For those of you who follow the show Girls you might recognize Riz Ahmed. He’s the surfing instructor guy who impregnates Hannah. His character on the show is extremely laid back, funny, and leaves an impact on viewers. For those who saw Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, you might remember Riz as Bodhi Rook. While his IMDB portfolio isn’t filled up quite yet, I have a strong feeling we’re going to be seeing a lot more of Riz Ahmed in the future. There’s something about this guy. He’s extraordinary talented and as John Malkovich said in In the Line of Fire, he has a very “pleasant way about him.”
When Ahmed was auditioning for Rogue One, producers already knew who he was from his role in Nightcrawler. As it turns out Ahmed landed the part of Bodhi, but it didn’t stop there. Ahmed apparently kept auditioning for the role even after he got the part.
“I loved Riz Ahmed in Nightcrawler and as we were looking for a character for Bodhi Rook, I made sure to throw his name in the hat,” said co-producer John Swartz. Ahmed, who was in New York, began sending in taped auditions to director Gareth Edwards, with Swartz saying that he just “kept cranking out different versions of Bodhi.”
“Then obviously, then I started kind of, the obsession starts, when you start sending, like doing 50,000 takes of something when left to your own devices,” said Ahmed. (You can watch some of his many, many takes in the video above if you want to picture how different Bodhi could have been.) Edwards says that, even after he offered Ahmed the part, he still kept on getting clips in huge batches.
“I just carried on recording more takes and just emailing him,” said Ahmed. “I was like screw it, I’ve got his email address now… I was like, I’ve kind of totally screwed this up, I’m like spamming the director.”
Check out the full video below:
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