When Riz Ahmed first showed up in the 2014 thriller Nightcrawler, it was the sort of big-screen baptism that makes you sit up and say, Whos that guy? Playing a hard-up hopeful who finds cheap work assisting a bug-eyed Los Angeles crime videographer (Jake Gyllenhaal), Ahmed capitalized on his youthfulness to infuse the role with a frenzied naivet. The London-born actor was so alive on-screen that his career prospects already seemed blessed.

And indeed they were. Between 2016 and 2018, he appeared in The Night Of, Jason Bourne, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story , Girls , The Sisters Brothers and Venom, all while continuing the hip-hop pursuits hed begun as a teenager. Now, 38-year-old Ahmed has submitted his richest performance to date, portraying a sober drummer who abruptly loses his hearing in Sound of Metal , which premiered last week on Amazon Prime Video.

Becoming Ruben Stone, one-half of the fictional punk-metal duo Blackgammon, was a tall order. Ahmed spent seven months learning to play the drums and use American sign language. That daunting process comprised the most preparation hes ever done for a role, Ahmed said in a recent phone interview, but he still barely had enough time to master either skill.

When the movie begins, Ruben and his bandmate-girlfriend Lou (Olivia Cooke) are on tour, living out of a shared RV and seeking sanctuary from their troubled pasts. Without warning, Rubens auditory faculties falter, potentially robbing him of his passion. Worried the stress might push Ruben back to using heroin, Lou insists he spend some time at a home for deaf former addicts run by a gentle but strict Vietnam War veteran (Paul Raci). There, Ruben digests his reality.