BRIAN MAY ON EPIC It’s taken but this
THE premiere of Bohemian Rhapsody is just 16 days away and Queen guitar legend Brian May admits it is sending shivers down his spine.
The best part of 10 years in the making, beset by cast walkouts and production dramas, this finally is the real life, not just a fantasy.
And there’s no escape from reality...
When the movie is launched in London on October 23 generations of music fans will see singer Freddie Mercury brought back to life in the form of actor Rami Malek.
And guitarist Brian, 71, today salutes the American actor and his co-stars for doing justice to Freddie and the band some 27 years after the frontman died at the age of 45.
Brian, who co-produced the film, says: “Rami delivers a flawless performance. It’s much more than a simple portrayal of Freddie.
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“Rami completely inhabited Freddie for months, to the point where we sometimes forgot he was Rami. You can see this in the film.
“The four young actors who play the four of us in the movie developed a connective chemistry which mirrored our relationships in the band, seemingly without trying.
“Rami, at the fulcrum of it all, instinctively found Freddie’s inner sensitivities and insecurities that balanced and drove the powerful rock star, innovator, and liver of life.
“Nobody could have done a better job of putting our Freddie on the silver screen.”
The movie is a musical time capsule as the hits flow and flow... We Will Rock You, Killer Queen, We Are The Champions – and more.
Actor Gwilym Lee, 34, plays Brian, former EastEnders actor Ben Hardy, 27, is drummer Roger Taylor, 69, and Joseph Mazzello, 35, is bassist John Deacon, 67.
Thrilled Brian can barely contain his excitement as he adds: “This vision of Freddie and of us as Queen might just stun the world all over again.
“It was a memorable moment watching Rami ‘do’ Freddie on stage in full transformative accoutrements for the first time. Not to mention Gwilym and the boys doing me.
“Yet another experience I never dreamed I would have. Grateful!”
The movie charts the rise of the band, the period in the mid-80s where Freddie’s debut solo album was released after many had written Queen off – and their rise back to the top after their legendary Live Aid perfor- mance in 1985. It also documents Freddie’s sexuality and his AIDS diagnosis. He died in 1991 of bronchial pneumonia, a complication resulting from the disease, just 24 hours after confirming his diagnosis. It was back in 2010 that Brian and the band began planning the movie. Brian says: “We have one shot to make the Freddie movie and this is it. I took a bit of convincing whether the film should be made because Freddie was so unique – but if we don’t somebody else will. “And we want to make sure it is done right.” Comedy actor Sacha Baron Cohen, 46, was to play Freddie but he pulled out due to “creative differences”. Ben Whishaw, 37, was then lined up, but when he withdrew