Riz Ahmed became a "bit obsessive" in an effort to land a role in ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’.
The 35-year-old actor starred as Bodhi Rook, a former Imperial cargo pilot, in the 2016 movie, and Riz has revealed he made every possible effort to secure his part in the Gareth Edwards-directed film.
He shared: "I went a bit overboard, a bit over the top, I got a bit obsessive about my work.
"They were like, ‘Could you read for this scene?’ And the director made the stupid mistake of giving me his email address so I recorded an audition and I sent it to him … I started thinking, ‘Hang on a minute, I can do it better’ so I sent him another audition. And I sent him another one."
Despite this, Riz admitted that besides changing his clothes, none of the scenes were discernibly different.
He told ‘The Jonathan Ross Show’: "Over the next three days I sent him 14 different versions of this scene. And the thing is, when I watch them back now, they are not even that different. I just changed my clothes!"
Riz stars alongside Tom Hardy in the new superhero movie ‘Venom’.
The British duo have known each other since 2007 and both share a love of rap music.
He said: "I’ve known him for about 11 years now and we first met when we were both doing a reality TV show about playwrights … It was me, Tom Hardy and Rafe Spall and we had all just started. This was in 2007.
"We were bonding over rap music. Tom is a big rap fan, I played him my first track I’d just recorded, he was really encouraging.
"He kept doing this strange thing … Any breaks in conversation he just started doing push ups. And I thought, ‘This guy is going to go all the way, man.’ He is intense but that’s also because he cares. He is really passionate about his work."
‘The Jonathan Ross Show’ airs on Saturday (22.09.18) at 9.50pm on ITV.
Riz Ahmed: I was obsessive about Star Wars
