Rami Malek Owes His 'Mr. Robot' Role to the Showrunner's Fiancee, Emmy Rossum

By Dustin Rowles | Mr. Robot | September 2, 2015 |

By Dustin Rowles | Mr. Robot | September 2, 2015 |

The one good thing about the Mr. Robot season finale being pushed a week is that it gave the series star, Rami Malek, an opportunity to do some more press. He and Christian Slater were on the Nerdist last week, and I love both Malek and Slater, but I do not recommend the podcast. It was one of those episodes where the guests spend an hour talking about “process,” which I find to be the most agonizing podcast episodes. There was one brief note of the personal variety: Malek apparently went on one date with Christian Slater’s step-sister back in high school (the two went to high school together). They weren’t able, however, to manufacture much of an anecdote of of that fact, however.

But speaking of dating, Mr. Robot’s showrunner, Sam Esmail, is engaged to Shameless star Emmy Rossum, and as Malek explained on Kimmel last night, it’s Rossum who recommended Malek for the part, having seen him on HBO’s The Pacific.

You gotta work on your dramatic pauses, though, Malek. It’s not, “Who’s your girlfriend? It’s Emmy Rossum.” It should be, “Who’s your girlfriend?” “It’s …. Emmy Rossum.”

I’m also a little disappointed that Malek didn’t mention in either the Nerdist podcast or on Kimmel that he has an identical twin brother named Sami, who is a school teacher in Los Angeles, who wrote this really fantastic essay a few years ago about what the California budget crisis was doing to teachers.

As the parent of identical twins, however, I was warned against giving them cutesy matching names. Their parents weren’t so warned.

Here’s Sami and Rami: