Riz Ahmed is married to novelist Fatima Farheen Mirza.

Riz Ahmed

Riz Ahmed

The 38-year-old actor let slip earlier this week he had recently tied the knot, and he has now revealed further details of his nuptials, which were "super intimate and socially distanced" amid the coronavirus pandemic, and he was glad not to have "500 aunties" in attendance.

He said: "Obviously, kept it super intimate, and socially distanced. There was just like, hardly anyone there really.

"We did it in a backyard, which is nice in lots of ways.

"I think the nicest thing about it was you didn't have 500 aunties hanging around you, pinching your cheeks."

The 'Four Lions' star joked: "No disrespect to the aunties, but Asian weddings are big.

"You always got these people crawling out the woodworks, who I think are kind of probably imposters.

"They just smell the kebabs on the street and just wander in."

Riz admitted he didn't intend to keep his wedding a secret, it just hadn't come up in conversation before.

He said: "It's a weird one, isn't it? I guess because we live in a social media age if you don't, like, get on the megaphone about stuff it's like, it's a secret - but I never know how much is oversharing.

"Like, I'm into matcha lattes, but that's just never come up. I'm not a secret matcha latte drinker."

Riz met Fatima, 30, while he was preparing for his role as a deaf heavy metal drummer in 2019 movie 'Sound of Metal', and admitted the period around the motion picture was "life-changing" for him.  

Speaking on 'The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon', he added: "She’s an amazing novelist. We met so randomly while I was preparing for this role, for 'Sound Of Metal' when I was in New York.

"We both sat down at the same table in the cafe where we both turned up to write. We were both jostling over the same laptop plug points, like a very modern way of meeting.

"And we struck up a friendship and reconnected down the line. But it’s weirdly like one of the many things about preparing for this role that was so special, it just brought a lot of goodness into my life.

"Obviously I met Fatima for the first time and met so many people in the deaf community that have become friends.

"There’s just something about this whole period around this film that was kind of life changing."

Riz's comments come after he revealed earlier this week he hadn't been married "very long".

Speaking on Louis Theroux's podcast 'Grounded', he said: "Not very long actually, I think it’s the first time I've ever mentioned it in an interview. So, congratulations on this incredibly exciting scoop!"


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