Adeel Akhtar

Adeel Humayan Akhtar^{[citation needed]} was born in Hammersmith, London to a Pakistani father and an Indo-Kenyan mother.^[1]

Akhtar was privately educated at Cheltenham College^[2] He completed a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree at Oxford Brookes University, after which he decided to follow his passion and change to acting, training at the Actors Studio Drama School, part of The New School in New York City.^[3] While travelling to New York to audition for the New School, Akhtar was detained and questioned by the FBI at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport after a tip-off from security staff at Heathrow Airport in London, who had mistaken him for a suspect on a security watchlist circulated after the September 11 attacks.^[4] He says that this experience has informed the acting roles which he has chosen.^[5]

Akhtar began his acting career performing at the Half Moon Theatre in London.^[6] His first major film role was as the bumbling Muslim extremist Faisal in Chris Morris's film Four Lions (2010).^[7][8] Other comedic performances include Gupta in The Angelos Epithemiou Show,^[9] as Maroush alongside Sacha Baron Cohen in The Dictator (2012),^[9] and Smee in Joe Wright 's Pan (2015).^[10]

In 2014, Akhtar was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Wilson Wilson on Channel 4's Utopia.^[11] He played shopkeeper Ahmed alongside Toby Jones in the BBC mini-series Capital (2015),^[12] and DS Ira King in the BBC's River.^[13]

In 2016, Akhtar appeared as Shahzad in the BBC one-off drama Murdered by My Father, for which, he won the 2017 BAFTA award for Lead Actor.^[14] thus becoming the first non-white best actor bafta winner.^[15] In 2017, he also took part in the American romantic comedy film playing the role of the protagonist's brother, Naveed, in The Big Sick (2017),^[16] and appeared as Mohammed Bakhsh in Victoria & Abdul (2017).^[16] He appeared as Rob Singhal in the BBC miniseries based on John le Carré's The Night Manager.^[17] He played Barry Shaw for 2 seasons of Ghosted (2017–2018).^[16]

In 2019, Akhtar appeared as Billy in the BBC Three series, Back to Life,^[18] written by Daisy Haggard and Laura Solon, returning in 2021 for the second series.^[18] He played Inspector Lestrade in the film Enola Holmes (2020).^[16] in 2022, he was for BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for playing Ali in Ali & Ava (2021).^[19]

In 2024, Akhtar appeared as Sam Malik in the second series of BBC drama Showtrial.^[20] He played DS Sami Kierce alongside Michelle Keegan in the Netflix series Fool Me Once (2024).^[21]

In 2025 he starred as Hamza in 8 episodes of Down Cemetery Road.^[16]

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

In 2016, Akhtar became a paton of the Half Moon Theatre, Whitechapel.^[6]

Film

More information Year, Title ...

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2008	Traitor	Hamzi
2010	Four Lions	Faisal
	Side by Side	Isaac	Short film
	Stranger Things	Mani	[22]
2012	The Dictator	Maroush
2013	Jadoo	Vinod
	Convenience	Shaan
	The Cost of Living	Jimmy	Short films
	Keeping Up with the Joneses	Jerry
2014	War Book	Mo
2015	Pan	Smee
2016	The Big Return of Ray Lamere	Ray	Short film
2017	The Big Sick	Naveed
	Hampstead	Wiggin
	Victoria & Abdul	Mohammed Bakhsh
2018	Swimming with Men	Kurt
	The Therapist	Adam	Short film
2019	Murder Mystery	Maharajah Vikram Govindan
	The Show	Carpenter
2020	The Nest	Steve
	Enola Holmes	Inspector Lestrade
2021	Ali & Ava	Ali	Nominated - British Academy Film Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
	Everybody's Talking About Jamie	Iman Masood
	The Electrical Life of Louis Wain	Dan Rider
	Robin Robin	Dad Mouse (voice)	Short film
2022	Save the Cinema	Mayor Tom
	Enola Holmes 2	Inspector Lestrade
2023	Murder Mystery 2	Maharajah Vikram Govindan	[23]
	F.O.G	Sanjay	Short films
	The Puppet Asylum	The Narrator
	The Walk	Amar
TBA	Elsinore †	TBA

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Television

More information Year, Title ...

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2002	Let's Roll: The Story of Flight 93	Hijacker Saeed Al Ghamdi	Television film
2006	Law & Order: Criminal Intent	Hazim	Episode: "Dollhouse"
	Conviction	Dr. Darpan Banerjee	Episode: "Downhill"
2010	Angelos Epithemiou's Moving On	Gupta	5 episodes
2011	Coming Up	Hasan	Episode: "Hooked"
	Comedy Showcase	Gupta	Episode: "The Angelos Neil Epithemou Show"
2013	Trollied	Ray	Series 3; 13 episodes
	The Tunnel	Anwar Rashid	Episode #1.7
	Coming Up	Baz	Episode: "Doughnuts"
2013–2014	The Job Lot	George Dhot	9 episodes
	Utopia	Wilson Wilson	11 episodes Nominated – British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actor[24]
2015	River	Detective Sergeant Ira King	Mini-series. 6 episodes
	Capital[12]	Ahmed Kamal	3 episodes
2016	The Night Manager[25]	Rob Singhal	5 episodes
	Murdered by My Father	Shahzad	Television film Won – British Academy Television Award for Best Actor
	Flowers	Doctor	Episode #1.4
	The Circuit	Gabe	Television films
	The Last Dragonslayer	Mr. Brittles
2017	Unforgotten	Hassan Mahmoud	Series 2; 6 episodes
	Apple Tree Yard	Jaspreet	Mini-series. 2 episodes
2017–2018	Ghosted	Barry Shaw	Main cast. 16 episodes
2018	Fairy Job	Magical Ahmed	Mini-series. 3 episodes
	Counterpart	Casper	2 episodes
2018–2019	Les Misérables	Monsieur Thénardier	6 episodes
2019–2021	Back to Life	Billy	11 episodes
2019–2022	Killing Eve	Martin	5 episodes
2021–2024	Sweet Tooth	Aditya Singh	Main role. 23 episodes Nominated – Children's and Family Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Performance (2022) Won - Children's and Family Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Performance (2023)
2022	Sherwood	Andy Fisher	Main cast. 5 episodes Won – British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actor
2024	Fool Me Once	DS Sami Kierce	Mini-series. Main cast. 8 episodes [21]
	Showtrial	Sam Malik	Series 2
	Black Doves	Prime Minister Richard Eaves	Co-starring
2025	Down Cemetery Road	Hamza	8 episodes
2026	Who Do You Think You Are?	Himself	One episode[26]

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Stage

• 2008: Zero as The Colonel (Theatre Absolute)
• 2008: In My Name as Zaeem (Old Red Lion & Trafalgar Studios)
• 2009: Wuthering Heights as Yusuf (Tamasha Theatre Company)
• 2010: Satyagraha (Ensemble) (Improbable theatre)
• 2011–2012: Hamlet as Guildenstern and Francisco (Young Vic Theatre)
• 2024: The Cherry Orchard as Lopakhin (Donmar Warehouse)
• 2025: The Cherry Orchard as Lopakhin (St. Ann's Warehouse)

In January 2026, Akhtar was interviewed by Lauren Laverne as a castaway on the BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs.^[2] Akhtar's other awards and honours include: