{"id":107602,"date":"2025-08-30T23:27:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T23:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/107602\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T23:27:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T23:27:07","slug":"oscar-winner-riz-ahmed-reflects-upon-health-scare-during-star-wars-shoot-i-wasnt-getting-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/107602\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar winner Riz Ahmed reflects upon health scare during Star Wars shoot: ‘I wasn\u2019t getting better…’"},"content":{"rendered":"

British actor Riz Ahmed has opened up about a severe and prolonged illness he suffered while filming \u2018Rogue One: A Star Wars Story\u2019, revealing that the health scare profoundly changed his perspective on life and helped him connect emotionally with his later role in \u2018Sound of Metal\u2019.<\/p>\n

Speaking candidly on the Podcrushed podcast, co-hosted by actor Penn Badgley<\/a>, the Emmy and Oscar-winning performer described the experience as \u201csuper scary and intense\u201d, explaining that his body \u201cjust kind of gave up\u201d during the physically demanding \u2018Star Wars<\/a>\u2019 shoot.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was extremely exhausted, I was hospitalised for a brief period,\u201d Ahmed said. \u201cI had to really try to recreate my strength. It was like building myself up from scratch\u2026 and quite prolonged, actually.\u201d<\/p>\n

The illness, which struck suddenly, left Ahmed uncertain about his future. \u201cI wasn\u2019t getting better quickly,\u201d he explained. \u201cFor a minute, I was like, \u2018Am I ever going to get my life back?\u2019 It really wasn\u2019t clear.\u201d<\/p>\n

This period of uncertainty <\/a>and vulnerability, however, became a turning point for the actor, leading to what he described as a \u201cdeep kind of grief and fear and terror, and yet also a kind of tremendous liberation and gratitude and acceptance\u201d.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on that time, Ahmed said, \u201cI always think that when you\u2019re brought to your knees, you\u2019re halfway towards praying. When you\u2019re humbled in that way, when something is taken away from you, you become even more acutely aware of everything you have.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cOn a bodily level, on a health level, you realise, like, you don\u2019t control anything, man. You don\u2019t control a single thing. You don\u2019t even control your body.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahmed shared that during his illness, he experienced a rare sense of peace: \u201cIn a moment of trippy clarity and in the darkness, I realised everything you have is a gift. In the most strange way, I never felt more grateful, more at peace, more content than when I felt like I was going to lose my whole life.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ordeal eventually deepened his connection to his role in \u2018Sound of Metal<\/a>\u2019 (2019), in which he portrayed a drummer losing his hearing\u2014a performance that earned him critical acclaim and an Academy Award for Best Actor. He said his own confrontation with loss and acceptance mirrored the emotional arc of the film.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"British actor Riz Ahmed has opened up about a severe and prolonged illness he suffered while filming \u2018Rogue…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134,77074,77076,77075,77071,77072,77073],"class_list":["post-107602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-oscar-winner-riz-ahmed","tag-penn-badgley","tag-podcrushed","tag-riz-ahmed","tag-riz-ahmed-opens-up-about-his-illness","tag-riz-ahmed-sound-of-metal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}