Actor rides wave of Rogue role
Ahmed looks beyond film’s ‘childish wonder’
Riz Ahmed had to wait weeks before he found he had won a role in the latest Star Wars movie.
So the British actor was beyond excited when director Gareth Edwards finally ended his agony by telling him he would play pilot Bodhi Rook in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
“I was punching the air and punching myself at the same time” says Ahmed in Toronto recently promoting the standalone movie.
In it, his Rook is a former Empire cargo pilot who joins forces with a Rebel Alliance team preparing to steal plans for the Death Star secret weapon.
“All the characters seem to have a murky and complex past, including mine,” he says.
The 34-year-old was born in London to a British Pakistani family and started out in the entertainment field as a rapper before making the transition to actor.
He earned acclaim in North America for co-starring in Jake
Gyllenhaal’s Nightcrawler two years ago. Last summer he had a supporting part in the spy thriller Jason Bourne and is one of the leads in HBO’s well-received procedural The Night Of.
Certainly, Rogue One is careerchanging role, but he was thinking more of the iconic status of Star Wars when he arrived on set.
“It does finally hit you at a visceral level when you turn up for work
and there are a hundred Stormtroopers standing around,” Ahmed says. “I didn’t need backstories for my character because just being there triggers memories.”
He relied on that fan attachment throughout filming.
“In a way, it’s not about trying to find that childish wonder,” Ahmed says. “It’s about being in the moment and riding its wave.”