Think you know everything aboutBohemian RhapsodystarRami Malek? Think again.
The 37-year-old actor is on top of the world with his recent Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Queen’s Freddie Mercury. Malek also won the Golden Globe award for the role earlier this month and has received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, as well.
While Malek is facing his busiest awards season yet, here’s all about the talented actor.
- He found love on the set ofBohemian Rhapsody
Malek confirmed his relationship with hiscostar Lucy Boyntonearlier this month at the Palm Springs International Film Festival’s Film Awards Gala with a sweet shoutout to the 24-year-old actress while accepting the award for breakthrough performance.
“Thank you, Lucy Boynton. You have been my ally, my confidant, you are my love,” he said. “I appreciate you so much.”
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Boynton plays Mary Austin in the film, Mercury’s former fiancée and lifelong confidant who inherited half of his estate when he died from complications of AIDS in 1991.
Austin was the inspiration behind the singer’s 1975 hit song “Love of My Life.”
- Malek is of Egyptian descent
TheMr. Robotactor was born in Los Angeles to Egyptian immigrant parents and grew up speaking Arabic.
“I felt that we stuck out like a sore thumb, as a family, our traditions,” Malek toldThe New Yorkerin October of growing up in the U.S. “Going to school with that type of consciousness, and feeling like we were wearing our heritage on our sleeves, was always something that was confusing.”
Feeling out of place helped him identify closely with Mercury, who was born in Zanzibar and was an immigrant to the United Kingdom.
He added, “I was conflicted about how to identify myself as a young man, and I think that is very emblematic of Freddie Mercury.”
- He has an identical twin brother
Malek has a youngeridentical twin brother, Sami Malek. Sami is a school teacher and was in attendance at the 2019 Golden Globe Awards when the actor won.
While the two aren’t seen together frequently in public, Malek opened up about his brother in a hilarious 2015 interview onJimmy Kimmel Live.
“We were troublemakers as kids. We did some bad stuff,” Malek explained at the time, adding his brother once asked him to switch places while they were college students for a school project Sami needed to pass to graduate.
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“He goes, ‘I need you to do this for my class, it’s going to get me the points I need to get me my degree. I’m short on these units, she’s offering points if anybody comes in and does this monologue,'” Malek explained.
“So I make it to the lecture hall, [the professor] pulls me into the lecture class. I deliver this monologue in front of the entire lecture hall and I get a few applause, people dig it,” the actor said.
“I go, ‘Did I get the points that I’m going to need to pass the class and get my degree?’ She goes, ‘Yeah, you got the points.’ I go, ‘My car’s parked in the red, I gotta go!'” he said, laughing.
- He was in some of the biggest films in Hollywood before his breakthrough
Malek was cast as Benjamin, a vampire, inThe Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2in 2010, and appeared in the popular indie filmShort Term 12opposite future Oscar winner Brie Larson in 2013.
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- He went to high school with Kirsten Dunst — and had a crush on her
Malek attended the same high school as actress Kirsten Dunst, which he admitted toE! Newswhile at the 2016Golden Globes.
When asked if the two were still friends, he said, “We are still friends.I used to have a little crush on her.”
“She dates a friend of mine now, though,” he added. “We’re good buds.”
source: people.com
