Riz Ahmed has revealed that he has lost two members of his family to coronavirus in a new interview.

The Rogue One: A Star Wars Story actor gave his thoughts on the current pandemic and how society has reacted to it.

However, Ahmed also spoke about the personal toll that coronavirus has taken on both him and his family, telling GQ Hype: “I have lost two family members to Covid. I just want to believe their deaths and all the others aren’t for nothing. We gotta step up to re-imagine a better future.”

The star compared the crisis to an “alien invasion”, musing: “It’s bringing humanity together against the common enemy. So there is this potential for this momentous, unique-in-the-history-of-our-species moment, of us all going through this crazy challenge together and only being able to get through this together.

“And yet, in the midst of that, insofar as any crisis is a mirror, reflecting your priorities and patterns, this crisis is reflecting and revealing the fault lines in our society, the broken records that are stuck in our head, the fuckeries and the power plays that are still dominating how we are running our planet, the rising intolerance.”

Expanding on how it has been handled in Britain and around the world, Ahmed lamented the rise of authoritarianism and discrimination.

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However, he expressed hope that the crisis will lead to a better society, continuing: “Who are the people who, for every moment of crisis in this country, have kept this country together? It’s the people at the bottom of the barrel; the people being hit hardest by this pandemic.

“We say we love the NHS more than the Royal Family, more than the army, but do we love the people who keep the NHS alive? Because every time we tell people to fuck off back to where they came from, that’s not what we’re saying.

“So I really hope that this revelation, this awakening, opens our minds to that reality, to the stupidity of our prejudice. But I’m also very aware of people using it to their own ends.

“It does feel like a global reset for our economy, for our spirituality, for our politics. It can be overwhelming to go about laying the foundations for a fairer, balanced, sustainable world for the planet. That’s the macro.”