Athar ul-Haque Malik was born on 13 November 1952, known professionally as Art Malik, is a Pakistani-born British actor. Malik was born Athar ul-Haque Malik in Bahawalpur, Pakistan, the son of Zaibunisa and Mazhar ul-Haque Malik, a doctor who would soon qualify as an ophthalmic surgeon in Britain. When his father secured a job as a surgeon in Moorfields Eye Hospital, Malik was brought to London in 1956, aged three, with his four older brothers. At age 10 he was sent to school in Quetta, Balochistan, for one year, and then Bec Grammar School, a selective state school in Upper Tooting, London. Malik is mildly dyslexic and found academic studies trying after an unsatisfactory stint of business studies and a term studying acting at the Questors Theatre, he won a scholarship to Guildhall School of Music and Drama.  Before long, he was working with the Old Vic and Royal Shakespeare companies, where he played the title role in the Shakespeare play Othello.

In 1982, five years after leaving Guildhall, Malik was cast as Hari Kumar in the Granada Television production of The Jewel in the Crown. He debuted in Bollywood with the role of Milkha Singh's father in the 2013 Hindi film Bhaag Milkha Bhaag.

Malik took a major role in fundraising for relief work for victims of the Gujarat earthquake in 2001 and also appeared on the DEC Pakistan Floods Appeal advertisement in 2010. He lives with his wife Gina Rowe, a fellow student at the Guildhall, whom he married in 1980. They have two daughters, Jessica and Keira. Although from a Muslim background, and has insisted that his character on Holby City should be a Muslim, Malik describes himself as "not a practicing Muslim. I'm probably an apostate, and liable for any right-minded Muslim fundamentalist to put me on a list of people to stamp out.