Rami Malek recalls being ‘thrown’ on cop car as robbery suspect

Rami Malek is looking back on a harrowing encounter with law enforcement.

The Bohemian Rhapsody star reflected on being accosted by police in a new interview.

“I got thrown on the bonnet of an LAPD cop car because someone had robbed a liquor store and stolen a woman’s bag,” Malek told The Guardian.. “They said the [thief] was of Latin descent and, ‘You fit the description.’ I remember how hot that engine was. They must have been racing over there, and it was almost burning my hands.”

Malek escaped the encounter only because a friend told the police that they’d incorrectly assumed his ethnic background. “My friend, who was Caucasian, was clever enough to go, ‘Actually, sir, he’s Egyptian, not Latin,'” the actor recalled. “I remember laughing on the cop car, thinking, ‘Okay, this is a very precarious situation. I may well be going to jail for something I’ve not done.'”

That anecdote was part of a broader discussion about the racism and isolation that Malek experienced as the son of immigrants in Los Angeles. “I’m what’s called ‘white passing,’ but I have very distinctive features, and we definitely didn’t fit in,” the actor remembered. “I didn’t speak English until I was 5 or 6.”

The Mr. Robot star also said his mother experienced a tumultuous past, which he can’t discuss in public. “You have no idea what my mum has been through. As much as it would be good fun to tell you, it’ll go in the news and I probably won’t be allowed to enter this country. It’s difficult enough traveling. Don’t make it harder.” 

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Malek said he was unjustly scrutinized at airport security even after he became famous. “I started to think, ‘What is happening?’ every time I tried to enter a country,” he explained. “These days, there might be a moment. Then they’ll go, ‘Nah, that’s the guy from Bohemian Rhapsody. Let him through.'”

The No Time to Die star added that his family’s immigrant status created a heightened pressure for him to work hard and excel, which made his parents somewhat skeptical of his acting pursuits. “But then my father saw me stuffing headshots into manila envelopes day in, day out, and he said [to my mother], ‘My son is tenacious,'” Malek remembered. “I could feel the wind at my back with that statement. There was a sense of needing to prove yourself in a foreign country.”

The actor also expressed anxiety about how Donald Trump‘s next term will affect the political climate for immigrants and people of Middle Eastern descent, especially compared to the Obama era. “The idea that a man with a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas could become president of the United States, it was one of the most hopeful moments from the story of the American dream,” Malek said. “That’s been flipped on its head. I always look at situations like this and just hope that it brings out the absolute best in us.”