Rami Malek has joined Denzel Washington in the cast for The Little Things. Fresh off his Oscar win for playing Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, Malek has already put his newfound clout to use by signing on to play the villain in Cary Fukunaga's as-yet untitled James Bond 25. He's also got the final season of Mr. Robot arriving later this year, and will lend his voice to next year's The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle adaptation starring Robert Downey Jr. Before then, however, Malek is going to costar in an original serial killer thriller.
Written and directed by John Lee Hancock (The Blindside, The Highwaymen), The Little Things will star Washington as Deke, a brilliant but burnt-out Kern County deputy sheriff who joins forces with another detective to catch a serial killer. By the look of things, the project (which Washington joined in March) will mark one of the Oscar-winner's next appearances on the big screen, along with his role in Joel Coen's Macbeth adaptation. And with production expected to get underway in a few months, it appears the film has found Washington's onscreen partner to boot.
Washington, for his part, is far from a stranger to playing the older, wiser, and more grizzled co-lead opposite a younger actor. The formula has resulted in some memorable pairings (namely, Washington and Ethan Hawke in Training Day), as well as some combinations that left a weaker impression, but worked well enough on their own (see: Washington starring opposite Chris Pine and Ryan Reynolds in Unstoppable and Safe House, respectively). Malek, as it were, has a very different screen presence from Washington, so the pair could make for an amusingly off-kilter crime solving duo in The Little Things. They might even have some comedic chemistry, if in a subtler way than Washington and Mark Wahlberg did in the action-comedy 2 Guns.
Beyond that, The Little Things makes sense as a vehicle for Washington and Malek alike. The former has oscillated between pulpier genre fare and more prestigious material throughout his career, and will continue to do in the future thanks to this project and Macbeth. He's similarly gearing up to direct a film based on journalist Dana Canedy's memoir, Journal for Jordan, as a followup to his third directorial effort on 2016's Fences. Malek, meanwhile, has this film and Bond 25 to offset his more recent awards-friendly offerings like Bohemian Rhapsody and Papillon (lest he become known for Oscar-baiting vehicles only).
