Happy Birthday Rami Malek: What to Expect from the Next Bond Villain

Rami Malek is celebrating his 38th birthday today. From featuring as a character actor in TV to being an uncredited voice-over artist in video games, Rami’s acting bid sure has received some Primetime Emmy and Academy boost in the last few years or so. Until Mr Robot, with creator Sam Esmail, his roles were largely unremarkable, with only small parts in Oldboy, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and Battleship.

Now, after the hugely successful Bohemian Rhapsody, which took the film industry and fans by surprise, Rami’s clout in Hollywood is expected to surge. And if the cast of the upcoming Bond film is any indication, things have started rolling in his favour. Rami has been roped in to play Bond villain in the upcoming 25th installment, a role that one does not pick, but is instead chosen for. He will feature opposite Bond of four times, Daniel Craig.

Pain, psychological showdowns, torture and toughness are synonymous with the world Bond and these traits are in turn reflected in the henchmen.

Of all the scores of fantastic villains that have boarded the multi-billion dollar franchise, that is James Bond, Rami catches attention. He does not really offer superior villain vibes, and is, on the contrary, breezy and affable. However, a face wreck here, a wrong MI6 brush there, and voila, one can certainly juice out a competent antagonist out of Rami.

Hand-to-hand combat, on field action or not, he surely packs unpleasant, suspicious and creepy feels aplenty, only if he has to. And Bond films have done for less and delivered the most bumbling grey characters over the years.

Eccentric and dedicated can be pulled off by Rami, if that were to be his cue. However, in being a Bond villain, what else he could do would be eyed by the viewers. A hacker, probably not. Rami has played one for way too long. More like a blend of psychopathic Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem), cold and managerial Mr White (Jesper Christensen), desperate Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) and vicious Steven Obanno (Isaach De Bankole), stirred, not shaken.

When on April 25, cast and makers of the James Bond film assembled at Ian Fleming’s villa in Jamaica, where some of the films from the series were shot and Fleming reportedly wrote all his novels, for a cast reveal, a major speculation was to be finally delivered for–whether Rami is in the film or not, and if yes, in what capacity?

Rumours as to his involvement in the film started doing rounds around the time Bond 25 was suffering multiple delays over directors, writers and story line. But, the revelation at Jamaica was nothing short of a respite for Rami and Bond fans, as he himself said in a video recording, “I will be making sure Mr Bond does not have an easy ride in this, his 25th outing. See you all soon.”

Bond 25 will be co-written by Phoebe Waller-Bridge and directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga. The film will release in April 2020.

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