Rami Malek

Malek in 2014, photo by Prphotos.com

Birth Name: Rami Said Malek

Place of Birth: Torrance, Los Angeles, California, United States

Date of Birth: May 12, 1981

Ethnicity: Egyptian Coptic, as well as one eighth Greek

Rami Malek is an American actor and producer. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for Bohemian Rhapsody (2018). He played musician Freddie Mercury in the film. He has also starred, as Pharaoh Ahkmenrah, in the Night at the Museum films, and in the thriller The Little Things and the show Mr. Robot.

Rami’s parents, Nelly Abdel-Malek and Said Malek, are Egyptian immigrants, who came to the U.S. in 1978. He has said that he is also of one eighth Greek ancestry. His family is Coptic Christian. He has stated that he speaks Arabic “like a 10 year old” and that he grew up watching Egyptian movies with his parents.

Rami is the second male born in 1980 or after to have won an acting Oscar (Eddie Redmayne, for The Theory of Everything, 2014, was the first).

Rami has a family background in the town Samalut, Egypt. He has said:

There’s no first-generation, or second-generation removed. I am Egyptian. I grew up listening to Egyptian music. I loved Umm Kulthum. I loved Omar Sharif… These are my people. I feel so gorgeously tied to the culture and the human beings that exist there. I acknowledge that I have a different experience, but I am so enamoured and intertwined with Egyptian culture. It is the fabric of who I am.

Rami’s paternal grandfather was named Makhali Abdelmalek/Abdel Malek.

Rami’s paternal grandmother was named Juliette S. Guirguis.

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com