Riz Ahmed says UK spies tried to recruit him on three occasions

Riz Ahmed, the Oscar-winning actor, has claimed that Britain’s intelligence services tried three times to recruit him, including one occasion involving a senior BBC executive.

Ahmed, 43, said: “Well, it’s happened three different times and they’re all slightly ridiculous, and this is what I mean by it, it’s just like inherently comedic.

“One was when I came back from my first film, The Road to Guantánamo, we landed at Luton airport celebrating.

“They took me into a side room, put me in an arm lock, threatened to break my arm, took my phone, were pretending to bash the buttons, accidentally changed the language to Danish, and then kind of like, were like: ‘Did you become an actor to further the Muslim struggle?’

“I was like: ‘This is hilarious.’ And then when I finished that, they were like: ‘OK. Would you like to keep an eye out for us, cause it was really great the way you were answering those questions?’ No thank you.”

The London-born actor and musician made the comments during a conversation with the journalist Mehdi Hasan on his media platform Zeteo.

Ahmed added: “Second time was through a family friend, that was a bit like: ‘Oh, sugar. That’s what’s going on there.’

“And the third time was someone senior, high up at the BBC.”

Ahmed added that they were someone “who’s just left the BBC”, but did not name the individual.

Hasan asked how people could be sure that Ahmed had not accepted any offers to work for the security services, to which the actor joked that it would make a “sick biopic if I was actually a fed”.

Ahmed, known for films including Four Lions, won an Oscar for the short film The Long Goodbye in 2022.

He won an Emmy for outstanding lead actor in a limited series or movie for his performance in the drama The Night Of in 2017.

Earlier this year, his contemporary south Asian adaptation of Hamlet was released.

In March, the British-Pakistani actor said he had aspirations to become a standup comedian.

He said: “Of course, the dream is to be a standup comedian, but everyone who knows me says: ‘Please don’t do that.’”

“I see people like Hasan Minhaj or Ramy [Youssef], or Bill Hicks growing up, or Chris Rock, and the gloves are off, man.

“You live or die. There’s no fourth wall. There’s no politeness from the audience, it’s that moment to moment.”