Riz Ahmed was hospitalized for a “prolonged” and “intense” illness during the filming of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The actor recently shared how the harrowing experience helped him connect with the script for 2019’s Sound of Metal.
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“Around the time of taking on Sound of Metal, I had had a very intense kind of health-related experience myself, where I had to grapple with the grief but also the acceptance around that,” Ahmed told Penn Badgley on Podcrushed.
“And basically, I was in the middle of filming Star Wars. My body just kind of, like, gave up on me,” he continued. “I was extremely exhausted; I was hospitalized for a brief period. I had to really try to recreate my strength. It was like building myself up from scratch. It was super scary and intense and quite prolonged, actually.”
He shared that after falling ill, recovery was slow. “And for a minute, I was like, ‘Am I ever going to get my life back?’ It really wasn’t clear,” he explained.
How Riz Ahmed’s Health Crisis Helped Him Earn an Academy Award Nomination
Ahmed described the experience as a mix of “grief and fear and terror” but also “tremendous liberation and gratitude and acceptance.”
“I always think that when you’re brought to your knees, you’re halfway towards praying. When you’re kind of humbled in that way, when something is taken away from you, you become even more acutely aware of everything you have — and on a bodily level, on a health level, you realize, like, you don’t control anything, man. You don’t control a single thing. You don’t even control your body,” he added.
Ahmed said that in a moment of clarity, he realized, “Everything you have is a gift.” He added, “I never felt more grateful, more at peace, more content than when I felt like I was going to lose my whole life.”
Ahmed’s health issues helped him connect with the screenplay for Sound of Metal, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for his role as a drummer losing his hearing.
“When I read the script, I was like, ‘I know what this is, you know, and I need to tell this story,’” Ahmed recalled. “I need to tell this story for me. I need to make sense of this. And I think that’s one of the greatest privileges that we get as storytellers … the story you need finds you at the right time.”