The Truth About Rami Malek And Joe Mazzello's Relationship
Plenty of co-stars become best friends IRL, but few can co-star more than once. That's where Rami Malek and Joe Mazzello are fortunate.
They've co-starred in not one but two critically acclaimed projects so far, Bohemian Rhapsody and The Pacific. Hopefully, they get another chance to share the screen in the future because they're good friends.
Malek might have taken home the Oscar and the Golden Globe for playing Freddie Mercury, but that award really went to all of the guys who played members of Queen. In spirit, Malek and Mazzello also won the Emmy for The Pacific as well.
They've both come a long way in their careers. Mazzello started as a child actor, starring in films like Jurassic Park. Malek found fame through Night at the Museum and Mr. Robot. But they worked with each other in their early careers and later at the height of their fame. They've had each other through every aspect of their careers and continue to work together. Here's what we know about the pair's relationship.
They Met On The Set Of 'The Pacific'
If you've watched Steven Speilberg's The Pacific, you'll know how absolutely gory it is. If not, then you're in for a real treat to see how exceptionally realistic it was capturing the experiences of some Marines throughout their time in World War II. It's one of the most acclaimed war miniseries and serves as a companion piece to another great, Band of Brothers.
Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 91% approval rating and described it as, "An honest, albeit horrifying, exploration of World War II, The Pacific is a visually stunning miniseries not for the faint of heart."
Malek played the often cocky and psychotic Cpl. Merriell "Snafu" Shelton. In the beginning, we saw him cutting out the gold filling of fallen soldiers when he met fellow Marine, Mazzello's character, Pfc. Eugene Sledge, a.k.a. "Sledge" or "Sledgehammer." They don't really like each other initially, but they quickly find out they're a great team. By the end, they huddle together in the rain and watch each other's backs, even as they lose more and more of their humanity.
But it turns out that Malek and Mazzello's relationship had a similar beginning. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Mazzello revealed that they weren't immediately friends on set.
"Our relationship sort of escalated where we became really, really close by the end of it. In the earlier stuff, I was close with some of the other guys a little bit more, and it sort of went as our characters went, whereas our characters got closer and we got more scenes together, we became closer, and then by the end of it he was like one of my best friends," Mazzello said.
Mazzello also revealed that he always huddled with Malek before every scene whenever they were on set. They would go over their scenes and see how they'd make them work. After a while, Mazzllo stopped worrying about the script because he and Malek were so in tune with each other and their characters.
Fast forward to the filming of Bohemian Rhapsody; they found they had to huddle together in a different way, as a band would. Mazzello told Access that he knew Malek was a very gifted actor after working with him every day on The Pacific, so he wasn't scared about taking on the role. Mazzello knew Malek was going to nail playing Freddie Mercury.
The pair had a lot of fun doing press for the film as well, and you can immediately get the sense that Malek and Mazzello are still close.
They Have A WhatsApp Group Chat With The Rest Of Their Bohemian Rhapsody Castmates
Since Malek and Mazzello and the rest of the guys who starred in Bohemian Rhapsody were so close during filming, it's really no surprise that they made a WhatsApp group chat that they don't want anyone else to see.
"We have a WhatsApp group – and photo sharing groups that I hope no one ever sees; we’re friends for life," Gwilym Lee, who played Queen's guitarist Brian May in the rock biopic, said.
Malek, Mazzello (who played bassist John Deacon), Lee, and Ben Hardy (who played drummer Roger Taylor), met one month before filming started to establish a band-like bond between them. Still, Malek and Mazzello already had a bond.
"As much as possible we would try to play together, where we could, because although when it came to performances on set, we would play to backing tracks, it was really important to know how it feels to play with each other and feel that connection and to listen for each other and be in time and to have that eye contact and know that playing in a band informed how you move around and interact and where you stand," Lee explained.
"Also, we knew that one of the most important things in telling this was to capture the rapport between the band members – any band is tight, but Queen were a family, a real unit, and like any family, they have fallings out and tough times, but they kept coming back together.
"It was real inextricable bond between them that we needed to capture so we hung out a lot, we went out together in evenings, and Joe and Rami are both from the States so me and Ben would show them our favorite places and host them and just have fun together as much as possible.
"To this day, we are inseparable, we’re all best mates, and it doesn’t go a day when we don’t all speak to each other," he concluded.
Malek and Mazzello's friendship and bond is truly a gift, not only to them but to us, because we get to see what they'll collaborate on next. We can't wait to see how their relationship grows and if they'll ever co-star again. The suspense is killing us just as much as watching The Pacific.
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