Rami Malek Biography

Rami Malek () (born May 12, 1981) is an American actor. 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. His father was a tour guide in Cairo. 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. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2003 from the University of Evansville in Evansville, Indiana.

Career

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. 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.

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.

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.

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. In August 2010 it was announced that Malek had been cast as the Egyptian vampire Benjamin in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2.

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	'	Benjamin
2012	'	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	'	Kenny	21 episodes
2010	24	Marcos Al-Zacar	Guest star, 3 episodes of season 8
2010	'	Merriell "Snafu" Shelton	6 episodes
2012	Alcatraz	Webb Porter	Episode: "Webb Porter"
2012	'	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	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
	Golden Globe Award	Best Actor - Television Series Drama
	Satellite Award	Best Actor - Television Series Drama
	Screen Actors Guild Award	Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series
	Dorian Awards	TV Performance of the Year - Actor
		"We're Wilde About You!" Rising Star Award