Rami Malek to play Freddie Mercury in 'Bohemian Rhapsody' biopic
Rami Malek has officially confirmed that he is playing the role of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury in the upcoming biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody." Bryan Singer, the biopic's director who's also known for directing X-Men, took to Instagram to confirm Rami's involvement.
Singer's post contained the following caption: "Looking forward to @ramimalek @whoismrrobot playing #Freddiemercury," alongside a chain of hashtags indicating the names of all four of Queen's members.
A photo posted by Bryan Singer (@bryanjaysinger) on Nov 4, 2016 at 3:23pm PDT
Malek has been named best actor in this year's Emmy Awards, for his astounding performance as the obsessive hacker Elliot Alderson in Mr. Robot, BBC News has reported.
The project has been undergoing production for eight years already, with Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor onboard as music producers. Initially, Sacha Baron Cohen - of "Borat" and "The Dictator" fame, was heavily floated to play Mercury, but a slew of disagreements forced him to pull out of the project.
According to The Guardian , Cohen's pullout was due to a disagreement between him, May and Taylor over how much of the film exaggerated on Mercury's life. On a radio program hosted by Howard Stern in March, the comedian said that one of the band's members, whom he declined to mention, said that the movie is so great because an amazing thing happens in the middle of the movie. The interview went on as follows
"And I go: 'What happens in the middle of the movie?' He goes: 'You know, Freddie dies.'...I go: 'What happens in the second half of the movie?' He goes: 'We see how the band carries on from strength to strength.'"
"I said: 'Listen, not one person is going to see a movie where the lead character dies from AIDS and then you see how the band carries on.'"
May replied to the accusations on the Mail Sundays Event Magazine that Cohen had acted like an "arse". He continued to say that they had had a nice time sharing ideas with Cohen before he went on and spread lies about what really transpired.
The shooting of the biopic is scheduled to kick off in early 2017.
