‘Threatened to break my arm’: Riz Ahmed alleges UK spy agencies sought repeatedly to recruit him
Shaken, but not stirred. Riz Ahmed poses before an appearance on the Jimmy Fallon Show. — @rizahmed pic
Monday, 25 May 2026 10:39 AM MYT
LONDON, May 25 — Oscar-winning actor Riz Ahmed has claimed that Britain’s intelligence services attempted to recruit him as an informant on three separate occasions, with one approach allegedly involving a senior executive at the BBC.
The most dramatic attempt, he said, occurred at Luton airport after he returned from filming his breakout role in the 2006 film The Road to Guantánamo, The Guardian reported.
“They took me into a side room, put me in an arm lock, threatened to break my arm, took my phone,” Ahmed recounted.
He said officers then asked him, “Did you become an actor to further the Muslim struggle?” After the intense questioning, they abruptly changed tack. “They were like: ‘OK. Would you like to keep an eye out for us...?’ No thank you.”
The London-born actor made the revelations during a conversation with journalist Mehdi Hasan on his new media platform, Zeteo.
Ahmed detailed two other approaches: one made through a family friend, and a third from a "senior, high up" figure at the BBC, whom he described as someone who has "just left the BBC." He did not name the individual.
When Hasan asked how the public could be sure he hadn’t accepted, Ahmed joked that it would make a “sick biopic if I was actually a fed.”
Ahmed, 43, is one of Britain's most acclaimed actors. He won an Oscar for his short film The Long Goodbye in 2022 and an Emmy for his lead role in the HBO drama The Night Of in 2017.
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