Rami Malek: The Broke Busboy Who Hustled His Way To An Oscar

It's a very, very difficult business to break into. Hearing no that many times really— it builds you a skin that puts you ready to take on anything in the world. If something doesn't work out with this acting thing, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I cannot listen to you anymore.

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Watch a Top 10 with Believe Nation.

He's Rami Malek, and here's my take on his top 10 rules to success. Enjoy. Okay, let's kick it off with rule number 1: build tough skin.

Oh, some of the best roles I've ever played have just been in 5-minute auditions that no one's ever seen. The amount of times I've gotten into my car or on the train after an audition and just wanted to scream or screamed or even cried at times. I was just like— but it's good. I mean, hearing no that many times really, it builds you a skin that puts you ready to take on anything in the world.

Rule number 2, master your craft.

I met choreographers early on, and I said, oh no, I'm not going to be choreographed. Nothing he did was a 5, 6, 7, 8. Everything he went out there, he didn't know what was going to happen from second to second, and you feel moments. Where his adrenaline is just kicking in. I needed to have that happen for me, take after take after take. So it was about just having him live organically within me. And I had the help of Polly Bennett, a movement teacher, who just helped me develop that so that any time, any place, I could jump into my version of Freddie. All right!

Rule number 3: Be committed.

I'm already in debt from school, from studying theater. There's no way, as much as I would love to learn more about this, I do want to kind of give it a go too. And I went to New York and I lived with a couple friends in a one-bedroom apartment. That was not fun. And then one day I went back to Los Angeles to visit family and my theater director at Evansville, he said, I want you to meet a casting director, it was Mally Finn. And she's passed on, but she was incredible. And she looked at me and she said, you know, just stay here for a while. You know, Los Angeles, you grew up here. Give it a go. I think something could happen for you. And I was like, yeah, right. Okay, why not? Okay, I'll move everything back home. And ended up moving back in with your parents. Sadly, I did save money in there. Save some money. She said, listen, get your headshot and resume and send it to every agent you can and go into every 'Every film school,' and just leave a box of them everywhere. Well, I went and did everything she said. I sent them to every agent, every school, and every casting agent as well. And one day I got a call after doing this for quite some time and not hearing anything.

How long did it take to hear back?

Oh, a long time.

Like a year? A couple years?

At least a year, yeah, before I even got one phone call out of it.

Did you have a day job during this time?

Oh yeah.

What's the worst day job you had?

I had some pretty crazy day jobs, but one was I was working as a busboy for a long time at, I think it's called the Rockwell now, where they do all those musicals on Vermont. You know what I'm talking about?

They apparently do, yeah.

And I remember one day my boss came up to me and, you know, I've just been working my ass off there, and he looked at my cup of of espresso that I made for someone, and he said, "That is an inferior macchiato." And that's when I was like, "Listen, if something doesn't work out with this acting thing, I don't know what I'm gonna do.

I cannot listen to you anymore." Rule number 4: Do your own thing.

Ommi wa abouya min Masr, me, Ommi min al-Kahira, wa abouya min Upper Egypt. Koun, ahoma aishin hena, ayzine ebno homi, yakhoutchoghlou ez edoktor, wa lawyer, hagat kidah. That was hard because, you know, momassil is not considered the greatest career to go into from that standpoint, best. You know, Flamenica, it's a different story. It's really a special career to be a part of, and you know, now that I've achieved some success, everybody seems very happy with that. But it's difficult. It's a very, very difficult business to break into, and I'm very fortunate that I've been able to. I've just kept going.

Also, if you want to learn how to have confidence, check out my free 254 Confidence series. The link is in the description below.

My call time is at 7. Then you back your clock up 4 hours, and then that's when I get up. I was excited about, uh, taking a shot. The fact that it was so strange. Fail big. That's right, fail big. You only live once. So do what you feel passionate about. Passionate about.

Rule number 5: Be bold.

You jumped into a giant franchise called Night at the Museum, which is, I think, earned $540 million worldwide in all the sequels, which is an amazing experience. Tell me what it was like to be on that set. We had Robin Williams, Mickey Rooney, Dick Van Dyke, Shawn Levy directing. I mean, Ben Stiller obviously starring. That, that was a huge opportunity. How did that feel?

That was unreal. Yeah, we're the— I could not believe I got that job. Uh, I was over the moon. I mean, doing my, my, a film, a major motion picture, a huge film.

And how did you get that role specifically? Had someone seen you in one of the—

No, no, I think that had a lot to do with playing a pharaoh and me being Egyptian. Okay. And I'm wearing this big puffy jacket as a pharaoh and big kind of snow boots that have rainbows on them, and I start improving with Ben Stiller for the first— he starts throwing lines at me, going off book, and then I'd start going off book. I had really prepared myself, so, 'cause I knew that might happen. So I thought of some stuff to come up with, and I went home that night, and I saw all those kids from New York that I went to college with, took them out for drinks at a bar, and I still had eyeliner on. I could not get the eye— this cold, eyeliner on. Very intense. And I just couldn't believe it. Got to buy my friends a round of drinks, and for the first time, and just improv with Ben Stiller and Robin Williams. I mean, I was over the moon. I go back to LA, we're about to shoot in Vancouver, and I see that my date to shoot keeps getting pushed, and I thought, man, what's going on? Something's going on. And I got a call from Kim Dorr, my agent, and she said, do you know if there's a reason why they have another breakdown out for the character of Achmenrah? I said, what? I go, this makes so much sense. It turns out that while I was doing this film, I came up with this idea that Achmenrah was, he was trapped in, a sarcophagus at Cambridge University, as it said in the script, right? So he'd become kind of like this Cambridge dandy, right? So maybe I had taken it a little too far. And with the blue puffer jacket and the snow boots and the eyeliner that I couldn't get off for days, I think the movie studio Fox inevitably would do Bohemian Rhapsody, so this all has a great ending. They were a little concerned about my depiction of the Egyptian pharaoh. So fortunately, Sean goes, come on up, we're gonna do a makeup test and you gotta give me a different read on this character.

Even though you'd already shot the exterior?

Yeah. Oh, wow. They were ready to move on.

Oh, boy.

My first job, I was like, this business is tough enough, right?

So tough.

I mean, come on, give me a break. But fortunately, I think Stiller had some faith in me and Sean had some faith in me and they pushed. And fortunately, I made my way back in there. I clawed my ass back in there.

So how much did you learn from that about there's a point to which maybe over-interpreting the script or maybe bringing too much of yourself to it or did it—

Not gonna say that was my fault. Looking back on it, I think I really enjoyed what I was doing. I might have watched Pirates of the Caribbean a few too many times. But I was like, hey, I mean, you got one shot at this, right? I'm going to be bold.

Rule number 6, seize every opportunity.

What was the very first thing you auditioned for? I was desperate to know the answer to that question. The first thing I auditioned for, I actually, I got a call from a casting director. She asked to speak to the agent. Representing Rami Malek. And I said, uh, speaking. And she said, well, what's your name? I said, this is Rami. And she kind of laughed and she said, are you SAG? I said, no. I think I've made the giraffe already, by the way. And she started laughing and laughing. She said, all right, call me when you have an agent and you're properly SAG. You're already laughing. Give me a shot. It was 3 lines in the Gilmore Girls. That's your answer. Wow. I got the part.

You got the part?

I got the part. You got the part in your first ever audition, was it also playing your agent? I just love that your agent had a lot to live up to after that as well. You were like one for one. Yes, exactly.

Rule number 7: Do different things.

I've always been disgruntled for a certain time about all the, all the roles in, uh, in Hollywood going, you know, for Middle Eastern people where the roles of Al-Habib, the terrorist. And, you know, it's sad. It's sad to see people going out for just this role, to play the villain. And I always wanted to do something else. I wanted to just do a variety of roles and show—play some very complicated characters and show, you know, show range. I wanted to look back at my career and be proud of all the different things I got to do.

Rule number 8: Find your true path.

I lived in the Valley, and I swear to you, you probably won't believe this, but I didn't even know that this side of Los Angeles existed till I was about 16 or 17. And that sounds crazy, but that's how sheltered I was. I mean, I just went, went to school and hung out with my friends and knew that Hollywood was somewhere around, but I didn't realize it.

Were your parents sheltering you from Hollywood, or they wanted you to be more focused on academics?

Yeah, I think it was focused on academics I'm a first-generation American, so they came from Cairo, and they were just seeking a better life. And, you know, I think they thought, if we're paying for you to go to school here, you're gonna do things that help you excel, and that was to be in politics or law or a doctor. And so I took debate class in high school, and That didn't really work out for me, but I had a great substitute teacher that came in one day, and he was kind of a comedian. His name was Lester Barry, and he could recognize, hey, you're not really cut out for this, but you can do this thing called a dramatic or humorous interpretation. I said, what's that? He said, well, you just look at a play, and you can basically have it in front of you, and you act it out. And he gave me this one-man show. It was called Zoo Man and the Sign by Charles Fuller. And I remember taking it home and just, I just read through it as fast as I could and something happened. And I remember looking at it and the first line was, "My name is Zuman, Z-O-O-M-A-N, I'm from the bottom." And I just heard myself at, I don't know, 13, come up with this new character that someone else had written that I just hadn't created in my head. And it felt I felt powerful in a way. And, uh, I showed it to him about a week later, and he looked at me, and I think he had this look of, "Oh, that's not bad." Rule number 9: Take risks. From, uh, the perspective of this generation, a new generation, millennials will see Queen possibly for the first time and get to know Freddie for the first time. So we wanted to be as intimate as we could with his life and showing, uh, an aspect of who this person was behind closed doors, how a young man from humble beginnings can come to be one of the greatest rock stars the world has ever known and be a part of one of the greatest rock bands the world has ever known. It's an opportunity of a lifetime, and yes, chances are it could go very, very wrong, but you know, you can't live life without taking a few risks, and I like a challenge, I guess. This is probably the biggest one I'll ever take in my life, and fingers crossed it works.

And rule number 10, the last one before a very special bonus clip, is chase your dreams.

I think about— I think about what it would have been like to tell little Bubba Ramy that one day this might happen to him, and I think his curly-haired little mind would be blown. That kid was— he was struggling with his identity, trying to figure himself out. And I think to anyone struggling with theirs and trying to discover their voice, listen, we made a film about a gay man, an immigrant, who lived his life just unapologetically himself. And the fact that I'm celebrating him and this story with you tonight is, is proof that we're longing for, for stories like this. I am the son of immigrants from Egypt. I'm a first-generation American, and part of my story is being written right now.

Now I've got a really special bonus clip on how to tell great stories that I think you're going you're going to enjoy. But before that, it's time for the 3-point landing questions. Let's go from just watching the video to taking action. Here we go. Question number 1: Where do you need to be bold and chase your dreams? Number 2: Where do you need to toughen your skin? And number 3: What risk are you going to take today?

I did this audition with, with Joe Mazzello, and it was a really dark scene where my character is actually throwing pebbles into this sawed-off head of a Japanese enemy who's been sitting there dead for a while. And it was a very, very intense scene. And I remember the casting assistant was getting really in our faces with the camcorder, moving, I mean, more than I'd ever seen a casting assistant move, and older than I'd ever seen a casting assistant. And I realized That's no ordinary casting assistant, that's Steven Spielberg. And then I went, holy shit, don't stop talking, say your lines. And in that moment I remember, you're either gonna, it's either all gonna go to shit or something really great is gonna happen. Let's pick the right move here, Bobby. And fortunately I did. I just, I gathered all my confidence and I said, let's give Steven the best show you could give him right now. And I don't know if that happened, but I walked out of there. I would imagine it did, yeah. And I got the job and I could not believe it.

If you want to learn how to make it as an actor, go check out the video right there next to me. I think you'll enjoy it. Continue to believe, and I'll see you there.

Everybody told me not to be an actor. To this day, I say that to people who come up to me and say, "I'm thinking of going into acting. What do you think?" I say, "Absolutely not. It's a terrible idea. Don't do it."