- published: 08 May 2013
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Rizwan Ahmed (born 1 December 1982 in Wembley, London), also known as Riz Ahmed, the Rizmeister General, the Rizmadizzle, or Riz MC, is a British MC, musician and actor. He is noted for his lead performances in The Road to Guantanamo, Shifty, Britz, and Four Lions.
Ahmed is a British Pakistani. Ahmed's parents belonged to Karachi in Sindh, Pakistan, before emigrating to the United Kingdom.
Ahmed attended Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood through a scholarship programme. He graduated from Christ Church, Oxford with a degree in PPE and studied acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama.
Ahmed's film career began in the Michael Winterbottom film The Road to Guantanamo in which he played the part of Shafiq Rasul, a member of the Tipton Three. Coincidentally, he and another actor involved in the film as well as two of the Tipton Three were detained at Luton Airport upon their return from the Berlin Film Festival where the film won a Silver Bear Award. Across his years as an actor he has also featured in various TV roles. He has played Sohail Waheed in the 2007 Channel 4 drama, Britz. 2008 saw him perform as both Riq in the five-part horror thriller for E4, Dead Set and Manesh Kunzru in ITV1's finance fraud drama Wired. In July 2009 in appeared in Freefall alongside Sarah Harding. Most notably, he featured in the title role of the 2009 independent film Shifty by Eran Creevy. Ahmed plays the charismatic young drug dealer in the film which sees a life in the day of this character. He was nominated for Best Actor at the 2008 British Independent Film Awards for this role, alongside Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson.
Jacob Benjamin "Jake" Gyllenhaal ( /ˈdʒɪlənhɔːl/ JIL-ən-hawl; born December 19, 1980) is an American actor. The son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, Gyllenhaal began acting at the age of ten. Following his first lead role in 1999's October Sky, he starred in the indie cult hit Donnie Darko (2001), in which he played a psychologically troubled teenager alongside his older sister, actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. In 2004 he appeared in the science-fiction film The Day After Tomorrow, portraying a student caught in a cataclysmic global cooling event. He then played against type as a frustrated Marine in Jarhead (2005). The same year his role as Jack Twist in Brokeback Mountain earned him critical acclaim and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He has since played the lead roles in many notable films, including Zodiac (2007), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010) and Source Code (2011).
Gyllenhaal has promoted various political and social causes. He has appeared in Rock the Vote advertising, campaigned for the Democratic Party in the 2004 U.S. presidential election, promoted environmental causes, and campaigned on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Felicity Rose Hadley Jones (born 17 October 1983) is an English actress from Birmingham. She is best known to television audiences for her role as the school bully Ethel Hallow in the first series of The Worst Witch (she was replaced by Katie Allen for series two and three) and its sequel Weirdsister College. Jones also co-starred in Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's feature Cemetery Junction. She starred opposite Anton Yelchin in the 2011 drama Like Crazy.
Jones grew up in Bournville, Birmingham. Her parents met while working at the Wolverhampton Express and Star. Her father was a journalist while her mother was in advertising. They divorced when she was three, and she was brought up with her brother by her mother alone. Despite this, she says her family is "extremely close."
After Kings Norton Girls' School, Jones attended King Edward VI Handsworth School, to complete A Levels and went on to take a gap year (during which she appeared in the BBC series Servants). She then read English at Wadham College, Oxford, graduating with a 2:1 in 2006. Whilst studying English, she appeared in student plays, including Attis in which she played the title role, and, in 2005, Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors for the OUDS summer tour to Japan, starring alongside Harry Lloyd.