Oscar-winning actor Riz Ahmed has claimed British spies tried to recruit him on three separate occasions - including one who was 'high up at the BBC'.

The 43-year-old British Pakistani has appeared in a number of politically charged films over the years, playing a man falsely accused of terrorism in The Road to Guantanamo and one of four hapless would-be suicide bombers in Four Lions.

In a recent interview with the journalist Mehdi Hasan - with whom he went to school - Ahmed revealed that the nature of some of his roles had brought him to the keen attention of British intelligence services.

He told Mr Hasan's Zeteo platform: 'Well, it’s happened three different times and they’re all slightly ridiculous, and this is what I mean by it, it’s just like inherently comedic.

'One was when I came back from my first film, The Road to Guantanamo, we landed at Luton Airport celebrating.

'They took me into a side room, put me in an arm lock, threatened to break my arm, took my phone, were pretending to bash the buttons, accidentally changed the language to Danish, and then kind of like, were like: "Did you become an actor to further the Muslim struggle?"

'I was like: "This is hilarious." And then when I finished that, they were like: "OK. Would you like to keep an eye out for us, cause it was really great the way you were answering those questions?" [I said] No thank you.' 

Ahmed, who won a short film Academy Award in 2022 for The Long Goodbye, said he was also approached by someone much closer to home - as well as a top broadcasting executive he did not name.

He said of alleged attempts to recruit him: 'Second time was through a family friend, that was a bit like: "Oh, sugar...that's what's going on there." 

'And the third time was someone senior, high up at the BBC. Someone who's just left the BBC.'

Mr Hasan joked: 'How do we know you didn't accept any of these? You tell everyone all three times they tried to recruit [you], you don't mention which of the three times you accepted.'

Ahmed made the allegations as he promoted his new Amazon Prime series Bait, which follows a struggling British-Pakistani actor who is approached by MI5 while auditioning for the role of James Bond.

The series is, he said, heavily inspired by his own life - including his introduction to the real-life world of espionage.

It is also one of the first Bond-themed productions from Amazon after it acquired the rights to the franchise in February 2025 for a reported $1billion; reports suggest the search for Daniel Craig's replacement is now officially underway.

Asked if he could play Bond for real, Ahmed joked: 'I decided to drop a very subtle hint by making a TV show about an actor auditioning to be James Bond and making it for Amazon MGM. Inception.'

The actor, who studied at Oxford, began his film career with 2006's The Road to Guantanamo, in which he played one of the 'Tipton Three' - a trio of British Muslims falsely accused of terror offences by US authorities and detained for two years. 

It was upon his return from the film's premiere at the Berlin Film Festival that he and three of his co-stars were detained at Luton and questioned about their political affiliations, alongside two of the real falsely accused men.

Bedfordshire Police said at the time that the sextet had been questioned under counter-terror laws, adding: 'Part of the counter-terrorism act allows us to stop and examine people if something happens that might be suspicious.'

Ahmed would later appear in Four Lions, the darkly satirical film about four British Muslims that was described by its creator, the comedy writer Chris Morris, as exposing the 'Dad's Army side of terrorism'.

He has since appeared in Star Wars prequel film Rogue One, comic book blockbuster Venom and Sound of Metal, in which he played a drummer with hearing loss. Ahmed became the first ever Muslim to be nominated for Best Actor for the role. 

Ahmed also led a modern-day British-South Asian re-imagining of Shakespeare tragedy Hamlet last year which was well-received by critics.