Adeel Akhtar, actor
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 15 February 2026
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Adeel Akhtar is an award-winning actor whose breakthrough role came in 2010 when he starred in Chris Morris’s black comedy Four Lions.
He won his first BAFTA for Best Actor in 2017 for his role in the BBC drama Murdered by My Father. His second, for Best Supporting Actor, came in 2023 playing Andy Fisher in the BBC 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’s 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’s 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 Estate.
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’s 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’s friend Meera Syall is in our archive too. You can hear their programmes if you search through BBC Sounds or our own Desert Island Discs website.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. |
| 0:05.6 | Oh, hello. You have chosen a BBC podcast, but before you listen to it, we thought you might like our podcast too. |
| 0:12.1 | You might. You might. It is called Sightraught with me, Nick Grimshaw. |
| 0:15.2 | And me, Annie Mack. And we talk about the week in music. |
| 0:18.2 | All the news, all the cultural happenings in the UK and beyond, |
| 0:22.2 | and great guests. And it's on BBC Sounds. Yes, where you can also enjoy lots of playlists, |
| 0:27.7 | music mixes and live radio, everything from my six music breakfast show to Radio 3 Unwind. |
| 0:34.5 | But obviously start with our podcast, sidetrack. Obviously. Obviously. |
| 0:40.1 | So if you like music, listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:44.8 | Hello, I'm Lauren Levern, and this is the Desert Island Disc's podcast from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:52.1 | Every week, I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. |
| 0:55.6 | For rights reasons, the music's shorter than on the original broadcast, |
| 0:59.4 | but you can find a version with longer music tracks on BBC Sounds. |
| 1:04.0 | Listeners will also get access to episodes 28 days earlier than everyone else. |
| 1:05.2 | I hope you enjoy listening. Music My castaway this week is the actor Adielle Actor. He's a double BAFTA winner who made history |
| 1:32.4 | with his first award, the first person of colour, to take home the best actor prize. In acting circles, |
| 1:37.9 | he's known as ideal actor because of his versatility and ability to play ordinary people |
| 1:43.2 | dealing with profound experiences. |
| 1:45.8 | His on-screen CV CV, includes roles in some of the biggest TV hits of recent times, |
| 1:50.7 | Harlan Coben's addictive Fool Me Once, the BBC dramas Sherwood, the Night Manager and Killing Eve, |
| 1:56.5 | and playing the British Prime Minister in the Netflix hit series Black Doves. |
| 2:01.3 | He's also starred in films including Four Lions, the critically acclaimed Allianava, |
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