Watch ‘Rogue One’ Star Riz Ahmed’s Epic ‘Star Wars’ Rap on ‘Fallon’
Rogue One star Riz Ahmed has moonlighted as a rapper throughout his acting career. On Wednesday, he combined both interests in an epic Star Wars-themed freestyle on The Tonight Show. Using the show’s random word generator, Ahmed was given three Star Wars words — “Yoda,” “Darth Vader” and “Lando Calrissian” — to work into the verse.
“The beat’s stripped back, like it’s wearing a toga/ The Roots do a lot with a little just like Yoda,” Ahmed rapped. He then worked in a couplet about a cheeky rendezvous between Jimmy Fallon and Princess Leia that ended with, “But Leia’s a heartbreaker/ Left him out of breath, he was wheezing like Darth Vader.” Ahmed slipped in a Donald Trump burn tied to a “Galaxy far, far away” reference, then closed with the kicker: “To the Star Wars fans listening/ We won’t let you down like Lando Calrissian.”
Ahmed also spoke about how persistence helped him land the Rogue One role. When Director Gareth Edwards sent him script pages, Ahmed recorded and sent back 14 different audition tapes. “I woke up the next day and there wasn’t a reply, so I thought, ‘I should send him some more,'” Ahmed laughed.
“[Edwards] called me a few weeks later – it was a pretty tense few weeks, I was like I’ve really screwed this up – and said, ‘I’m not gonna take out a restraining order, I’m gonna put you in the film.'” Rogue One is in theaters December 16th.