The bartender greets Rami Malek like he sees him every day. When he moves away, Malek groans. “You’re going to be like, ‘Oh, he took me to his regular spot. What an asshole.’”

Malek, 35, does come to this West Village bar a lot. It’s the middle of the day on a cloudy Monday, and we’re the only people in there. He’s tried almost everything on the menu. The frisée lardon salad is dope, the pico picandine cheese is just cheese, the burger is stupid good. Today he orders a plate of market vegetables and a soda water with some bitters in it. It’s difficult to imagine Malek’s character from Mr. Robot—a shadowy, morphine-addicted hacker named Elliot—nibbling on crudités. Malek explains away his order; he has to look “pale and gaunt” for a scene he’s shooting in a few days. Plus he’s going to the Met Gala in a few hours and he’s heard the food is good. The gala’s theme this year? “Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology.” “That’s why I was invited,” he says. Though we know it’s because of the unexpected popularity of Mr. Robot, which returns for a second season on July 13. Still, “Hand and the Machine?” The synchronicity is nice.

Malek is a very articulate, very disjointed talker. It’s exciting. He leaps from topic to topic, cutting himself off to ask what you think (Elliot often breaks the fourth wall on Mr. Robot, with the same unsettling abruptness). “When I’m onscreen or acting, I swear, I can listen like nobody’s business. I listen so well. Every word. Every action. Every physicality. I have a hard time doing that in real life."

Focus alone doesn't earn an actor the attention Malek has won for Mr. Robot. When industry people say that Malek is the one to watch, they’re talking about his intensity—which can be unnerving—and something else. “I think I’ve always gone pretty far in one direction or another, and somehow it was able to work for this character,” he says. It works so well that it’s hard to picture anyone else playing Elliot. When asked who his acting nemesis is, Malek thinks for a second. “Is it weird to say Rooney Mara? I’m not even in that category. I wouldn’t put myself in that category.” Maybe Jon Bernthal. Maybe Paul Dano. People tell him he looks like Michael Shannon's younger brother. “I always take that as a compliment,” Malek says, “But someone said—when I said thank you—‘No, he’s not a good-looking person.’ I think he’s handsome.”

In the summer issue of GQ Style, Robert Downey Jr. said of Malek: “Everyone should be studying this guy.” The compliments ricocheted off Malek: “That’s the actor everybody wants to emulate. Folks want to get an ounce of what he has in his DNA. I’m waiting for him to have a daughter,” he joked. “No. That’s weird. But does he have any daughters?”

Malek prefers to attribute the success of Mr. Robot to creator Sam Esmail and the rest of the cast. It really is hard to zero in on a specific quality that makes Mr. Robot so good—good enough to snap up two Golden Globes, including best TV drama. It’s partly Malek’s performance, partly Esmail’s mind-bending, prescient plot lines, and partly the show’s gritty portrayal of addiction and mental illness.

For merciless exploration of its characters’ darkest moments, Mr. Robot rivals Game of Thrones. There’s infidelity and corruption, and a pregnant woman who breaks her own water with an oyster fork to distract police from her husband’s misdeeds. Elliot cyber-stalks the people close to him compulsively, uncovering the dark underside of even the most type-A life. He also goes to great lengths to help his friends avoid suffering. “He’s got a very strong moral center,” Malek says of Elliot, quickly qualifying that: “No—he has a moral center.” Elliot has zero concern for the wider consequences of his actions. He meddles in people’s lives with the detachment of a kid playing The Sims; when he’s done, he shuts the computer and walks away.