‘Got thrown on bonnet of LAPD car’: Oscar winner Rami Malek recalls encounter with LA cops

WASHINGTON: Oscar winner Rami Malek recalled his encounter with the Los Angeles Police Department during which he was racially profiled and thrown onto a heated cop car as they tried to locate a robber, reported Deadline.

In an exclusive conversation with the Guardian and quoted by Deadline, the ‘Mr Robot’ actor discussed the issues of identity and othering to not being a ‘fit in’ as a child while growing up in the 90s.

Narrating an old incident of mistaken identity and his racial profiling in LA, the ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ actor said, “I got thrown on the bonnet of an LAPD cop car because someone had robbed a liquor store and stolen a woman’s bag. They said the thief was of Latin descent and, ‘You fit the description.’ I remember how hot that engine was, they must have been racing over there and it was almost burning my hands”, said Rami Malek as quoted by Deadline.

Rami Malek details his experiences with racism as an Egyptian-American, pointing to one racial profiling incident where he found himself on the hood of a cop car:

“I got thrown on the bonnet of an LAPD cop car because someone had robbed a liquor store and stolen a woman’s bag.… pic.twitter.com/grK6DWiWFM

— Variety (@Variety) January 19, 2025

He was accompanied by his friend who wanted to help but unintentionally participated in the racial profiling. “My friend, who was Caucasian, was clever enough to go, ‘Actually, sir, he’s Egyptian. Not Latin’. I remember laughing on the cop car, thinking, ‘OK, this is a very precarious situation. I may well be going to jail for something I’ve not done”, said Ramil Malek quoted by Deadline.

Malek, who garnered a Best Actor Academy Award for his turn as Freddie Mercury in the 2018 blockbuster biopic ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, will soon take to London’s Old Vic theatre stage as Oedipus and appear in ‘The Amateur’.

It is a tense thriller in which he stars as a CIA decoder who goes rogue to avenge his wife’s murder. It also stars Laurence Fishburne, Rachel Brosnahan and Jon Bernthal and is scheduled to release in theatres on April 11. (ANI)