Rami Malek has made history by becoming the first actor of Arab heritage to win the best actor Oscar, after taking the Academy Award for his performance as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody. Remarkably, it’s a role he almost never played: Ali G and Borat star Sacha Baron Cohen was originally earmarked, before disagreements with Queen band members who were producing the project; another actor, Ben Whishaw, was named by Queen guitarist Brian May as his preferred choice, before Malek was asked.

Malek told the Guardian that taking the role was a “kind of the gun-to-the-head moment”. “What do you do? … The scariest endeavours that I’ve chosen to take in my life have been the most fulfilling and rewarding. And this has proven to defend that equation.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rami Malek as Elliot Alderson in Mr Robot. Photograph: USA Network/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

His rise to Oscar glory has been meteoric. Before Bohemian Rhapsody, Malek was best known for the lead role of the hit TV series Mr Robot. As “vigilante hacker” Elliot Alderson who is dealing with a social anxiety disorder, Malek starred alongside Christian Slater and won an Emmy for best actor in a drama series in 2016. Until Mr Robot gave him industry traction, his film roles were unremarkable, with small parts in Oldboy, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and Battleship.

Born in Los Angeles in 1981 to a family of Egyptian immigrants from Cairo, Malek spoke Arabic in his childhood and was raised in the Coptic Orthodox faith. He says he grew up in a diverse, multicultural community in the San Fernando Valley, among Latinos, Filipinos and Asians but found it “difficult … forming a sense of identity”. He also attended Notre Dame, a Catholic high school in Sherman Oaks, at the same time as Kirsten Dunst and The Last Kiss star Rachel Bilson.

Rami Malek: ‘Being offered the part of Freddie Mercury was a gun-to-the-head moment’ Read more

Malek found his Middle Eastern background a help as well as a hindrance when it came to starting out as an actor: early roles included the pharaoh in all three Night at the Museum films, an Egyptian vampire in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2, and as a terrorist in 24. It was this last role, which aired in 2010 that prompted him to refuse any negative portrayals of Arabs. He told GQ: “In the past it was like, ‘Oh well, he’s an acceptable terrorist! He’s an accessible terrorist! … But after I did [24] I said to myself, ‘You know what? Bullshit. No more. This is not how I want it.’ …. Any calls that come about playing Arabs or Middle Easterners in a negative light? I don’t need to respond to any of them any more. No more of this.”

A self-confessed non-singer, non-musician and non-dancer, Malek says he worked intensively with movement and voice coaches once he had been cast as Mercury. However, most of the singing performances in Bohemian Rhapsody use Mercury’s own vocals, about which Malek is sanguine. “I don’t think anybody really wanted to hear my voice as much as they would love to hear Mr Mercury’s,” he said, after completing the work. “I quickly realised no one can sing like Freddie Mercury, and nor can I. It’s very difficult to get my voice up to those high notes, and at some point, my voice breaks, and it breaks pretty quickly when I’m trying to ascend what Freddie Mercury can do.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody. Photograph: Photo Credit: Nick Delaney/Allstar/New Regency Pictures

While Malek was clear favourite to win the best actor Oscar, doubts persisted due to the controversy around credited director Bryan Singer. Singer was fired from the production before the shoot finished, and subsequently accused of sexual misconduct and underage sex, which Singer has denied as a “homophobic smear”. Malek has said he was unaware of any allegations against Singer prior to the film, but after its release said: “My situation with Bryan, it was not pleasant, not at all.”

Malek can now expect to have his pick of roles in the future, though the huge success of Bohemian Rhapsody appears to taken the industry somewhat by surprise: his only forthcoming film role is as the voice of Chee-Chee the gorilla in the upcoming Voyage of Doctor Dolittle. Mr Robot will end when its current fourth series finishes later this year; Malek will then have the time to sit down and work out how he will conquer Hollywood.