mogul Mowgli (2020), playing a British Pakistani rapper who falls ill just before a major tour.

Frequently Asked Questions

How old is Riz Ahmed?

Riz Ahmed is 43 years old. He was born on December 1, 1982, in London, England.

Who is Riz Ahmed’s wife?

Riz Ahmed’s wife is American novelist Fatima Farheen Mirza. They married in 2020 and have one child, born in 2025.

What is Riz Ahmed’s net worth?

Riz Ahmed’s net worth is approximately $10 million (Celebrity Net Worth, 2026).

What is Riz Ahmed best known for?

Riz Ahmed is best known for playing Nasir “Naz” Khan in HBO’s The Night Of, for which he won an Emmy, for his Oscar-nominated performance as Ruben Stone in Sound of Metal, and for playing Bodhi Rook in Rogue One. He is also known as the rapper Riz MC.

Has Riz Ahmed won an Oscar?

Yes. Riz Ahmed won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for The Long Goodbye in 2022. He was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Sound of Metal in 2021.

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