Roger Taylor, one of the founding members of Queen, says he thinks the right man got the gig when it comes to the role of frontman Freddie Mercury in the 2018 film Bohemian Rhapsody. Rami Malek ultimately landed the role –– for which he won an Oscar –– but Borat mastermind Sacha Baron Cohen was originally in talks to tackle Mercury’s biopic as the main character.
Speaking on the possibility of Cohen doing the job, Taylor didn’t mince his words when talking to Classic Rock magazine. “I think he would have been utter s––. Sacha is pushy, if nothing else,” Taylor said, per Metro. “He’s also six inches too tall. But I watched his last five films and came to the conclusion he’s not a very good actor. I might be wrong there. I thought he was an utterly brilliant subversive comedian, that’s what he’s great at. Anyway, I think Rami did a brilliant job in an almost impossible role.”
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The film’s director Stephen Frears shared in a past interview with Vulture that Cohen’s film fell apart because band members didn’t feel Baron Cohen’s ideas were aligned with the movie that delicately captured the delicate nature that they believed Mercury’s story required. “Sacha wanted to make a very outrageous film, which I would imagine Freddie Mercury would have approved of,” Frears said at the time. “Outrageous in terms of his homosexuality and outrageous in terms of endless naked scenes. Sacha loved all of that.” He continued, adding: “You could always tell there would be trouble with the rest of the band. Because [Sacha] was so outrageous and they weren’t. They were much more conventional.”
Cohen ultimately decided to walk away from the project. The Borat star told Howard Stern in 2016 that one of the band members wanted the film to show Mercury’s complete life story. “Listen, not one person is going to see a movie where the lead character dies from AIDS and then you carry on to see the band,” Baron Cohen detailed at the time. David Fincher, who was once courted to helm the picture, looked back on Baron Cohen’s work saying, “he’s so deft and specific. … He’s such an intellect about the things he’s doing. He’s so thoughtful. He’s so quiet and thoughtful and chooses his words so specifically.”
