Rami Malek

Rami Malek
Malek at the premiere of Larry Crowne (2011)
Born	Rami Said Malek May 12, 1981[1] Los Angeles, California, United States
Education	Bachelor of Fine Arts
Alma mater	University of Evansville
Occupation	Actor
Years active	2004–present

Rami Malek (Arabic: رامي سعيد مالك‎) (born May 12, 1981) is an American actor of Egyptian heritage. He is best known for playing the lead role of Elliot Alderson in the critically acclaimed USA Network television series Mr. Robot, for which he won a Critics' Choice Award and received nominations for a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Malek has also portrayed notable characters in film and television such as King Ahkmenrah in Night at the Museum trilogy, Fox comedy series The War at Home (2005–07), HBO miniseries The Pacific (2010), Larry Crowne (2011), Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master (2012), independent film Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013) and the critically praised dramatic film Short Term 12 (2013).

Early life

Malek was born in Los Angeles, California, to Egyptian parents. ^[2] His father was a tour guide in Cairo.^[3] Malek has an identical twin brother named Sami; Rami is the older twin by four minutes. He also has an older sister. Malek attended Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, California where he graduated in 1999 along with fellow actress Rachel Bilson.^[4] He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2003 from the University of Evansville in Evansville, Indiana. ^[5]

Career

Malek at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con International.

In 2004, Malek began his acting career with a guest-starring role on the TV series Gilmore Girls. That same year he worked voicing "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.^[6] That same year, he appeared in an episode of Medium, and was cast as the prominent recurring role of Kenny, on the Fox comedy series The War at Home.^[7][8]

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.^[7][9]

In 2010, Malek returned to television in a recurring role as the Egyptian American suicide bomber Marcos Al-Zacar on the eighth season of the Fox series 24. Later that same year, he received critical acclaim for his portrayal of Corporal Merriell "Snafu" Shelton on the Emmy Award-winning HBO World War II mini-series The Pacific.^{[10][11][12][13][14]}

During filming of The Pacific, Malek met executive producer Tom Hanks, who was impressed with his performance and would later cast him as college student Steve Dibiasi in the feature film Larry Crowne, released in July 2011.^[10][11][13] In August 2010 it was announced that Malek had been cast as the Egyptian vampire Benjamin in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2.^[15][16][17]

Malek plays the lead role in the critically acclaimed USA Network computer-hacker psychological drama, Mr. Robot, which premiered on June 24, 2015. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, a Satellite Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and two Dorian Awards. He won a Critic's Choice Television Award.

He appears as one of the main characters (Josh) in Until Dawn, a 2015 horror game released on the Playstation 4 on August 25. He lent his voice and was fully motion captured for the game.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2006	Night at the Museum	King Ahkmenrah
2009	Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
2011	Larry Crowne	Steve Dibiasi
2012	Battleship	Lt. Hill
2012	The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2	Benjamin
2012	The Master	Clark
2013	Ain't Them Bodies Saints	Will
2013	Short Term 12	Nate
2013	Oldboy	Browning
2014	Need for Speed	Finn
2014	Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb	King Ahkmenrah
2014	Da Sweet Blood of Jesus	Seneschal Higginbottom
2017	Buster's Mal Heart	TBA	Post-production, leading role

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2004	Gilmore Girls	Andy	Episode: "In the Clamor and the Clangor"
2005	Over There	Hassan	2 episodes
2005	Medium	Timothy Kercher	Episode: "Time Out of Mind"
2005–2007	The War at Home	Kenny	21 episodes
2010	24	Marcos Al-Zacar	Guest star, 3 episodes of season 8
2010	The Pacific	Merriell "Snafu" Shelton	6 episodes
2012	Alcatraz	Webb Porter	Episode: "Webb Porter"
2012	The Legend of Korra	Tahno (voice)	3 episodes
2014	Believe	Dr. Adam Terry	Episode: "Pilot"
2015–present	Mr. Robot	Elliot Alderson	Lead role, 10 episodes

Voice acting

Year	Title	Voice role	Notes
2004	Halo 2	Additional voices	Uncredited
2014	The Legend of Korra	Tahno
2015	Until Dawn[18]	Joshua "Josh" Washington

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Title	Result	Ref.
2016	Critics' Choice Television Award	Best Actor in a Drama Series	Mr. Robot	Won	[19]
	Golden Globe Award	Best Actor – Television Series Drama		Nominated	[20]
	Satellite Award	Best Actor – Television Series Drama		Nominated	[21]
	Screen Actors Guild Award	Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series		Nominated	[22]
	Dorian Awards	TV Performance of the Year - Actor		Nominated	[23]
		"We're Wilde About You!" Rising Star Award		Nominated

References

1. "Person Details for Rami Said Malek, "California Birth Index, 1905-1995"". familysearch.org.
2. Willmore, Alison (August 26, 2015). "The Hacker Heartthrob From Mr. Robot Who Owned Summer TV". BuzzFeed. Retrieved August 26, 2015.
3. Drumming, Neil (August 28, 2015). "Looking Back on Mr. Robot and a Season of Hacker Drama". The New York Times.
4. "Notre Dame High School 1999 Activ Alumns". ndhs.org. Retrieved April 10, 2016.
5. "Local Stars: Film and TV stars who lived and breathed Evansville at some point in their lives". Evansville Living. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
6. Moynihan, Rob (January 18, 2016). "How I Got My SAG-AFTRA Card", TV Guide. p. 12.
7. "Interview with Rami Malek of The War at Home". AfterElton.com. Retrieved January 6, 2011.
8. "Interview with Rami Malek of The War at Home". Starry Constellation. Retrieved January 6, 2011.
9. "The Credeaux Canvas". Backstage. Retrieved January 6, 2011.
10. "Rami Malek Matures With War Role". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved January 6, 2011.
11. "The Verge: Rami Malek". Movie Line. Retrieved January 6, 2011.
12. "Interview: Rami Malek – The Pacific". Entertainment Focus. Archived from the original on December 15, 2010. Retrieved January 6, 2011.
13. "The Pacific star Rami Malek has friends in high places". Cineplex.com. Retrieved January 6, 2011.
14. "Q&A With Actor Rami Malek – The Pacific". Criticize This!. Archived from the original on November 14, 2010. Retrieved January 6, 2011.
15. "Breaking Dawn Casting News: Rami Malek To Play Benjamin". Hollywood Crush. MTV.com. Retrieved January 6, 2011.
16. "Rami Malek Joins Summit's Twilight Sequel Breaking Dawn". The Wrap. Retrieved January 6, 2011.
17. "Rami Malek joins Breaking Dawn". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved January 6, 2011.
18. Pete Samuels (12 August 2014). "Until Dawn unveiled for PS4 at Gamescom 2014". PlayStation.Blog.Europe.
19. Mitovich, Matt Webb (January 17, 2016). "Critics' Choice Awards: TV Winners Include Fargo, Mr. Robot, Master of None, Rachel Bloom and Carrie Coon". TVLine. Retrieved January 18, 2016.
20. Mitovich, Matt Webb (January 10, 2016). "Golden Globes: Mr. Robot and Mozart Win Big; Taraji P. Henson, Lady Gaga, Jon Hamm, Rachel Bloom Grab Gold". TVLine. Retrieved January 12, 2016.
21. Ausiello, Michael (December 9, 2015). "SAG Awards: Game of Thrones, Homeland, House of Cards Lead Noms; Empire, Inside Amy Schumer Shut Out; Mr. Robot's Rami Malek Sneaks In". TVLine. Retrieved December 9, 2015.
22. "Satellite Awards (2015)". International Press Academy. December 1, 2015. Retrieved December 9, 2015.
23. "'Carol' Earns Multiple Mentions as Dorian Award Nominees Are Unveiled". January 12, 2016. Retrieved February 25, 2016.

External links

• Rami Malek at the Internet Movie Database
• Rami Malek on Twitter