Conversations with Rami Malek

good afternoon how's everyone today excited this is an impressive showing for a very impressive person as Jesse said I'm Stacey Wilson hunt and entertainment journalist based here in Hollywood and I'm so honored to be here today to speak to Rami so let's bring him to the stage thanks for coming out in the middle of the day I don't expect to see so many of you yes very warm reception tonight how does it feel to get this kind of reception from your fellow actors it's pretty great yeah I don't know who I'd want it more for me oh yeah well yes I think we're all here to hear yes so obviously you're here today in some part in large part because of Bohemian Rhapsody but I would love to dig into the Romi's story an interesting story and you've accomplished so much in such a short period which i think is really part of what's so fascinating about you but you grew up just over the hill in Sherman Oaks yeah yeah sure man I need Sherman Oaks sirs in the house is that what you're called Sherman Oaks sirs I just made that up what was your life like growing up in the valley well Graham does have this funny story Graham King produced Bohemian Rhapsody and one day he he he said - I think Fox and well a number of Studios I found I found our Freddie and you know they said well where did you find your Freddie Mercury in Sherman Oaks unexpected place yeah and they said where is that yeah a bunch of British people going excuse me what were you like as a kid what was I like as a kid I don't know let me now look it's a difficult question what would your parents say I think of it I was very unusual but we could all say we're very I let my imagination run wild because it was going to anyway I didn't indicate it felt like it was bursting to get out and I really didn't know how you know how that was gonna play out in my life but and how did that manifest were you did you put on little plays with you yeah yeah but by myself I was I was a little too reluctant to do it with with other people so it was just kind of like silent theater for myself an audience of one audience of one and some of you may know or not know that he has a twin brother yeah yeah how did that affect your childhood because I find that to be such a fascinating experience that probably very few of us can understand what did that feel like as a kid it was phenomenally well the flood of memories come with it can't be totally easy all the time - I know it's not but at the same time you you grow up and you have you have someone who you can just spend hours alone with in a room while your parents or you know doing their own thing and you just make things up right we didn't we didn't need much we might we kind of came up with games we came up with things to do all the time and we were we were we we just joked around with one another and and bounced ideas off of one another and that was it nice to come into the world with a best friend yeah I remember one day we wanted to play like one-on-one basketball and we made a hoop out of it just a wire hanger and put it on top of our closet and then slam the door in it play basketball with just socks like like you do but we all did that kind and it was just just a create it it opened up a world of creativity I think having someone who looked just like you you could you could trust them and you could kind of try anything so I guess I'm crediting him for all of this I love that and what was your earliest exposure to acting specifically was it something that you saw that really stuck with you or did your parents take you to see a performance no no no they didn't take you know I lived in the valley and I swear to you you probably won't believe this but I didn't even know that this side of Los Angeles existed until I was about 16 or 17 and that sounds crazy but that's how sheltered I was I mean I just went went to school and hung out with my friends and knew that Hollywood was somewhere around but I didn't realize we're your parents sheltering you from Hollywood or they wanted you to be more polite academic yeah I think was focused on academics I'm a first generation American so they came from Cairo and they were just seeking a better life and you know I think they thought we're paying for you to go to school here you're gonna do things that help you excel and that was to be in politics or law or a doctor and so I took debate class in high school and that didn't really work out for me but I had I had a great substitute teacher that came in one day and he was kind of a comedian his name was Lester Barry and he could recognize hey you're not you're not really cut out for this but you can do this thing called the dramatic or humorous interpretation and I said what's that and said we just look at a play and you can basically have it in front of you and you act it out and he gave me this one-man show is called zoom in and the sign by Charles Fuller and I remember taking it home and just I just read through it as fast as I could and and something something happened and I remember looking at it in the first lunges my name is zoom and Z double o MA and I'm from the bottom and I just heard myself at I don't know 13 come up with this new character that someone else had written that I just hadn't created in my head and I felt I felt powerful in a way and I showed it to him about a week later and he looked at me and I think he had this look of oh oh that's that's not bad I'm gonna enter you in on in the competition Wow in your school at my school but with other schools involved too and so I invited my very strict father and mother to come see this and try to broaden their horizons that was my must I think feared audience I'm sure we've all been there yeah and what was their reaction to see you perform in that way it was it was very very special because I just I'd never seen them react quite like that and you know it got my dad got emotional for the first time I'd ever seen him emotion really yeah Wow so this has been worth 13 yeah yeah and I'm on stage I'm having this moment with my dad with a bunch of it but then I thought wow something's something really special is happening here and I like it because it's it's something's happening that's never happened before and I just realized in that moment the power that this all has wow and then did you instantly pursue acting opportunities in school and plays I did I jumped into the theater theater department at Notre Dame High School I had a great theater teacher her name was her name is Judy Weldon she's no longer there and I I tried to do everything there was and I didn't always get cast in the Blazer sometimes I had a lot of small parts in high school but I just loved it and my senior year I did get to play John Proctor in the crucible and yeah well I don't know how good it is 17 or 8 I could just ended up yelling all of sure that's the most high school performance yeah what of loud-talking yeah sense and such that's exactly that's a lot of dense material for 17 year old I mean at 17 we were doing check off and Bernhard Shaw and Shakespeare she was great I mean she got me ready for the house very very and you went away to college to Indiana well she was like maybe you got you should think about doing this for a living and I thought well I do I really love it but everybody we were just working together so on a podcast yeah sorry it happened sometimes people see friendly faces about it where world did she encourage you to get away to school yes she did just look at your notes we did she said do you want to I said yes I do want to do this and she said why don't we take a look at some colleges that have good theater programs and I did I want I thought let's go to Chicago Chicago has got great theater so I was figuring out how I was gonna get enough money to take a trip to go visit these schools and she said listen I had audition for all these schools as well and one of them was in Indiana and they actually wanted to pay for me to go visit the school my twin brother also auditioned and we both got in so I got a call and and I said I'd love to come to your school but is there a way we could stop in Chicago before and then it's not too far now they said sure and knows then I went on to Evansville Indiana and we take off from Chicago and we fly over this small city this tiny city and I go thank God it's not that place that was Indianapolis when I start to descend into Evans but I look out the window and I couldn't see anything and I immediately went holy brace for impact I'm not kidding I I thought something had happened I quickly realized no I was visiting a school in the middle of nowhere and you know I went that night to the school and I saw Merchant of Venice put on by a bunch of kids who did they just they made me scared they were so good no yeah I guess we do cuz I because they went this job no it's pretty scary it's pretty tough pretty scary it's very tough and very scary so did you immediately pursue the Hollywood experience after college at the odd the audition gauntlet did you come home did you know in that region I auditioned for even more school I went to audition for grad school but I just couldn't afford it I thought I'm already in debt from school from studying theatre there's no way as much as I would love to learn more about this I do want to kind of give it a go too and I went in New York and I lived with a couple friends in a one-bedroom apartment that was not fun yeah but we did a bunch of theater all over New York we put up our own plays the school school that I went to had writers and directors and so we all you know we all just marshaled our forces together and she had a good network of friends from college who yeah that helps it does it does and then one day I went back to Los Angeles to visit family and my theatre director Devon's well he said I want you to meet a casting director was malli Fenn and she's she's passed on but she was incredible and she looked at me and she said you know just stay here for a while you know Los Angeles he grew up here it give it a go I think something could happen for you it was like yeah right okay why not okay I'll move everything back home and ended up moving back in with your parents sadly yes I did save I save the money it's a smart decision if you can do it yeah and then she said she said listen get your head shot and resume and send it to every agent you can and go into every every film school and just leave a box of them everywhere well I went and did everything she said I sent them to every every agent every school and every casting agent as well and one day I got a call after doing this for quite some time and not hearing how long did it take to her back Oh a long time like a year a couple years at least a year yeah before I even got one phone call out of it Wow yeah I mean I might have got like a school play a student film had a school play a student film going back in here this is the deep dive yeah the deep dive and and where was it I was at we were in and out of Hartman at that at that time and I remember stuffing these envelopes every morning and I could hear my dad at one point trying to say to my mom that's that's a tenacious kid you have it was from him it was dad's gonna be tough yeah and we were living in just a two-bedroom apartment it was it was four of us and I was just sleeping on the couch at that point cuz I wanted to get up early and get all this stuff done did you have a day job during this time oh yeah what's the worst day job you had I had some pretty crazy day jobs but one was I was working as a busboy for a long time and I think it's called the Rockwell now where they do all those musicals [Music] you know what I'm talking about they apparently do and I remember one day my boss came up to me and you know I've just been I've been working my ass off there and he looked at my my cup of espresso that I made for someone and he said that is an inferior macchiato that's not a sec something doesn't work out with this acting thing I don't know what I'm gonna do I cannot listen to you anymore I still hear them all the time your macchiato skills are not inherent to your current no but one day this these these manila envelope stuffing it did work out and well I'll tell you what happened I got a call from a casting agent and I just submitted online myself to everything I could find that was a line here there and Mara Casey from the Gilmore Girls called and she said could I speak to Rami Malik's agent and I said speaking she said she said well we'd like to have Rami come in for the role of this and she does just yeah is he sag and I said no actually he's not is it and and who are you who represents him and I'm I'm Rami Malek currently representing myself and she started laughing and she's like Rami Malek representing himself for you are you a SAG actor and I said no but we can work on that and she's laughing she continues to laugh to like listen honey call me back when you get reps and when you're sag we'll figure this out great and I said listen you're laughing right now we're having a good time it's three lines on the page how long is it gonna take I'm in Sherman Oaks I can be in Burbank in 15 minutes and she said you know what come on in [Applause] yeah how much all right I ran my little butt over there and get this so I sit down and I read with her and and she she read with me a few times we had to talk and she said come back for a call back later tonight I couldn't believe it so I go into a coffee shop and I'm waiting and trying to work on these three lines over and over with how many different ways can you say three lines and I get this call from one of the agents I'd been sending all these headshot resumes - same day I have my first meeting with an agent my brains about to call back and a meeting with an agent after all this time I couldn't believe it and I went I went to see Kim door at a place called defining artists she's not there but they still are and that was a very nurturing place for a while and I can say that because she agreed to sign me later that day it's all the same all the same day I went in for the callback I'm feeling like okay I'm on cloud nine I don't need to get this it'd be great I go home after that and the next day I got a call in the morning from Maura Casey and she said they liked you and you're gonna be on Gilmore Girls and you're gonna get your sad car but that took me about two years to pay for and I'm not kidding it took so long I was like well I'm sag eligible for so long Wow and you played a young man named Andy God is gonna take more than no I don't know what I'm gonna do but I did interview you at Toronto a couple years yes we talked about this seminal moment and you you said something that I think you got me in trouble with no I got myself in focus more on this later yeah you said something that made me laugh and anyone who's watching Gilmore Girls can understand you said I'd never been around people who spoke that quickly you said that was that was your hardest even just jumping up for those three lines and he played a friend of Rory's at the newspaper if I'm not mistaken yes and that was funny because yes of course and even Elliott in your memory but tell me what it was like to jump into that cuz that show is super super unique in the writing and also the banter that is created yes she's incredible very nice you know she's very special I'm a huge fan of Hazel aren't you great marvelous Miz is amazing yes and Rachel Brosnahan that girl kinetic that's all right that's a good we're here to talk I'm here to talk about you but what did you what did I learn yes I would my knees were shaking underneath the table and I they were speaking so fast I was trying to remember my three lines that have probably said a hundred thousand times and I started yelling them I remember looking and saying I can barely hear anybody talk why yeah why is everybody so quiet and I just was used to being on stage I'd like it really no one really ever prepared me for a microphone and a camera like inside voices yeah well and am I too loud no no no you're perfect now yo sis learn how to speak appropriately to the room you're in so well done thank you so not too long after that you jumped into a giant franchise called Night at the Museum which is I think are in five hundred and forty million dollars worldwide and all the sequence which is an amazing experience tell me what it was like to be on that set we had Robin Williams Mickey Rooney Dick Van Dyke Shawn Levy directing I mean Ben Stiller obviously starring that that was a huge opportunity how did that feel was unreal yeah we're the I could not believe I got that job I was over the moon I mean doing my film a major motion picture a huge film and how did you get that role specifically had someone seen you in one of the - no no I think that had a lot to do with playing a pharaoh and me being Egyptian okay so men who is actually Egyptian can play that part that's pretty special ya know hey I mean they did see some other Egyptian actor they saw a lot of middle-eastern actors so and then I just I I think I hit it off with Sean who's become a very dear friend great guy he does stranger things now and yeah yeah he's very sweet you know this is this is a good story I went to shoot in New York who shot the exteriors first and the Museum of the museum and at one point in Night at the Museum the first one there was a moment where we have to go outside in the snow so me and Sacagawea and Ben Stiller yeah it's funny and Larry then the night guard of the museum played by Ben Stiller and Robin Williams with half a body at that point I think reliving all of this we have to go outside the museum in the freezing cold so we loot the what is the all the clothes that get left behind or left in a you know Boston so we loot the Lost and Found becomes a games yes and I'm wearing this big puffy jacket as a Pharaoh and these big kind of snow boots that are have rainbows on them and I start improving with Ben Stiller for the first he starts throwing lines at me at going off-book and then I start going off-book I had really prepared myself so because I knew that might happen so I thought of some stuff to come up with and I went home that night and I saw all those kids from New York that I went to college with took him up for drinks at a bar and I still had eyeliner on I could not get the eye this Kohl eyeliner very intense and I just couldn't believe it get to buy my friends round of drinks and for the first time and just improv with Ben Stiller and Robin Williams I mean I was over the moon I go back to LA we're about to shoot in Vancouver and I see that my date to shoot keeps getting pushed and I thought man what's going on something's going on and I got a call from Kim door my agent and she said do you know there's if there's a reason why they have another breakdown out for the character of ahkmenrah I said what no this makes so much sense well it turns out that while I was doing this film I came up with this idea that ahkmenrah was he was trapped in you know a sarcophagus at Cambridge University as it said in the script right so he'd become kind of like this Cambridge dandy right so maybe I had taken it a little too far and with the blue puffer jacket and the snow boots and the eyeliner that I couldn't get off for days I think the movie studio Fox yeah inevitably would do Bohemian Rhapsody so this all has a great but they were a little concerned about my depiction of the Egyptian fare so fortunately Shaun goes come on up I'm we're gonna do a makeup test and you got to give me a different read on this character even though he'd already saw the exterior yeah they were ready to move on my first job I was like I was like this business is tough enough right I mean come on give me a break but fortunately I had I think Stiller had some faith in me and Shaun had some faith in me and they pushed and fortunately I made my way back in there clawed my ass back in there so how much did you learn from that about there's a point which may be over interpreting you know the script or maybe bringing too much of yourself to it or did it just not gonna say that was my father looking back on it I think I really enjoyed what I was doing I might have watched Pirates of the Caribbean a few times but I was like hey I mean you got one shot at this right I'm gonna be bold there's nothing to say that Farah wouldn't have had a lot of swagger there was nothing to say I agree I mean I remember at one point taking I was coming out of the sarcophagus later on and I said one thing I'm not gonna get rid of is like throwing all the through the wrapping over my shoulder yeah I don't know if it ever made it into the movie but it was my the last thing I was kind of holding on to my last bastion of saying this is the way I'm gonna do it yeah you asserted your honor Street from day one which has worked out well for you I think it was a good lesson I mean there's it was tough it was tough every day I haven't really ever said this but there were days when a you know never I don't think ever you know I had closure with that whole experience of you know not quite feeling good enough to be there like I was I was always on my back foot but interesting too and probably was it is that no one pulled you aside in the moment and said I mean that's tone it down a little bit you you're hearing this third hand you're hearing that there's another breakdown floating around you know why didn't someone come to you and say that's might be a little bit far-flung from what we were thinking I think Shawn Levy was actually quite happy with it it was cause once it went to the studio level and they were like yeah but you know what it's it's a market of obviously it's their movie that's what I learned real quick it's not about you and once you start to make it about you then you're in trouble so it's a really good lesson is that you start looking around and go oh yeah there's Robin Williams and there's Ben Stiller and there's a whole cast of characters right here and an entire crew and millions of dollars that are going into this and I'm one tiny part of it it doesn't mean you can't make your own choices and come in with what you believe is right but it did put into perspective that this is just not a how about you man hmm that's a valuable lesson to learn early in 2010 you appeared in the Pacific which I love did you watch the Pacific mini-series on HBO stunning produced by students bill Berg and Tom Hanks obviously what do you remember about your first interaction with Tom because I know he was apparently so taken with you that he cast you in his movie Larry Crowne later and he's talked about you and he said that he was very impressed with you in your first audition that tell me what you remember about that Tom Tom's been great Tom Hanks is exactly I don't know if you know ever met but he's exactly what you want him to be the guy you see is the guy you see he's extremely special and and so is mr. Spielberg I can't cause I can call Tom Tom but I can't call Stephen so for now at least still something I'm working towards Tom is I remember seeing his notes on my audition and he said he was talking about another actor and me and the same breath and he said Malick is haunting and I was like oh that's good and and you played a real person I had actually auditioned for meg Lieberman and Meg Lieberman put me in this as a I God what was it was for medium remember that show medium and I did a guest spot on that and she brought me back with the help of another producer named Kirksey dusky who they came together and realized that maybe there was a part in there for me anyway Tom saw this audition and I had never worked harder on anything because I was I thought I'd seen the band of brothers and was blew my mind I thought if I can get this job this would be everything it would be everything and I put everything I had into that and I guess Tom liked it because he said that and I came back a couple times and then I got to read with Joe Mazzello who is your future bandmate in Bohemian Rhapsody but also also the young boy in Jurassic Park can he call Steven Spielberg Steven I think he can he's known him a long Steven calls him Joey sometimes they're called but the character you are auditioning to play was it snafu from the beginning the first read I had was for Leckie and I think I did that way too earnestly and they gave me another shot thankfully had snafu who was this it's Cajun Mariel snafu Shelton from Louisiana and he was he was a real human being I did a lot of research even during the the auditions I wanted to nail the accent so I went and used some of that money I'd saved up to get a dialect coach your essence grades really it's not overdone which I know for that I think the first audition I had was a little over but then I thought yeah I didn't like it I knew I had to rein it in so I'm I found a dialect coach who was actually from Louisiana or had spent a lot of time there his name was jerome butler and he was terrific and you know so much of that character it came from that dialect coach it just as soon as I heard the musicality of what we were doing together as it ah that's all there so much was there and then read this this book that it was based on called wit with the old breed and it's still to this day one of my favorite books it's the most visceral interpretation of war and soldiers in combat that Marines in combat that I've ever read and I I do like reading about history and those those types of things anyway I just worked on it as hard as I could over and over and finally they told me I was gonna test with Joe mazzello I was coming in to read with him and all the at the three main characters I was like you know one of the fifth or six characters down the line but for some reason they brought me in to do this test and I walked in and Hanks was there it was at his company Playtone all these executives and producers and and then all these guys outside waiting to come in everybody's you know trying to pretend they're not freaking out pretty nervous Tom walks in each eye leaves a bunch of Dimes over his Coke machine and he says can anybody want a coke take a dime they're only a dime that's not ours for it I was trying to make everybody a tease and walk in Tom oh he goes he just seen night at the Museum because I'm a big fan of your work and I just looked and I go likewise and they all laughed so it was good it was an icebreaker but I was definitely not trying to make a joke I didn't know what the hell this say well you were very haunting in your delivery of that I guess so and I went in and did I did this audition with with Joe Mazzello and it was a really dark scene where my character is actually throwing some pebbles into this sawed-off head of a Japanese enemy who's been he's been sitting there dead for a while and it was very very intense scene and I remember the casting assistant was getting really in our faces with the camcorder moving I mean more than I'd ever seen a casting assistant move and and older than I'd ever seen the casting and I realized that's no ordinary casting assistant that's Steven Spielberg and then I went holy don't stop talking say your lines and in that moment I remember you're either gonna either all gonna go to or something really great is gonna let's pick the right move here and fortunately I did I just I gathered all my confidence and I said let's give Steven the best show you could give him right now and I don't know if that happened but I walked out of there and I got the job and I could not believe in the time yeah Tom Hanks again this is the first time you'll hear that Tom Hanks go you need to start smoking cigarettes and you need to live I mean I was my size and he goes you need to lose weight cuz I need everybody to look like they were in that period this house would be as accurate as we can make it they were all smoking and in that in the Pacific they were on the verge of dying and as soon as he said that I did everything I could to just get in shape and I was already smoking so that you're already method on that front yeah and you know I got there and they put us through a bootcamp this is too much information never too much no and you saw it in the South Pacific we went to Australia Australia and every night I just went home even before that I knew I had this job for six months so I just every night spent time working on this character went and did my my process of getting prepared and reading that book and sitting with whatever those stories there's horrific stories where some really awful things happened in the Pacific Theater that the world was not aware of and that made me you know more inclined to tell that story and we went to we went to Australia and at that point I was like do I even need the boot camp and I knew I felt really good about it but I was like you know if that's gonna help that's gonna help and they had real Marines their training you know it gave us these weapons from the 1940s I was a mortarmen so I had to learn how to shoot a 16 millimeter mortar with my new friend Joseph Mazzello of Jurassic farm Fame and we figured all these things out together in four days we just walked around with carrying these these rifles these m1 Garands learn how to fire them learn how to fire this mortar something I'm oddly probably still skilled at because of how intense the training was and and that's it we learned how to do everything that they could do in the 1940s over the course of days and one night I remember being out there with these guys we'd forged such a great bond and one night in the mid 4 o'clock in the morning I see all see and hear this alarming gunfire coming from about 200 yards away and I thought am i hallucinating I mean we've been out here for a bunch of days and right I thought man maybe I maybe I've put too much into this but no this this army of men comes with charging at us you know yelling Banzai and all these Japanese words and you know screaming at us and and sure enough there's there's gunfire coming at us and all of a sudden it's like men you know to your stations and we all get our things together and quickly you realize oh my god this whole time we've been training they've been training an entire Japanese army as well and so in the middle of the night it's like I'm gonna cry think too talking about this is so scary but we got to be we ended up you know Manning our positions in the middle of the night and in pitch-black darkness and I swear you know it's not real you know it's not happening but your instincts kick in and all of a sudden you're you know at this point we're firing you know blanks right back at them firing mortars that they pop off they don't go as far but they they go at this army and we're in the middle of some some fictitious combat that seems real in the moment and I would never in any way compare it anything that these men went through but it gives you the tiniest taste are they shooting this or this was just no this was just for us yeah just as an exercise to get us ready well there's a reason that the the show oh you think yeah it felt real to you oh I mean at one point we're coming off of these boats in in the Pacific the littoral Pacific that are landing crafts that actually hit the beach and we're meant to jump off of them and and hit the beach take over this Beach well we planned for about two days to do the one shot this Beach landing in Episode five there's explosions everywhere and they're marked by orange cones hundreds of them the cameramen are what we get ready to do this we rehearse it 25 times we did exactly 25 rehearsals oh man we're out there everybody there's no place to use the bathroom on this guys are getting seasick we're out for three days getting ready to do this Beach landing it's all gonna happen in one take there's gonna be you know all the cameramen are out there best cameraman you could ever ask for it they're all outfitted in camouflage gear as we are and I thought that's odd they're the guys holding the cameras but what a great later found out is in case anything goes to you know the camera falls on their shoe or on their legging like how bad is it gonna get these guys are gonna drop their cameras right well I quickly found out we get ready to do this one take and I've never jumped out of a Amtrak hitting the beach and but I got to tell you that that preparation that these Marines gave us it it did help me a little bit to think okay I can do this there were things I never thought I would be able to do but in that moment I prepared myself and we got ready we the boat comes out of a larger boat we hit the ocean and there's the beach except this time it looks entirely different because these hundred orange flags and cones have been pulled out and we were told to remember where they were and I did but I don't know where the they are so the fear of death is in you right and these guys are firing these these now what are the 50 caliber machine guns out at the beach guns are you know the brew being fired out and slowly but surely we are going to hit that beach explosions everywhere already I see boats hitting the beach other actors and other units are hitting the beach and that's another moments like oh my god this is happening and then you hear our Lock and Load Lock and Load and there we go we're locked and loaded with these rifles I'm carrying a 60 millimeter mortar on my back that's an extra 60 pounds with my pack with these boots that no one should have ever gone to war with and I finally these explosions are going there's a few stuntmen on right if you can't get off the boat they will throw you off the boat because nothing can stop so I'm like I don't care how much this weighs I'm getting off this boat oh my god I jump and I land in the water with my helmet I'm soaked I'm trying to carry this thing I just try to get get to the beach right and I push push push and literally you can't hear anything if things are exploding in front of you I look and I see Joe and he looks like he's his pants I also think oh man this guy's really in it and he's a great actor so this is good this is good we just which I'm just slowly trying to charge up the beach and if there's explosions to my left my right they're all way too close and and sure enough you see even the camera operators that's when the cameras go down you're like yep you're glad you're wearing fatigues and you just keep going keep going keep going and there's blood and explosions all over the place and finally finally you hear a cut and it's just like oh my what's day two gonna be that's the ultimate be careful what you wish for right I've never told that story outside of like our a group of friends by the way these guys we all keep up fight it is a good story it's a very good story we really did become like brothers it's crazy well and Joe and Joe and I yeah Joe to have him while playing Freddie Mercury he ended up playing the bass player John Deacon and I could not have done it without him because every time I had any problem we had a shorthand at that point Wow yeah it was it's remarkable it's what one actor can give another actor that's amazing and Tom Hanks always told me he said one tool sharpens another and I can definitely say it for that kid Tom what a dreamboat really it's just he's a really special gift to us as Cupid so before we get to Bohemian I did want to talk about mr. robot because it'd be remiss if we did it and at first I was gonna say wow mr. robots so dark but what you've just described sounds actually you know in a lot of ways you know a shorter period of time but mr. robot probably wasn't as much of a stretch as we may have thought in terms of the darkness of it all you know people often ask that they said is this guy to be of the darkest character but no I think I think they both might be tied in some way because I mean in a more personal intimate way the character of Elliot was a very very tortured human being but yeah I mean the experience of the Pacific was there quite possibly I think the most devastating because it was real it's real it was real I mean when you really thought about it the book I read was by someone who wrote that the character and that I was playing in it was a real human being who had had seen the most horrific things and yeah so that there was no getting away from that whereas Elliot I could I could use my imagination and read about I read a lot about you know mental health and uh you know that puts you in the perspective of how now just how difficult it is to live in in a mind that doesn't always feel like your own and how I mean just it's that's brutal in its own way and that can be a very lonely difficult place and a very very difficult frame of mind to articulate to anyone to even want to share with anyone so that's got its own almost horrors to it for sure and an Eliot yeah for for a season that first season was I was right rough ride as well because I wanted to get that one right knowing that so many people who connected with him were it was their story - and tell me about meeting Sam for the first time since greater s mill Sam brought me and I think he had read a lot of actors in hard times minding Elliot he did yeah and I you know I I don't know why I just didn't think I was gonna have a real shot at that one but he he'd seen the Pacific and like the Pacific like my work in that and thought about giving me a shot there and I could see him after my first audition he was kind of smiling and think I think I came in the room and did something that a lot of actors hadn't I don't know what that was exactly but I haven't seen him smile quite that much since so he's become like a brother to me but I do remember him smiling in my first day she told me one say he was worried he was gonna have to rethink Elliot because he he just thought oh I've created this character I can't possibly find the person who's gonna represent what was in his head and that's what he said I guess that's possibly true yeah I went in there and I just had my I think I don't know there was a bit of cynicism with the way I played the character that I think he was attracted to then and INF yeah it just wasn't as as Ernest as I think the previous reads had been well I don't know I don't I couldn't put my finger on what it was but I think quite early on I had somewhat of an idea who who I thought Elliot was going to be and I thought that Sam really liked where I was going and then you know a series of steps that was a number of auditions a number of auditions to get to the final one I never thought that a guy named rami malek that looks like me six seven years ago is going to be the lead of a TV series that is a show that was a rebranding effort for us a this was the first dark layered very complex drama that USA had done in a very long time if ever so sort of like you were the face of a full rebrand for this company yeah I think it was pretty gutsy of them really with the show yeah it was and I have to thank them I mean they've been so supportive throughout yeah everyone Universal Cable productions and USA has had my back I mean we look at these studios sometimes and think man they're there they're evil Corp and they're not I mean everybody's got it he's got to make a buck and so to take some artistic chances is it's something that I love seeing in television today I feel like Sam and mr. robot and what we did with that show is kind of it spawned this this new idea of what TV was and and it's very unconventional way of telling stories that we can now find so relative relatively available and so many networks which is it's great for us right absolutely until you've wrapped season four in the final it's gonna our next year that's the last season is that true yeah okay so when when does that air do you know yet no not yet okay hooking that up right now and Sam's been busy with homecoming he's homecoming amazing how good is that it's so good yeah he's been busy he's busy and he's great I mean Sam this is one thing I said hey I got this job playing Freddie Mercury and you know see how right I said no no we're gonna do this and were actually really need me to start at the end of our seasons he found a way to shoot me out early which yeah when it's your lead actor that was difficult so on that last I think my last episode last day of shooting on the third season of mr. robot I was in London a week later playing Freddie Mercury Wow has an actor gone from one role to another that's that disparate I mean I can't think of anyone who had to jump into something so there what Elite difference now there were days an emphasis season two was not as taxing on me as the first season and that the third season was hard so I would work Monday to Friday on on Elliot and he's a very unusual human being and then go to this the most unusual I mean being in Freddie Mercury on the weekends and I had Fox they would fly out my my movement coach Polly Bennett to help me on Saturdays and Sundays or if I had any few days I would try to get to London and put in as many hours I was really working myself to the bone but I had no other choice but at times it was too much I mean there would be days I would just almost pass out and I weakened and or Pauli says one day I said I'm gonna go for a snack and I was gone for 45 minutes and I came back with an apple and she's like okay you might need to take a little nap yeah so before we get to detail about bohemian tell me you know what did one of the last few weeks been like for you the the reception the box office I mean it's sort of it's a rousing success you know by the numbers but also the fan reaction the the love it just seems like a love fest I saw it last week and I felt so emotional when I left the theater I I felt moved I felt a lot of things you don't feel when you see a cortical a big studio movie necessarily that just feels so personal but also Universal at the same time I've been so fortunate because I got to play snafu and I thought this is such a unique character in the Pacific I'll never be able to do something like this again and then you know years went by and some great roles some not-so-great roles and it is what it is and then mr. robot came and I thought oh my god this could be another incredible role and it was and I thought well this is never gonna happen again and I don't think it is after this I mean playing this human being was the greatest gift I'll ever have and I almost don't want to do anything else as far as it's like it feels like it's all downhill but it's a story you get to tell of that is just it's so fulfilling and so rewarding and it's so life-affirming he's but also hearing you talk about your family and growing up I mean there's so many similarities with what you've described the dynamic and your family and your conservative parents wanting a better life I mean that's everything that played out in his own life I mean I must have been so amazing to have that within reach yeah I mean look I started thinking about Freddie Mercury and I thought I'm not a singer I mean I'm not a dancer I've never touched a piano I but I don't know I could see him on stage and as as amazing as he is I thought okay maybe I might be able to move like that I'm living very awkward ways to those are just much more elegant than write mine but he's he's a God and you see him on on stage and I don't like saying than anybody's a God but that guy's a rock god and he's special and there's no one that could really ever recreate him or I don't know he's just he's so special and it's it's like it's like trying to I don't I don't know how you ever think you could capture it and so that was the the most daunting scary part of it and the only thing I thought is okay you know you approach every other character you get to the those nuts and bolts and find out makes them human and I thought just make him human bring him down to earth demystify him and I started to think what makes him so great on stage and I started to think you know here's this this young guy who grew up in Zanzibar and at a very very tender young age his parents put him on a ship and sent him to India to go to school remains is he's a tiny kid going on a ship going to a place he doesn't know and told he's gonna go to boarding school and he does that for a you know a number of years and creates some idea of what a family is there and then he comes back home on a ship again and his country's in the midst of this revolution they were getting their independence from Britain and his family decided they were gonna flee that and at 18 he was going to start a new life with his family in London his name's Farouk Ville Sarah and he's got a very big set of teeth and he's very much a fish out of water and I thought man that's that's pretty tough in and of itself and he's gonna try to discover himself here in London and and it a really difficult time to even think about discovering your sexual identity as well I mean homosexuality it was extremely stigmatized then and still it's right to think how hard that would have been for him just to want to be this laser beam of a human being and difficult to really show his true colors and there's a part of him I feel that's just burning it's just yearning to get out and share his beauty and his power and his audacity and freedom and authenticity with the world and he gets on that stage given the opportunity and he does just that he looks everybody out in the audience he he makes you feel like he's looking right at you and you're both just levitating all at once and saying we can be exactly who we want to be we can defy every art and we can we can be whatever we want our most authentic selves and we can do it so powerfully in unity and how how glorious and beautiful is that and that's here and that's the way I could that's the only way I could understand him is that he was speaking to me and he was speaking to all of us and so I thought okay I'm gonna give your story a shot and I'll do mine I'll do mine you had the blessing that my damn band you had the blessing of by doing closest to him which was probably I can't imagine it not happening that way I wouldn't have done it if that was in the case and and more to the point I wouldn't have done it if that was the case because they wouldn't have let me well I read that Brian May said it's um you know during filming sometimes he would forget that you were Rami that he was so taken back to that time in their lives that he felt transported I mean I feel like if that was the only feedback you got that probably would have been enough to feel like you had made that much of an impression on him it was one of those Spielberg moments where I thought is this gonna make me so nervous that he's here and it didn't it made me want to like fulfill his happiness fulfill his memories in some way I knew I was never gonna be Freddy I never looked at him and thought I'm gonna be her Freddy in fact there would be times when their photographer would be on set and I didn't really even want the picture of me playing Freddy and him there though it was a very surreal experiencing old older Brian May talking to a version of younger Freddy for a lot of people blew people's minds but I remember when the first image came out of you on stage I think it's when you were shooting the Live Aid concert I feel like it just blew up the internet that we finally saw you and it seemed like that's when people started to just gets like oh this is real and look at look at this image I just felt like it electrified everyone yeah yeah I mean it was it was it was everything to have Brian made there from start I mean he was he's so humble and they're so classy him and Roger Taylor there you know I can meet actors and I don't flip out that much anymore it's the let's say I don't get as nervous around them but meeting rock stars like them was a different story also they're so smart I had no idea these guys were like on their way to being scientists and engineers I mean in but now what you hear their music you understand like these were really smart people making this music oh my it all makes sense you cannot take those songs for granted no there's a song called Brian may is an astrophysicist specializing in planetary dust he also built his guitar the red special with his dad out of you know components he found in his garage you know yeah they made the the same guitar he plays today I don't know 60 years later what would you say was your scariest moment on set beyond the you know am I gonna fulfill Freddy's you know who he is was there a moment where you actually thought like gosh I mean I'm not sure I'm gonna get through this the scene or this this blocking nor this day the first few weeks were difficult because I was just getting my sea legs I mean I had I had put everything I had into this I mean every day it was piano lessons and singing lessons and and not choreography but movement and I was like being back in school but I wanted it I wanted to do I've never as hard as I worked on snafu and Elliot they still don't they pale in comparison to what I did here for this because I did not want to do this man in injustice or the band and but I got to tell you going out there and day one and shooting Live Aid no matter how hard you worked it I just was inevitably still never prepared enough and having Brian made there for the first time that was the first time he saw the younger version of himself willingly the younger broader Taylor can Ben Hardy look so much like them yeah they do really but even Brian at times was playing with Williams hair and him tell him he's like you got all the moves right don't remember don't forget you're a rock god and he said that to him like you can do all the work you need to do but what I need you to have is that power and confidence which was you know something that I could over here and at the same time try to muster that up because I knew all the moves but you know playing Freddie Mercury you have to have a certain amount of confidence out there and going out day one playing the greatest concert of all time as far as I'm concerned that was a very first thing you shot very first thing we shot is coming out to play Bohemian Rhapsody at the height of their can we just do an interior somewhere conversation well I really did think that I think it was another night at the museum move where I'll say if this doesn't work out I'm not just gonna be a breakdown with Freddie Mercury on it tomorrow and they're gonna pack all this up or pack you know so the fact when I got the call sheet for day two I was like did you have any access to Freddie's family I assumed his parents are no longer with his parents aren't with us his sister she sister is yes she uh she came to set one day and I don't think she was prepared for it because you know Queen does a lot of stuff they have still touring with Adam Lambert are still touring without Adam Lambert so she gets to go relive it there and you know their musicals that they've sometimes put on we will rock you but I just don't know that if she was really aware that she was gonna see someone emulating you know her younger her older brother but a younger version of that so it was a lot for her when she came to set and it was a lot for me because I'd been watching her and you know falling in love with him and the family and you know I've been listening to their mom talk for so long because she she has a very unique accent and do you have the coordinates of his parents I had recordings of his mom and yeah and so I listened to her all the time and then put in a very proper English accent on top of that but I always wanted a touch of their heritage to come through and sometimes our producers would come up and n say it's odd but sometimes you're sounding a little Indian and I would go oh really and then turn around and I'd have a little smirk on my face that was your goal I'm getting it right that's good yeah but yeah and one cool thing is and this is mind-blowing after all this we had some real hardships on this film which one day we will talk about at length they all have their on an hour an hour and a half devoted to them but you know the one really special thing when all is said and done and I did see the final cut and went in and worked on it and tried to finesse it with our incredible producers Graham King and Dennis O'Sullivan I got to sit at Wembley where we had the premiere in London in front of 6,500 audience members with Brian May and Roger Taylor and Jim beech who plays Miami oh my cast mates who I could not have gotten through this without I gotta tell you like never depended on actors so much and so lucky to have them got to sit with everybody our incredible cinematographer Tom Siegel my makeup designer Jan Sewell Julian de costumes Aaron hey our production designer John wore her stand and he does this the sound and so many other people who were integral whose names that I don't have Polly been enough course who did my my choreography and movement William Conacher who did my dialect I'll keep going the coolest part was I sat down and took all of this in and it got quiet we were waiting for the movie to start and I looked at some of the cast members next to me and just kind of went so quietly in a matter of moments the entire stadium erupted and I just looked over to see Brian May who created that little ditty and he had a big smile on his face and I just could not believe that after all this and it had this like was a dream coming true and all of a sudden you know the the fanfare for 20th Century Fox comes up and you think man Wow like this is real this is real and you think back to when you first started and you thought you might not ever work in this industry again then here it is all happening in front of you and and then the movie ends and I get you know pulled over because someone wants to see me and it's Freddie's little sister kashmira is you know now reminds me of a very much older sister or maternal-fetal we sit and talk about Freddie for most of the night after the partying and now I'm gonna go see her and in about a week and we're gonna go to dinner and have teas and hang out so I just cannot believe that this is happening to me so so the one thing yeah the one thing is I think my parents I don't know I don't know if his parents ever imagined that life for him and him having such a bold audacious creative career that you got to share with everybody I don't know that mine ever thought that I'd be here having this moment and getting to talk to all of you so it is it is something that I do not take lightly and I'm very privileged and honored that I get to share with you guys thank you for that that's very special and I think the thing for me with this movie and Freddy's story is knowing that all these sports fans all around the world who didn't know that they were singing the music of this guy whose lifestyle they may not have necessarily understood it makes me so happy it's the unity we need right now and if sports and singing that song before a sporting event brings us together then so be it it's very special there were some few few people who have heard have walked out of the theater when they find out Freddy's gay and it's like good riddance yeah but they still paid for their ticket that's all that matters right after that I'm sure they tried to get this so we have some wonderful audience questions that you can imagine some of it to touch on Freddy but also other subjects so the first is from Terry and Terry with where's Terry Terry Sullivan Oh Terry Terry and you've touched on this a little bit but but it's it's worth a more specific ask which is how do you just how do you channel fear of obviously you've felt some fear and tackling this role and as an actor how are you channeling these feelings was it something that you woke up every day and told yourself okay I'm feeling this I'm gonna use it this way how did you work through done I guess in this situation I I had no time for fear and boy that was was earlier on there were moments where I was working in a dance studio and I thought there's no way I'm gonna be able to capture Freddy's magic in the 22 minute concert sequence that was Live Aid I fortunately had a lot of help I had people who really believed in me and I think once I started to see one thing happening or or one physicality come to life or or is his voice start to sound similar to Fred what I was doing to start similar I knew that the ground work was somewhere in there and I just had to have faith and what I love about what we do is I don't I try as I get older not to just bottle all that in but to actually share it I used to I used to not want to show anybody anything about how I was feeling and you know put on you know that there's this strong face and and now I'm think I'm very careful about who I share fear with because you know you never know how that can winds up in other people's hands but I looked at this as whatever fear I have I'm gonna use to be constructive and I'm gonna power through I took I just push myself so that if I was afraid of something I've worked on it and worked on it and worked on it and I just tried to address it what's really making me scared in this moment and if it couldn't be fixed then that was a different step to take but I tried to channel all that energy into what I was doing and really trying to concentrate on where that fear was coming from and if it was real or not and if it was real then it had to be attended to and once I attended to it in a way once I looked at it and said well you can put the hours in to do this or that's something you don't need to worry about as much because that will resolve itself somehow and post whatever it is I mean there were moments when I thought I don't even I don't even play the piano now I'm learning to play a couple songs on the piano and I get to the script and I look at page 19 and then page 20 and I read the stage direction that says Freddie Mercury plays piano upside down [Laughter] and that's not that's a moment you get really scared right or you start sleeping with the piano above your head right and every night it's like maybe this fun little thing I get to do before bed real fun but that's what I did I was like let's just let's enjoy all of this you know and then it became silly that I had a little piano above my mattress how much fear do you think Freddie felt as a performer because to us it seems that you know fearless is a word that comes up with him but how much of that was natural how much do you think he really had to learn to feel comfortable when we see that Live Aid performance which just seems like this like otherworldly you can't imagine him not performing but I can imagine there wasn't some learning curve with him I can even see him in live aid when he steps out you can't see it and it it's after watching it thousands of times when I can tell he's just a little bit more fragile it goes away almost immediately and perform like that in a long time it's been a while too that many people yes and they all came out there and they didn't think it was their audience right there were so many other bands and even Brian May will tell you he's like I did not think that they were you know that they at that point you know Queen that as they say in the film as we say in the film felt like dinosaurs to them the one thing they could do and knew is how to play to a large audience and one thing they did so well at Live Aid is they shortened all their songs they said play the hits and they rehearsed those guys knew what they were doing so that they could be prepared and get out there and you know shine brighter than anybody else and and they did that day especially I mean that's when everybody I hear I've asked so many reporters that are still around who were there that day one one I just was paying for something and his card came out of my wallet and someone looked at me and they're like you really did your homework guilt off that was I actually thought that was old footage we were seeing and then he walks away from the monitor I'm like oh my god it was terrific it was incredible yeah they could do a whole document I know I want a warm more of a lotta history for that but I gotta say I mean I have never on this set especially just taken that fear and turned it into the most confidence I've ever had and you know Freddie allowed me a lot of that confidence but one doing the work and being prepared gave me the sense of this there was a sense of I don't know that justice to what I was doing that no one could really strip away from me that I felt like I was in the right and it didn't mean that meant I was going to collaborate as much as possible but I was going to put everything in this and collectively we all were gonna give it everything we had and I think when you walk out there and try to change that aspect of fear and and harness that fear and turn it into something that galvanizes people and raises everyone's game and especially when you have someone to look up to like Freddie and Queen you you really feel like that's something you can get behind that you're all united in doing something and then when you're united you start to lose that fear I think I think you just got to be able to share it with with everyone and have that conversation because I don't care who you are how many times you've been you know holding a camera or pulling focus on something or done that you know make up you're out there on day one and everyone's scared everyone does not know how it's going to come together but by the end of the day when it does you know everyone whether they know it or not realizes that it was a collective effort and what happened on that day when it was successful was not because of one or two people it was because of everyone and Mostafa where's muscle oh hello Mostafa would like to know and this is I've actually often wondered this - what was your family's reaction when you told them that you're going to claim Freddie Mercury or did they have one I think they were well my mom was worried because she'd seen me bust my ass for so many years and then get mr. robot and that was great right I mean what a win and then it's like I think she's worried about the pressure the pressure and why throw all that away on trying to do something that may not be able to be done I mean did they know Freddie do they know Queens music I think my mom had her a really quick education from my brother at that point of yeah you might want to get to know who this is and now uh now she she tears up when when his name comes up because she's like what what a sad sad loss early loss and it's kind of beautiful cuz I never thought I just never thought my mom would tear up at thinking you know about the loss of someone who was just so foreign to her and enough she's knows every every Queen so sees your billboard all over the valley - oh she's driving around them as we yeah real yeah that's true thing a billboard is pretty surreal yeah that's how it feels really real it's large it's you know it's part of your daily life driving down the road it's large yeah you know it's only really hit me that how terrible this could be only recently I I thought I really thought look you get the role of Freddie Mercury and you know how hard it is to get a job it's like yeah I'll do it of course I'll do it and it would be a disservice to any other actor I think if you pass this up and said no well you know it's we with so few moments out there where you get to do what you've dreamt of doing and so there was a point where it was like yes of course oh of course yeah and it was scary but it's only recently where I did look back and go wow that was a pretty daunting thing to think you could undertake boom it happened and enough where's your nest oh there you are hello I know this is a great question that is asked often and answered often have you have you ever thought about giving up acting and how did you manage that those feelings and how'd you get past that man did I ever think about giving it up yes absolutely I thought about giving it up a lot when was the most profound time you felt that let me go through it I'm in New York I used I was waiting tables at a really dark dark place that people were doing drugs at all night and I was staying it's coming home and I was not doing them I was just trying to collect a paycheck and waking up going to work at 5:00 p.m. and leaving at 5:00 a.m. and for a while there I was like this is this is awful and this is what I'm doing to like support my acting career fine and then I got through that and after school I was working at a fast food restaurant after putting in four years at a theater school and you know I would if I saw anyone that looked like a producer I was putting my headshot and resume in there to go back at times I thought I thought oh man what are you doing this is what it's come to after then you're a hundred thousand dollars in debt and this is what you think is gonna pay off for you and one day I I really did I don't I I did tried to think about doing something other than you know being in food service for a job and I started I started looking into getting a real estate license know would you believe that and that lasted for like three or days and I go no definitely not gonna do that I'm gonna be an actor and there's a part of my DNA that just was just knew I just had to look at it and say that is definitely something I'm not cutting cut out for but yeah I I don't know what I did I just I think about it now because I'm of the belief that this comes and goes and I'm having a great wild ride right now but I could be back anywhere at any moment and so I'm trying to really take this in I remember working with Christian Slater and we the first year we didn't know how mr. Robbo was gonna do and it got a lot of love critically and he he showed me some things reading the New York Times and it was a good review and he looked at me before we went onstage on set and he goes take this in man take this in because this does not happen and I have ever since he did that I've been trying to save her every single moment because I got to tell you there were moments where I did not want to get out of bed as an actor and where there's really nothing to get out of bed for but it was pretty low moments as I know we've all had in any career that we've aspired to do especially creative careers fair enough not that all jobs aren't hard but I think the creative life sucks the life ready when it's not going well right and it's difficult but I think just really savor all those small gains because they collectively add up to you know whatever it is if it's something small that just reignites your love for what you do or your appreciation for what you can do I mean we all have this special gift in this talent and not everybody has that and I think that in and of itself is is its propelling enough to know that that exists exists in your fiber that's in your DNA and you know it's burning and it gets brighter and brighter and sometimes sometimes it's not as bright but it has the power to to really shine at any given moment and it will good luck [Applause]

Channel: SAG-AFTRA Foundation

Views: 671,144

Rating: 4.9373641 out of 5

Keywords: SAG Foundation, SAG-AFTRA Foundation, Acting, Actors, Conversations, Rami Malek, Mr. Robot, BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY, Freddie Mercury, Papillon, The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle, American Radical, Old Boy, Short Term 12, Night at the Museum, Stacey Wilson Hunt, Q&A

Id: zmKdqB0ZBtE

Length: 81min 42sec (4902 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 07 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/StudyAbroadinFrance]

Here is the scene: https://youtu.be/jL1ozsLf35o

[u/Bless_all_the_knees]

Rami killed it as being incredibly weird in that role.

[u/salmon10]

Method acting at its height

[u/fromskintoliquid]

Now about that baby-eating...