Riz Ahmed has recently recalled health scare that humbled him in a big way in his career and life.
The British actor and rapper opened up that he had very “intense kind of health-related experience” that made him accept the Sound of Metal role, ultimately earning him first Oscar nomination.
Ahmed recounted that he was in the “middle of filming Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and my body kind of gave up on me. I was extremely exhausted,” during an appearance on August 26 episode of the Podcrushed podcast.
The Venom star shared he was “hospitalised for a brief period” even though he tried to regain his strength.
“I was building myself up from scratch. It was super scary and intense and quite prolonged, actually. For a minute I was like, ‘Am I ever going to get my life back?’” mentioned the 42-year-old.
Ahmed didn’t now share specific details about his health condition but even now he has no clarity what happened to him in the past.
He described the health scare as “something very silent and very intense that happened to me, and I wasn’t getting better quickly”.
However, this experience had left a beneficial impact on his career.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist actor, who won an Oscar as co-creator of the 2020 live-action short movie The Long Goodbye, noted, “I always think that when you’re brought to your knees, you’re halfway towards praying.”
Ahmed eventually realised, “You don’t control a single thing. You don’t even control your body.”
“Then, in moments of kind of trippy clarity and in the darkness, I realised, then everything you have is a gift,” added the actor.