Biography
Date of Birth
12 December 1981, Los Angeles, California, USA
Birth Name
Rami Said Malek
Height
5' 7½" (1.71 m)
Mini Biography
Rami Said Malek (born May 12, 1981) is an American actor. He won a Critics' Choice Award and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for his lead role as Elliot Alderson in the USA Network television series Mr. Robot. He also received Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, and TCA Award nominations.
Malek has acted in supporting roles for other film and television series such as Night at the Museum trilogy, Fox comedy series The War at Home (2005-2007), HBO miniseries The Pacific (2010), Larry Crowne (2011), Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master (2012), The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 (2012), the independent film Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013) and the dramatic film Short Term 12 (2013). He was also in the video-game Until Dawn (2015) as Joshua "Josh" Washington. Malek is set to portray musician Freddie Mercury in the upcoming biographical drama Bohemian Rhapsody (2018).
Rami Said Malek was born in Los Angeles, to an Egyptian Coptic Orthodox family. His late father was a tour guide in Cairo who later sold insurance. His mother is an accountant. Malek was raised in the Coptic Orthodox faith. Malek has an identical twin brother named Sami, younger by four minutes, who is a teacher, and an older sister, Yasmine, who is a medical doctor. Malek attended Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, California, where he graduated in 1999 along with actress Rachel Bilson. Malek attended high school with Kirsten Dunst, who was a grade below and shared a musical theater class with him. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2003 from the University of Evansville in Evansville, Indiana.
In 2004, Malek began his acting career with a guest-starring role on the TV series Gilmore Girls. That same year he voiced "additional characters" for the video game Halo 2, for which he was uncredited. In 2005, he got his Screen Actors Guild card for his work on the Steven Bochco war drama Over There, in which he appeared in two episodes. That same year, he appeared in an episode of Medium and was cast in the prominent recurring role of Kenny, on the Fox comedy series The War at Home. In 2006, Malek made his feature film debut as Pharaoh Ahkmenrah in the comedy Night at the Museum and reprised his role in the sequels Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009) and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014). In the spring of 2007, he appeared on-stage as "Jamie" in the Vitality Productions theatrical presentation of Keith Bunin's The Credeaux Canvas at the Elephant Theatre in Los Angeles.
Since 2015 he has played the lead role in the USA Network computer-hacker, psychological drama Mr. Robot. His performance earned him nominations for the Dorian Award, Satellite Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award, as well as wins in the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series and Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.
In September 2016, Buster's Mal Heart, the first movie in which Malek plays a starring role, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival to positive reviews. In it, Malek plays one man with two lives, Jonah and Buster. In August 2016, it was announced that Malek will co-star with Charlie Hunnam as Louis Dega in a contemporary remake of the 1973 film Papillon. Papillon premiered September 2017 at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. In November 2016, it was announced that Malek will star as Freddie Mercury in the upcoming Queen biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, to be released on November 2, 2018. In February 2017, Malek won the Young Alumnus Award from his alma mater, University of Evansville. In 2017, he was invited to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Trivia
Received his BFA from the University of Evansville.
Raised in Los Angeles.
He has an identical twin brother named Sami.
Is good friends with Bassam Habib.
Graduated from Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, in June 1999. Two of his classmates were Rachel Bilson and Taylor Fry. Kirsten Dunst graduated from the same school a year later, and Katharine McPhee graduated three years after Rami.
His parents are Egyptian. He has also said that he has "an eighth Greek" ancestry.
Went to high school with and once dated his Mr. Robot (2015) co-star Christian Slater's stepsister Emily.
Went to high school with Kirsten Dunst, where he was a year ahead. They had a musical theater class together.
His late father was a tour guide in Cairo and later sold insurance. His mother is an accountant.
Received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2003 from the University of Evansville in Evansville, Indiana.
Raised in the Coptic Orthodox faith.
Has also an older sister, who is a medical doctor.
His identical twin brother Sami, who is younger by four minutes, is a teacher.
Attended the worldwide Women's March protest, while he was in Paris, France.
Won the 2019 Golden Globe Award in the Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama category for his role as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody (2018).
He had the Freddie Mercury teeth he wore while filming Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) cast in gold.
Won the 2019 Academy Award in the Best Actor in a leading Role category for his role as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody (2018).
He is, thus far, one of two males born after 1979 to have won an acting Oscar. Eddie Redmayne, who won Best Actor for The Theory of Everything (2014), is the first.
Second actor with ancestry from an Arab country to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. F. Murray Abraham, who won for Amadeus (1984), is the first.
In a relationship with his Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) co-star Lucy Boynton. (January, 2019).
He is the fifth Oscar winning actor to play a villain in a James Bond film after Christopher Walken, Benicio Del Toro, Javier Bardem, and Christoph Waltz.
Almost reprised his role as Freddie Mercury in a cameo appearance in Rocketman (2019), before the producers ultimately decided against it.
Trademarks:
Wide, expressive eyes
Quotes
I'm very fortunate to have the privilege of working with directors like Bill Condon and Paul Thomas Anderson, who I think is one of the greatest filmmakers of our time.
Being on a Paul Thomas Anderson film, the best decision an actor can make is to listen to Paul Thomas Anderson. Because he's probably not going to steer anyone in the wrong direction. I would always say go with your gut on any other movie set, but with Paul, I would say go with Paul's gut.
All you Twilight (2008) fans, can't thank you really enough for being so supportive. You're real cool people.
There's fears in everyone's job. Ours are in the limelight, and people think we're incredibly privileged or nuts to do what we do for a living.
Mara Casey gave me my first job. I saw something online, and it was for a part in a Gilmore Girls (2000) episode, and I thought I was right for it.
I used to spend a lot of time alone as a kid, creating characters and doing voices in my room, and I thought to myself, I'm either going to go absolutely nuts, or I'm going to find something to put that energy into.
Of course I would never compare myself to someone who actually went through a war, but I definitely matured shooting The Pacific (2010). I'm more calm and I have more patience.
My sister is an ER doctor, and my brother is a teacher.
I would say The Master (2012) was one of the most inspiring things I've ever got to work on.
Twilight (2008) fans are different. They're very civil with one another. It's a respect because they're all in this together and they all appreciate the same things.
I don't use emojis. I go vintage.
Not long after The Pacific (2010), I began shooting the comedy Larry Crowne (2011) which was also with Tom Hanks, who also directed and plays the title character.
Everything has become so easy. It's great that it's at your fingertips, but I miss those good old days. And we're connected, but it can be very alienating. There is this distance between all of us because we're speaking to each other through cameras and monitors and icons and Emojis.
It's funny to think that when you get done with an acting job, you're considered unemployed. There are definitely times when those checks don't last forever. I went to college at a private school, and I racked up quite a bit of debt. I was very slow to pay them back.
I'm drawn to projects where I play these really complicated characters, but also where I can have some type of influence on affecting what we see as societal norms.
I think people have a hard time thinking that I could've done a sitcom.
I'm constantly questioning the effects technology has had on our lives and the effect that monetary debt has had on all of us. We keep this as a dark little secret: 'This is how much interest I owe.'
I love film. I've always been enchanted by doing film. It's something I grew up watching - classics and directors I admire - so that's something I've always been passionate about.
People used to think of me as a comedy actor.
I'm just trying to play against ethnicity. I got to play a guy from Louisiana in The Pacific (2010) named Merriell Shelton, and now I'm playing Elliot Alderson.
I get to delve into some of the most creative experience I've had as an actor on Mr. Robot (2015). I think there's a wide opportunity for actors to do that now more so than ever on television.
I always loved Hanks (Tom Hanks) in Philadelphia (1993) and Forrest Gump (1994) and watching how versatile he was. That shaped my impression of what someone was able to do. Of course, everything De Niro (Robert De Niro) came up with was always something I was taken by.
I have to extend my admiration and respect for Sam Esmail, who is a visionary with what he's done with Mr. Robot (2015), and this brilliant resurgence of Christian Slater only helped us get where we are today - very talented individual.
I usually find myself hiking in a place that not a lot of people go hiking, just trying to find some solitude. I like being out in the middle of nowhere. Not always, but it's a good place to go to just reflect and think, and it's something I really enjoy.
On films, you have the liberty of working out the details, the psychology, taking maybe more risks and takes than you can in television just because you can't be figuring things out on the day.
Every guy should be the owner of a really nice pen. When you put your thoughts down, or whenever you're going to share something with someone, it means something if it bleeds out in a nice ink.
When I'm onscreen or acting, I swear, I can listen like nobody's business. I listen so well. Every word. Every action. Every physicality. I have a hard time doing that in real life.
[on performing the Live Aid sequence in Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) on the first day of shooting] It's considered one of the greatest rock performances of all time and in my mind [Freddie Mercury] is the greatest front man that has ever graced the earth, so you can imagine my heart, how fast it was beating on that day. You come out and see that piano that is just shiny and glossy, it has the Pepsi cups on top and everything is recreated so accurately, it's almost surreal, the closest thing to an out of body experience. It was the greatest adrenaline rush you could ever imagine.
I basically asked Sam Esmail, the writer and creator of the show [Mr. Robot (2015)], and now director of the second season, which drugs Elliot was going to do throughout all the seasons and I just started to do whatever he did. [when asked if he was aware that they were live and his admission couldn't be cut from the record] Yeah, that's what I did.
[on Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen] They are beyond classy; they are so sophisticated and elegant and smart, two really brilliant human beings who allowed me to tell the story of their dearest closest friend for the first time.
I never thought that I could possibly play Freddie Mercury until I realized his name was Farrokh Bulsara, and that was the most powerful message that was sent to me from the beginning.
