Rami Malek and Night at the Museum

I think most of you have seen the movie Bohemian Rhapsody with Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury. The film premiered in London on October 23, 2018, and became a major box office success, grossing over $879 million worldwide on a production budget of about $50 million. It became the sixth highest-grossing film of 2018 worldwide, and the highest-grossing musical biographical film of all-time. Despite mixed reviews for the film itself, Malek's performance received critical acclaim. He won a 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.

Freddie Mercury and Rami Malek

To prepare for the role as Mercury, Malek moved to London where he employed a dialect coach and movement coach and took piano and singing lessons. For four hours each day, he studied videos of Mercury with his movement coach, Polly Bennett. This included watching the 1985 Live Aid concert video on YouTube at least 1,500 times to perfect his performance for the movie. He also had to get used to singing and speaking with a set of false teeth that mimicked the singer's overbite. Brian May, Queen's guitarist who often attended filming, is quoted as saying that Malek's performance was so accurate that "we sometimes forgot he was Rami".

Rami and his brother Sami

Rami Said Malek was born in Los Angeles, on May 12, 1981, to Egyptian immigrant parents, Said Malek and Nelly Abdel-Malek. He has said he is also "an eighth Greek". His parents left Cairo in 1978 after his father, a tour guide, became intrigued with Western visitors. They settled in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, mostly staying in the San Fernando Valley and rarely venturing into Hollywood. His father sold insurance; his mother is an accountant. Malek was raised in his family's Coptic Orthodox Christian faith and grew up speaking colloquial Egyptian Arabic at home until the age of four. Malek has an identical twin brother named Sami who is younger by four minutes; he is an ESL and English teacher. Malek's older sister, Yasmine, is an ER doctor.

Malek studied at Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, California. Future actresses Kirsten Dunst and Rachel Bilson also studied at the same school. Later, he studied at University of Evansville, in Evansville, Indiana. He graduated in 2003 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

Rami Malek began his acting career playing guest roles in the TV series ‘Gilmore Girls’, ‘Over There’ and ‘Medium’. His important role was in the American sitcom ‘The War at Home’ (2005–07). It ran for two seasons, earning mostly mixed reviews.

He made his film debut in 2006 with a supporting role in the comedy fantasy film ‘Night at the Museum’. He played the role of Pharaoh Ahkmenrah and reprised his role in the movie’s sequel ‘Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian’ in 2009. Both the films were commercially successful.

He reprised his role of Pharaoh Ahkmenrah in ‘Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb,’ the third installment of the ‘Night at the Museum’ film series, in 2014.