Rami Malek, professional pariah, becomes “the amateur”

The first time that the world has watched Rami Malek well, computer screens were most often reflected in its distinctive peepers. As a star of “M. Robot “, the Zeitgeisty television series of Sam Esmail on the fight of a psychologically damaged hacker against the billionaire class, Malek seemed to be a creature of Zeros and Ones, shrinking in the omnipresent black hooded sweatshirt of the protagonist of the series, Elliot Alderson, even as actions as a Warrior of the keyboard.

But in its most famous role to date, Malek has shaken the world in a very different way. He obtained an Oscar for his performance as a leader Freddie Mercury in the rockbuster biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody”. But under the glitter, the glamor and the mustache, Freddie very much resembled Elliot: an underestimated foreigner who put himself under the spotlight by a pure force of will.

At first glance, Malek’s new film, “The amateur”, looks like a return to the world of the digital skulduggery he lived in “M. Robot”. In this action thriller adapted from Robert Littell’s novel and directed by James Hawes, Malek plays the role of Charlie Heller, a CIA cryptographer who takes things in hand when his compromise superiors refuse to stop the mercenaries who murdered his wife. Daily from the killer instinct to get closer to his targets, he rather uses his intellectual know-how to conceive a series of elaborate traps which cut them one by one.

But Malek sees a line through which connects the three characters: they are foreigners who prove their skeptics, including themselves. “It may be an action film, but one of the themes is a personal transformation,” said Malek. “Sometimes we go to the movies to see someone run on a telephone booth and put on a cape to do it. Freddie put his own cape on stage. Elliot had a hooded sweatshirt. I had moments of personal transformation throughout my life – we all have it. For Charlie, it’s a desire to take matters into hand.”

In a New York video call, Malek spoke of putting his own inimitable turn on the action hero. The following extracts are published by this conversation.