Adeel Hamayun Akhtar (born 18 September 1980) is a British actor. He won the 2017 British Academy Television Award for Best Actor for his role in Murdered by My Father (2016); He received the British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Sherwood (2022); He won the Children's and Family Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Performance for his role in Sweet Tooth (2022).
Other credits include Four Lions (2010), The Dictator (2012), Pan (2015), Murdered by My Father (2016), Victoria & Abdul (2017), The Night Manager (2016), Ghosted (2017–2018),
Back to Life (2019), Enola Holmes (2020), Ali & Ava (2021), Showtrial (2024), Fool Me Once (2024), and Down Cemetery Road (2025).
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Early life and education
Adeel Hamayun Akhtar was born in Hammersmith, London to a Pakistani father and an Indo-Kenyan mother.
Akhtar was privately educated at Cheltenham College. He completed a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree at Oxford Brookes University, after which he decided to train in acting at the Actors Studio Drama School, part of The New School in New York City. 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. He says that this experience has informed the acting roles he has chosen.
Career
Akhtar began his acting career performing at the Half Moon Theatre in London. His first major film role was as the bumbling Muslim extremist Faisal in Chris Morris's film Four Lions (2010). Other comedic performances include Gupta in The Angelos Epithemiou Show, as Maroush alongside Sacha Baron Cohen in The Dictator (2012), and Smee in Joe Wright 's Pan (2015).
In 2014, Akhtar was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Wilson Wilson on Channel 4's Utopia. He played shopkeeper Ahmed alongside Toby Jones in the BBC mini-series Capital (2015), and DS Ira King in the BBC's River.
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. He was the first non-white best actor BAFTA winner. In 2017, he took part in an American romantic comedy film, playing the role of the protagonist's brother, Naveed, in The Big Sick (2017), and appeared as Mohammed Bakhsh in Victoria & Abdul (2017). He appeared as Rob Singhal in the BBC miniseries based on John le Carré's The Night Manager. He played Barry Shaw for 2 seasons of Ghosted (2017–2018).
In 2019, Akhtar appeared as Billy in the BBC Three series, Back to Life, written by Daisy Haggard and Laura Solon, returning in 2021 for the second series. He played Inspector Lestrade in the film Enola Holmes (2020). in 2022, he was for BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for playing Ali in Ali & Ava (2021).
In 2024, Akhtar appeared as Sam Malik in the second series of BBC drama Showtrial. He played DS Sami Kierce alongside Michelle Keegan in the Netflix series Fool Me Once (2024).
In 2025 he starred as Hamza in 8 episodes of Down Cemetery Road.
Other activities
In 2016, Akhtar became a patron of the Half Moon Theatre, Whitechapel.
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)
Awards and honours
In January 2026, Akhtar was interviewed by Lauren Laverne as a castaway on the BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs. Akhtar's other awards and honours include: