麻豆社

Adeel Akhtar is an award-winning actor whose breakthrough role came in 2010 when he starred in Chris Morris鈥檚 black comedy Four Lions.

He won his first BAFTA for Best Actor in 2017 for his role in the 麻豆社 drama Murdered by My Father. His second, for Best Supporting Actor, came in 2023 playing Andy Fisher in the 麻豆社 series Sherwood.

Adeel was born in Hounslow in West London and grew up in Buckinghamshire. He discovered a love of acting at school when he and a group of friends put on a production of Harold Pinter鈥檚 play The Homecoming. He read law at university but in 2002 followed his true passion and took a drama course at The Actors Studio in New York.

He got his first screen part playing one of the four hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93 in the television docudrama Let鈥檚 Roll: the Story of Flight 93. He has gone on to stretch his talents playing roles in the television series Fool Me Once, The Night Manager and Killing Eve. More recently he appeared on stage in The Cherry Orchard and a new play called The Empire.

Adeel lives in London with his wife, documentary maker Alexis Burke, and their two children.

DISC ONE: The Weight - Aretha Franklin
DISC TWO: Jamaica Farewell - Harry Belafonte
DISC THREE: Danny Nedelko - Idles
DISC FOUR: First Big Weekend - Arab Strap
DISC FIVE: After Hours - Velvet Underground
DISC SIX: Time to Pretend - MGMT
DISC SEVEN: People鈥檚 Faces - Kae Tempest
DISC EIGHT: Do You Realize?? - The Flaming Lips

BOOK CHOICE: A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by George Saunders
LUXURY ITEM: A solar-powered air fryer
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Do You Realize?? - The Flaming Lips

Presenter: Lauren Laverne
Producer: Paula McGinley

Desert Island Discs has cast many actors away to the island over the years including Cillian Murphy, Stephen Graham, Lesley Manville and Helen McCrory. Adeel鈥檚 friend Meera Syall is in our archive too. You can hear their programmes if you search through 麻豆社 Sounds or our own Desert Island Discs website.