“Could you imagine Elliot going shopping?”
Rami Malek is talking about the black hoodie, the one his complicated character, cybersecurity whiz Elliot Alderson, wears for almost the entirety of the first season of USA Network’s breakout series Mr. Robot.
If you’ve seen the show, then you know it’s essentially Malek’s sixth co-star, getting just as much airtime as anyone else in the startlingly talented ensemble cast (which includes Christian Slater — yes that Christian Slater — as the titular character).
It’s hard to imagine Elliot going shopping because it’s hard to imagine him walking into a store. I wonder aloud if he has a stash of identical black cotton hoodies, or whether he just wears the same one every day.
Malek ponders the question as seriously as if I had just asked him to explain what a honey pot is to a non-hacker. “It’s not that he’s unkempt,” he says. “There’s just a level of callousness to the way he treats things like getting dressed. He likely prefers a uniform because it’s one less thing to think about.”
He wants to be clear about this wardrobe choice, because he had a hand in it. In fact, he was the one to suggest to the show’s creator, Sam Esmail, that his character’s look be a little austere.
“I really wanted Elliot’s clothes to feel like it was a bit of an urban combat uniform,” Malek continued. “We needed the wardrobe to reflect his desire to disappear from the world. So I suggested a hoodie. Well, maybe I shouldn’t say ‘suggest.’ ”
What does that mean?
“Well, the show had gone to great lengths and spent beaucoup bucks trying to create the perfect ‘worn-in’ sweatshirt, but nothing was working,” he says. “So I came in one day before we shot the pilot with my personal hoodie from B:Scott that I’d had for years.… I just kinda paraded myself around the office until the powers that be said, ‘Hey! Did wardrobe put you in that?’ And I said, ‘Oh, this old thing? I’ve had this for ages,’ and they were like, ‘Why can’t he wear that?’ ”
Just like that, a TV touchstone was made.
“At first there were no doubles, so I ended up trying to preserve that one hoodie,” he says, laughing. “I remember a girl actually left my house one night in it, unbeknownst to me after we had already shot the pilot. So I called her frantically and she must have been like, ‘This guy’s losing it. It’s just a hoodie.’ So she brought it back and then later, after she must have seen the pilot, I hear from her and she says, ‘Oh, now I know why you were so adamant about getting that thing back.’ ”
Before long, the show’s costume designer, Kim Wilcox, reached out to the designer and got 20 or so versions replicated; apparently it was the liner of a jacket B:Scott had made years ago. Still, “nothing ever feels to me like the original,” says Malek.
When I saw Malek for the first time-sitting across the runway from me last month at the John Varvatos show during New York Fashion Week: Men’s — he looked like he belonged in a different movie from the rest of us. He was sandwiched between co-star Slater and iconic fashion photographer Bill Cunningham in a buttery-leather Varvatos jacket and slim-fitting jeans, legs politely crossed. A day earlier and I might not have recognized him, but as timing would have it, I had just begun binge-watching the first three episodes of season one of Mr. Robot the night before.
The show is the sleeper hit of the summer, and Malek has been called masterful in his portrayal of the oft-kilter genius and unreliable narrator, Elliot. (His now-too-familiar raspy voice-overs are themselves worthy of Emmy consideration.) He’s so perfect in the part, it’s hard to envision the show with anyone else in the complex lead role.
At 34, Malek is perhaps most widely known for his small but memorable film roles as King Ahkmenrah in the “Night at the Museum” franchise, Benjamin in “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn-Part 2,” and Clark in “The Master.” And rumor has it that Mr. Robot creator Esmail’s girlfriend, the actress Emmy Rossum, recommended Rami to him for the part of Elliot after seeing him in the HBO miniseries “The Pacific.”
“When I did The Pacific and I played Snafu, I walked away and I said, ‘Ahhh, it’s never gonna get better than that.’”
“Then I got the gift that is Elliot and Mr. Robot,” he says. “I think he’s going to teach me a lot about myself as we travel down this winding road together. Elliot and Rami, hand in hand, hoodie and hoodie.”
‘Mr. Robot’ finale postponed
The first season finale of USA’s “Mr. Robot” did not air Aug. 26 as scheduled, the network announced, because of a “graphic” scene that is similar in nature to the horrific shootings in Southwest Virginia when a gunman killed WDBJ7 reporter Allison Parker, 24, and videographer Adam Ward, 27. HitFix TV critic Alan Sepinwall confirmed the finale contains a scene that isn’t exactly the same as the Virginia tragedy, but it contains “a very graphic on-camera shooting.” The episode will instead air at 10 p.m. Sept. 2.
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