57 Facts About Rami Malek

1.

Rami Malek is known for portraying computer hacker Elliot Alderson in the USA Network television series Mr Robot, for which he received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, and as Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury in the biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, for which he won the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, and British Academy Film Award for Best Actor.

2.

Rami Malek has received many other accolades, and is the first actor of Egyptian heritage to win the Academy Award for Best Actor.

3.

Rami Malek began his acting career performing plays in New York City theaters before returning to Los Angeles, where he found supporting roles in film and television, including the Fox sitcom The War at Home, the HBO miniseries The Pacific, and the Night at the Museum film trilogy.

4.

Rami Malek has done voicework for television and video games, as well as motion capture for the latter.

5.

Rami Malek's father sold insurance and was a travel agent, while his mother worked as an accountant.

6.

Rami Malek was raised in his family's Coptic Orthodox Christian faith, and spoke Egyptian Arabic at home until the age of four.

7.

Rami Malek has an identical twin brother named Sami, who is younger by four minutes and later became an ESL and English teacher.

8.

Rami Malek's parents emphasized to their children the importance of preserving their Egyptian roots, and his father would wake him up in the middle of the night to talk on the phone to his Arabic-speaking extended family in Samalut.

9.

Rami Malek attended Notre Dame High School, where he was in the same class as actress Rachel Bilson.

10.

Rami Malek is a year older than actress Kirsten Dunst, who attended the school and shared a musical theater class with him.

11.

Rami Malek's parents harbored dreams of him becoming a lawyer, so he joined the debate team in his freshman year.

12.

Rami Malek spent a semester abroad in England, where he studied at Harlaxton College in Harlaxton, Lincolnshire.

13.

Rami Malek considered getting a real estate license instead of pursuing an acting career.

14.

Rami Malek agreed, and the meeting led to him getting his first role in the TV sitcom Gilmore Girls; the episode he acted in first aired in January 2004.

15.

Rami Malek voiced "additional characters" for the video game Halo 2, for which he was uncredited.

16.

In 2006, Rami Malek made his feature film debut as Pharaoh Ahkmenrah in the comedy Night at the Museum.

17.

Rami Malek reprised this role in the sequels Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb.

18.

Rami Malek returned to television in 2010 in a recurring role as the suicide bomber Marcos Al-Zacar on the eighth season of the Fox series 24.

19.

Those opportunities led to Rami Malek securing supporting roles in a series of major films.

20.

Rami Malek appeared in two Spike Lee films during this period, the 2012 remake of the South Korean film Oldboy, in a part that was trimmed significantly, and later in the crowdfunded picture Da Sweet Blood of Jesus.

21.

Rami Malek had minor roles in Battleship, the Oscar-nominated The Master, and Ain't Them Bodies Saints.

22.

Rami Malek appeared as Josh, one of the main characters in Until Dawn, a horror game released for the PlayStation 4 on August 25,2015.

23.

Rami Malek lent his voice and likeness to the character and was fully motion-captured for the game.

24.

Rami Malek's performance earned him nominations for the Dorian Award, Satellite Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award.

25.

Rami Malek won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.

26.

Rami Malek was the first non-white actor to win an Emmy in that category since 1998.

27.

Rami Malek next starred as Louis Dega in Papillon, a remake of the 1973 film, co-starring Charlie Hunnam.

28.

In 2017, Rami Malek joined the cast of the Netflix animated comedy series BoJack Horseman, voicing the character Flip McVicker, a writer who does not trust email.

29.

In 2018, Rami Malek portrayed Freddie Mercury in the Queen biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody.

30.

Rami Malek won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama, the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role, the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role and the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in the film.

31.

In preparation for the role as Mercury, Rami Malek moved to London where he worked with a dialect coach and a movement coach, and took piano and singing lessons.

32.

Rami Malek had to get used to speaking and singing with a set of false teeth that mimicked Mercury's overbite.

33.

Rami Malek considers his role as Mercury the most important of his career, saying:.

34.

In December 2018, it was announced that Rami Malek would produce and star in an eight-episode podcast called Blackout.

35.

Rami Malek voiced Chee-Chee the gorilla in Dolittle, starring Robert Downey Jr.

36.

In May 2019, Rami Malek joined the cast of the crime thriller The Little Things, opposite Denzel Washington and Jared Leto.

37.

Rami Malek is part of the all-star ensemble cast in David O Russell's Amsterdam; the film was produced in early 2021 and was released in October 2022.

38.

In December 2021, Rami Malek was announced as having joined the ensemble cast of Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer.

39.

The fact that Rami Malek got to play the lead character, called Elliot Alderson, in Mr Robot was somewhat of a coup, I think.

40.

Rami Malek has remarked that he enjoys the auditioning process, sees it as a "proving ground to test things out", and has created so many diverse characters for auditions that he wishes he could collect them as a package to show to others.

41.

Rami Malek is portrayed by comedian Pete Davidson in Saturday Night Live sketches parodying the character.

42.

In 2017, Rami Malek accepted an invitation to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, among 774 new members invited as part of the academy's efforts to diversify its members after criticism over the lack of diversity of the 88th Academy Awards.

43.

Director Sam Esmail noted that Rami Malek is often dissatisfied with his work even when the director feels he has completed a perfect take.

44.

Rami Malek lost significant weight to play Elliot Alderson, Freddie Mercury, and Snafu Shelton, where Tom Hanks required that he maintain between six and eight-percent body fat.

45.

Rami Malek noted the most valuable lesson from that experience was learning to distance himself from his characters, otherwise he would not have been able to take on complex roles later in his career, like Elliot Alderson in Mr Robot.

46.

Rami Malek's appearance has inspired commentary in the industry and in the media.

47.

Rami Malek speaks in a slow, just-woke-up drawl that contrasts with his dazzling smile and anything-goes energy.

48.

Rami Malek has garnered attention for his fashion sense, particularly for his bold color choices and "quirky touches".

49.

In September 2018, Rami Malek started working with the organization after being inspired by his Freddie Mercury role.

50.

Rami Malek tends to be reserved in interviews, having mentioned in one of them his desire to stay "anonymous" abroad.

51.

In 2009, Rami Malek moved into a house in the Laurel Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles, alongside his brother.

52.

Rami Malek has been in a relationship with his Bohemian Rhapsody co-star, Lucy Boynton, since 2018.

53.

Rami Malek has been nominated for and won several major industry awards.

54.

Rami Malek won an Academy Award for Best Actor, a Golden Globe for the Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama, the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role, and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performance as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody.

55.

Rami Malek is the first actor of Egyptian heritage to win the Academy Award for Best Actor.

56.

Rami Malek is trying to [spread] homosexuality among the youth.

57.

The organization Human Rights Watch stated that the country deserved an Oscar for hypocrisy for praising Rami Malek, given its prohibition on LGBT people being celebrated in the media.