Many hearts were broken when Riz Ahmed recently revealed that he is a married man. However, he did not disclose his wife’s identity. In an episode of podcast Grounded with Louis Theroux, the 38-year-old actor shared that he tied the knot “not very long” ago.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist star has now revealed that the US novelist Fatima Farheen Mirza is his wife.
“She’s an amazing novelist. We met so randomly while I was preparing for this role, for Sound Of Metal when I was in New York,” said the actor on Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
“We both sat down at the same table in the cafe where we both turned up to write. We were both jostling over the same laptop plug points, like a very modern way of meeting,” he further shared.
“And we struck up a friendship and reconnected down the line. But it’s weirdly like one of the many things about preparing for this role that was so special, it just brought a lot of goodness into my life.”
The actor clarified that he never meant to keep his wedding a secret.
“It’s a weird one because we live in a social media age if you don’t get on the megaphone about stuff it’s like, it’s a secret. But I never know how much is oversharing,” he said explaining his point. “Like, I’m into matcha lattes, but that’s just never come up. I’m not a secret matcha latte drinker.”
Riz added that the wedding was ‘interesting’ due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Obviously, kept it super intimate, and socially distanced. There was just like, hardly anyone there really,” he revealed about the ceremony. “We did it in a backyard, which is nice in lots of ways. And I think the nicest thing about it was you didn’t have 500 aunties hanging around you, pinching your cheeks.”
“No disrespect to the aunties,” he joked, “but Asian weddings are big. You always got these people crawling out the woodworks, who I think are kind of probable imposters. They just smell the kebabs on the street and just wander in.”
He added that meeting his wife in the process of making Sound of Metal was just one of the reasons the film is so special for him. His role in the film as a heavy metal drummer who begins to lose his hearing has also won him the Gotham Independent Film Award for Best Actor.
“Obviously, I met Fatima for the first time and met so many people in the deaf community that have become friends. And there’s just something about this whole period around this film that was kind of life-changing,” he said.
One Comment