--- title: Rouge One: Riz Ahmed on Star Wars Stretching Our Empathy description: The Night Of's Riz Ahmed on how he snagged the role of pilot Bodhi Rook after director Gareth Edwards compared him to an infamous character canonical: https://time.com/4591849/rogue-one-star-wars-riz-ahmed-bodhi-rook/ author: Eliana Dockterman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-12-14T15:08:37.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T02:09:54.755Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Riz Ahmed on the Surprising Character Who Inspired His 'Rogue One' Performance og:description: The Golden Globe nominee talks empathy, Google Translate and Star Wars og:url: https://time.com/4591849/rogue-one-star-wars-riz-ahmed-bodhi-rook/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt53f424e9b8738dfd/6988b0e07cdbac4cacd567b7/gettyimages-454699998.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: 2014 Toronto International Film Festival Portraits og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Riz Ahmed on the Surprising Character Who Inspired His 'Rogue One' Performance twitter:description: The Golden Globe nominee talks empathy, Google Translate and Star Wars twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt53f424e9b8738dfd/6988b0e07cdbac4cacd567b7/gettyimages-454699998.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Riz Ahmed on the Surprising Character Who Inspired His _Rogue One_ Performance > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account.  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Dec 14, 2016 3:08 PM UTC  Riz Ahmed is photographed for a Portrait Session at the 2014 Toronto Film Festival on September 4, 2014 in Toronto, Ontario Riz Ahmed is photographed for a Portrait Session at the 2014 Toronto Film Festival on September 4, 2014 in Toronto, OntarioMaarten de Boer—Getty Images  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Dec 14, 2016 3:08 PM UTC There’s no doubt that 2016 was Riz Ahmed’s breakout year. The 34-year-old actor recently earned a [Golden Globe nomination](http://time.com/4597608/golden-globes-nominees-2017/) for his role on HBO’s _The Night Of_ and starred alongside Matt Damon in this summer’s _Jason Bourne_. Ahmed also raps as Riz MC, and can be heard on the new [_Hamilton Mixtape_](http://time.com/4588683/hamilton-mixtape-live/). But on Dec. 16, he’ll appear in his biggest project to date: [_Rogue One: A Star Wars Stor_y](http://time.com/4589440/star-wars-rogue-one-what-to-know/). During a recent interview with TIME, Ahmed revealed how he snagged the role of pilot Bodhi Rook after director Gareth Edwards compared him to an infamous character from _Apocalypse Now_. **TIME: How did you come to be cast in the film?** Ahmed: Gareth Edwards comes from a background of British independent movies, which is where I’ve done the majority of my work up to this point. He reached out and said, “There’s this role. It’s not fully developed.” He made some interesting references to Dennis Hopper in _Apocalypse Now_, and he asked me to go on tape. He made the mistake of giving me his email address because I just spammed him about 10-15 different versions of this thing—doing this obsessive thing that I do. And he emailed me back at one point like, “Hey Riz, you don’t need to keep emailing me your audition. You’re good. We’ll get back to you.” And I was like, “Oh, man, I screwed it up.” But I got the part. **In an** [**essay**](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/15/riz-ahmed-typecast-as-a-terrorist) **published in** **_The_** **_Guardian_** **you wrote about three stages of typecasting for ethnic minorities in film: Stage one is the two-dimensional stereotype—the cab driver or terrorist—stage two challenges those stereotypes, stage three a character whose story is not intrinsically linked to race. What stage is Bodhi?** I’ve mostly evaded typecasting as an actor. The characters I’ve played have all been very, very different characters. I made a decision not to play characters that were reinforcing stereotypes with two-dimensional portrayals. I hope the work that I’ve done forces the culture to stretch a bit. And my agenda here isn’t some kind of niche, specialist cause. It’s really the same agenda that I hope every actor, writer, director, painter and musician has, which is to contribute in some small way to stretching our collective empathy as a society. I think that films like _Star Wars_ are great at letting so many different people put themselves in someone else’s shoes, and there are so many different pairs to try on—Daisy Ridley’s shoes or John Boyega’s or mine or Donnie Yen’s or Felicity Jones’ or Diego Luna’s. **The cast is very international. What was it like on set having so many people from so many different countries?** There was a lot of Google Translate going on—no, no. I’m kidding. I love languages, actually, so I just took it as an opportunity to learn random catchphrases. 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