Never in a million years could I have predicted that the future me would’ve done that. Look, as a kid, I never thought I stood a chance in hell of doing something like I just did. ‘There was no doubt in my mind that we were going to finish the film… It was a bump in the road, of course’ Essentially, he’s an immigrant in London.”īorn a twin – his brother Sami is younger by four minutes – Malek was raised by Egyptian immigrant parents, living in the Sherman Oaks portion of Los Angeles.ĭid being the son of two immigrants immediately connect him to Mercury? “Very much so. “His adolescent years, he calls an upheaval of an upbringing. If there was a way in for Malek, it was in recognizing the similarities he shared with Mercury, who was born in Zanzibar and educated at a boarding school in India before arriving in England. “So I started looking at his aspects of his story, his life story, and the way an actor would create any character: where is this person from? What is the origin there?” “Besides obviously immersing myself in every aspect of my life, the only way I thought I was ever going to come close was just to find a window into his soul as a human being, rather than as this monolith rock god,” says Malek. Bohemian Rhapsody may be the story of Queen, climaxing with the band’s seminal performance at 1985’s Live Aid, but it’s Mercury’s film, a personal look at the oft-times elusive front-man.
But if we can let Malek off the hook for not quite possessing the range Freddie Mercury enjoyed, he captures the man’s on-stage charisma, playful preening and sheer ebullience to a tee.
His vocal performance, meanwhile, is mixed with Canadian singer Marc Martel. I don’t think I’m going to be able to do this part of it’ ‘There were moments when I thought, ‘This is not my bag. I don’t think I’m going to be able to do this part of it.’” “There were moments when I thought, ‘This is not my bag. Not many people think of him in that respect.” Starting by learning the intro to the film’s titular track, Malek was determined not to fake it with cut-aways to another pianist’s hands. “Every time I thought I got something,” he sighs, “another challenge came.” Take the piano playing. Malek’s crazed dedication to the part was colossal. “If the idea was to firmly plant Rami Malek among top contenders for the Best Actor Oscar, then it was mission accomplished,” wrote Deadline.
When the film was recently shown in Los Angeles, the ‘he will rock you’ buzz was audible. Photo: Monica Schipper/Gettyįrom studying every bit of concert footage he could get his hands on – “even if it’s some camcorder in Japan” – to having a set of ‘Freddie teeth’ made specially to emulate Mercury’s unique overbite, Malek’s attention to detail was all-encompassing. Robot, in between – if I had any time off – I’d fly my butt over here and jump right back in.” Rami Malek: ‘Never in a million years could I have predicted that the future me would’ve done this’. He studied Mercury’s inspirations: Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, Aretha Franklin and even Cabaret-era Liza Minnelli. A year before the film was even greenlit, Malek began to fly himself to London to take singing and piano lessons, engage with a dialect coach and work with choreographer and movement coach Polly Bennett. ‘Every time I thought I got something, another challenge came’Ĭertainly, his commitment was never in doubt.
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