Actor Rami Malek recalled a harrowing incident in which he said he was “thrown” on the hood of a cop car after being mistaken for a robbery suspect in California.
In a recent interview with The Guardian, the Egyptian-American movie star reflected on his experience with racism—including a scary encounter with the Los Angeles Police Department.
“I got thrown on the bonnet of an LAPD cop car because someone had robbed a liquor store and stolen a woman’s bag,” Malek said. “They said the [thief] was of Latin descent and, ‘You fit the description.’ I remember how hot that engine was… it was almost burning my hands.”
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A friend who was with Malek at the time pointed out to the officers that he was, in fact, Egyptian and 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,’” the Oscar winner added.
Malek, the son of Egyptian immigrants, grew up outside LA. After a string of supporting roles in shows and movies, he earned his break as the star of the acclaimed series Mr. Robot in 2015.
In the interview, Malek also shared his worries about how another Donald Trump presidency might affect immigrant families like his, adding how much things have changed since Barack Obama’s presidency.
“The idea that a man with a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas could become president of the United States, it was one of the most hopeful moments from the story of the American dream,” said Malek. “That’s been flipped on its head. I always look at situations like this and just hope that it brings out the absolute best in us.”
He added, “At times I do feel a bit sad that [my parents] had to make this extraordinary pilgrimage to America to investigate the possibilities. And now [my mother is] dealing with, perhaps, a certain sense of repression that they may not have known had they not moved.”
Trump won the presidency on an anti-immigration platform. He has vowed to deport undocumented immigrants from America en masse as soon as the day after his inauguration, even indicating his intent to deploy the military to accomplish that goal.
