Rachel Bilson Shares Ultimate Throwback Photo with Rami Malek: 'Don't Forget the Little People'
Rami Malek has certainly come a long way — and Rachel Bilson has the photos to prove it!
On Thursday, Bilson, 37, shared a hilarious throwback photo with the Bohemian Rhapsody star. In the shot, the pair — who attended Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, California together — are considerably younger, which Bilson poked fun at in her caption.
“Hey @ramimalek where’d you get that gold chain?” she jokingly wrote, before adding the hashtags “#tbt #oscarworthy #dontforgetthelittlepeople”
As they embraced in a hug, Malek, also 37, was captured rocking a spiked-gel hairstyle and gold chain, while he held his arm around the The O.C. alum and pointed at the camera with his other hand.
Meanwhile, a young Bilson with curly brown locks smiled, as she tightly wrapped her arms around her old pal, who has since won several prestigious awards and is currently nominated for an Oscar.
In addition to Bilson, Malek also attended the same high school as actress Kirsten Dunst, which he admitted to E! News while at the 2016 Golden Globes.
When asked if the two were still friends, he said, “We are still friends. I used to have a little crush on her.”
“She dates a friend of mine now, though,” he added. “We’re good buds.”
On Sunday, Malek won the award for outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role for his turn in Bohemian Rhapsody at the 2019 Screen Actors Guild Awards. He also nabbed a Golden Globe for best actor earlier this month.
The actor, who originally made it big as Elliot Alderson in Mr. Robot, initially believed taking on the part of Freddie Mercury in the Queen biopic would ruin his career.
Speaking to an audience at Cinemacon in April 2018, Malek revealed, “When I got this role, I thought, ‘Oh my God, this could be a career-defining performance.’ And about two minutes later I thought, This could be a career killer.”
The Mr. Robot star wasn’t kidding either, adding, “You don’t get this right and it’s trouble.”
His risk paid off in the long-term, as Malek became the star of the acclaimed film, which has racked up over $900 million in the world box office.
Bohemian Rhapsody chronicles Queen from 1970, when Mercury teamed with Brian May and Roger Taylor, until the band’s performance at Live Aid in 1985, six years before the singer died of complications from AIDS.
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Malek previously told PEOPLE that he once he agreed to sign on to the film, he had “no hesitation” moving forward.
“It was all in,” he said. “It was just after that where the weight of it all hit. I felt the only way to not have the pitfall of making it such a pressure-filled situation was to dive in wholeheartedly into all things Freddie.”
“And go to London, take some piano lessons, singing lessons, do some movement coaching, and give it all I have,” he added.
