Playing a paranoid hacker-genius gets into your head. “The more I’ve worked on this show, the more I refrain from getting on the computer or on my phone, because I realize just how fragile our information [is], and how susceptible it is to being compromised,†said Rami Malek, the star of USA’s summer breakout show Mr. Robot. Vulture ran into our summer crush on the red carpet at People magazine’s “Ones to Watch†party Wednesday night, which he attended with his co-stars Carly Chaikin and Portia Doubleday. Malek said with a laugh, “I cover up my webcam, and I’ve even started to cover up the microphone now because I think they are listening.â€
Apparently, his co-stars feel the same way. “I always leave my laptop open, and now it’s an OCD thing that I have to close it all the time,†said Chaikin, who plays fellow FSociety member Darlene. “I had tape over my camera that I kept having to take off because I would video-chat. Now I just make sure it’s shut. It’s more paranoia because I know what’s possible. It’s weird to walk around every single place I go and it comes to my head, ‘Oh, we could hack that, or we could do this.’ It’s crazy.â€
Chaikin went on: “When I [asked my best friend], ‘What’s your password for this?’ and she told me, I was like, ‘That’s unacceptable. That’s literally unacceptable.’ She’s like, ‘Who is going to hack my American Airlines thing?’ And I was like, ‘You never know.’†Those are the words Fsociety lives and dies by.