Riz Ahmed shares family’s hilariously underwhelmed response to Oscar nomination

Actor received nod for role as musician who suffers hearing loss in Sound of Metal

Riz Ahmed has shared his family’s unimpressed reaction to his Oscar nomination.

The star received a nod in the Best Actor in a Leading Role category for the film Sound of Metal, in which he plays a heavy-metal drummer whose life is thrown into freefall when he begins to lose his hearing.

Ahmed’s family, as it turns out, was pretty underwhelmed by the nomination.

“My cousin Adnan legit didn’t know what the Oscars were,” tweeted Ahmed. “’Why all the gas? I won best client engagement award for the financial quarter.’ Other cousin steps in ‘Na it’s not as big as that, cos he didn’t win anything. It’s more like getting an email from your boss.’ Thanks, boss.”

The actor will need to beat off competition from fellow nominees Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom), Anthony Hopkins (The Father), Gary Oldman (Mank) and Steven Yeun (Minari) for the prize.

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The 2021 Oscars ceremony will take place on 25 April in LA’s Union Station, with part of the ceremony also being held in the regular Dolby Theatre venue.

Nominees for this year’s Academy Awards ceremony will not be allowed to attend via video chat, it was recently revealed.

Deadline published a letter sent to this year’s nominees from the show’s producers, which said: “For those of you unable to attend because of scheduling or continued uneasiness about traveling, we want you to know there will not be an option to Zoom in for the show.

“We are going to great lengths to provide a safe and ENJOYABLE evening for all of you in person, as well as for all the millions of film fans around the world, and we feel the virtual thing will diminish those efforts.”