Riz Ahmed is late — not very, but enough for an apology. The actor hurries into Ombra, an Italian restaurant in Bethnal Green, east London, having first gone to the other nearby venue we had discussed. Still, his bearing suggests a man for whom the clock is often an enemy. “I’ve got to be honest, I’d have been late anyway.”
Time can be against you, even when it seems on your side. Ahmed is 43, but still looks young enough to be routinely mentioned in press conjecture about the next James Bond. Today he wears a baseball cap and chocolate leather jacket, a globally famous British actor off-duty. He is all smiles, in contrast to the troubled characters of his signature work: crime series The Night Of, which won him an Emmy; acclaimed Star Wars prequel Rogue One; the drama Sound of Metal that saw him Oscar-nominated in 2021. (The next year, he won the Best Short Film award for The Long Goodbye, which he wrote and starred in.)
Now Ahmed is launching a film adaptation of Hamlet, a long-term passion project. He is both the lead and producer. Yet there are even more claims on his attention. Although the FT chose the restaurant, Ahmed picked the area for its proximity to a local recording studio, where work is ongoing on the soundtrack to his forthcoming TV series, Bait. (Again, he is both star and driving force.)