The first look of Rami Malek as Queen frontman, singer, songwriter, musician, and cultural icon Freddie Mercury is out. The photo, released by Entertainment Weekly, coincided with Freddie Mercury’s 71st birthday, yesterday.
Entertainment Weekly tweeted the image:
Exclusive: @ItsRamiMalek is #FreddieMercury in this ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ first look: https://t.co/xfpQKXgVNZ pic.twitter.com/cplCnggZtW
— Entertainment Weekly (@EW) September 5, 2017
Silverscreen earlier reported that Malek had been signed on to play Freddie Mercury, in the biopic on his life: Bohemian Rhapsody. Bryan Singer will direct the film, which has been in production for a long time. Earlier, Sacha Baron Cohen was to play the iconic singer, but differences between Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor, and Cohen led to the latter opting out of the film.
Brian May and Roger Taylor, who are also executive producers of the film, earlier told QOL, “Rami has great presence and he’s utterly dedicated to the project. He’s completely living and breathing Freddie already, which is wonderful.”
Talking about his prepping for his role, and the make-up sessions, Malek told EW: “When you’re able to open your eyes and see a different person staring back at you in the mirror, it’s a very affirming moment.”
Mercury vs Malek
In the picture released, Malek is channeling Mercury’s style and look from the legendary 1985 Live Aid performance in London. (Fangirl aside: He does look a bit like Mercury). Talking of the resemblance, he says that “only adds to the level of confidence that one would need to play Freddie Mercury.”
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Physical resemblance in one thing. Replicating Freddie’s voice is entirely another matter altogether. Freddie is known to belt through different vocal ranges, and can hit the highs and the lows with effortless ease. Freddie also improvises a lot, and his studio recordings and live performances are vastly different in extremely good ways. Malek has been practicing his vocal skills.
He said, “We’re going to use Freddie as much as possible and use myself as much as possible. I’m in Abbey Road [Studios] right now if that should say anything to you. I’m not working on my acting.”
The filmmakers will use recordings of Freddie where possible, and Malek and a special sound-alike will fill in the rest.
And because there is never such a thing as ‘I’m done listening’ to Freddie Mercury performing live at the concert, here: Bohemian Rhapsody and Radio Gaga