Bohemian Rhapsody star Rami Malek on what Freddie Mercury and Mr Robot have in common

MR ROBOT star Rami Malek looked to his own youth to try to get inside the head of revered front man Freddie Mercury for Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody

ON THE face of it, Queen’s stadium-strutting front man Freddie Mercury and an anxious, depressed computer hacker have very little in common.

Certainly Rami Malek, who won an Emmy for playing cyber guru Elliot Alderson in three seasons of the Golden Globe winning drama, Mr Robot, thought so.

So he was a little mystified when the producers of the long awaited Queen biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, summoned him to Los Angeles, to discuss playing the revered front man of the ‘70s and ‘80s rock greats.

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“They appreciated my work in Mr Robot,” muses Malek on a recent trip to Australia to promote the film, a welcome return to the country where he spent a year filming Steven Spielberg’s WWII drama, The Pacific.

Rami Malek as the rock icon Freddie Mercury in a scene from Bohemian Rhapsody. Picture: Twentieth Century Fox

“I found that astonishing because what Elliot Alderson and Freddie Mercury have in common right off the bat, was absolutely nothing.”

But as he dug a little deeper, he found that the two characters actually shared many traits, specifically a search for home, family and their place in the world.

“They are both trying to identify,” he says.

“There’s an immense amount of inner turmoil they are struggling with, trying to accept exactly who they are in their young lives. Who knows how Elliott will turn out (Mr Robot’s fourth season next year will be the last) but we know that Freddie really started to feel comfortable in his own skin. But the idea of a deep and profound loneliness and possibly alienation exists in both of them.”

At first Malek was seriously daunted by the prospect of playing arguably the greatest front man in rock history (“I think he is — I mean my opinion may be biased but there is no one more electric on stage and as a front man”) but he came to realise that the key was not trying to immediately emulate the flamboyant, larger-than-life, hard-partying creator of hits such as Bohemian Rhapsody, Killer Queen, Somebody To Love and Crazy Little Thing Called Love.

Gwilym Lee (as Brian May), Ben Hardy (as Roger Taylor), Rami Malek (as Freddie Mercury) and Joe Mazzello (as John Deacon) in a scene from Bohemian Rhapsody. Picture: Twentieth Century Fox

Rami Malek and Gwilym Lee in Bohemian Rhapsody.

Rather, to get to know the rock superstar who took on the stage name Freddie Mercury, he first had to understand Farrokh Bulsara, the shy dreamer born in Zanzibar to Parsi parents and raised in India, who wrestled with his sexuality and his status as an outsider in conservative 1960s England.

As the son of Egyptian immigrants who moved to suburban Los Angeles, Malek could understand the feeling of not quite belonging and desperately wanting to prove himself.

“That scene where Farrokh Bulsara approaches the band to talk to the guys (Queen founders Roger Taylor and Brian May) was something I felt was straight out of my youth,” says Malek.

“Trying to prove yourself, not knowing if someone was going to accept you, why you look a little bit different but somebody couldn’t quite articulate what it was.

“It could have been things that I was projecting on to other people but I didn’t think so as a child. I thought ‘man, I am different. I look different, I sound different’.

“Yet there was this burning desire to do what I do for a living somewhere deep inside of me. And boy was it an enlightening moment when I could draw the parallels.”

Malek also worked hard on the physical transformation and his resemblance to Mercury becomes more and more uncanny as the film progresses towards the singer’s death of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1991 at the age of 45.

Not only were there the many wigs and distinctive choppers (the singer was born with four extra teeth, which supposedly contributed to his extraordinary vocal range), but Malek also listened to tapes of Freddie’s mother talking, and worked with dialogue and movement coaches to better capture his unique presence.

Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Brian May, Roger Taylor, Ben Hardy, Joe Mazzello, Gwilym Lee and Allen Leech attend the Carnaby Street Bohemian Rhapsody Light Installation in London this week. Picture: Getty

He also watched hundreds of hours of footage of the band performing — particularly the famous appearance at Live Aid, when their hastily cobbled together set blew away some of the biggest names in music.

His castmate Gwilym Lee, who plays guitarist May, was awe-struck by Malek’s commitment to the role and his bravery in taking on such a well-known and loved figure.

“People feel like they have a real ownership over Freddie Mercury and he is so adored so it was a challenging role to take on but I think he nailed it,” says Lee. “He put so much into it. It’s not just acting, it’s moving, dancing, singing — everything about it.”

Malek was helped in his task by the real May and drummer Taylor, who continue to tour the vast Queen catalogue with Adam Lambert out front (bass player John Deacon retired in 1997) and were very hands on in making sure that the band’s legacy was respectfully treated. But Malek’s most emotional moment on set came when May arrived on set one day with Freddie’s sister Kashmira in tow.

“It was a very emotional moment for both of us,” Malek says. “I think I quite surprised her. She obviously didn’t read a call sheet or know which version of her brother she was getting and to see him in his youth one day I think really took her back. Then we shared a lovely email after that really shook me and it’s something that I will hold dear to my heart for many, many years to come.”

Aside from the band’s extraordinary musical catalogue, which has spawned a hit musical, graced countless soundtracks and continues to be an FM radio staple to this day, Malek believes that Mercury also left a much more profound and poignant legacy that resonates more strongly than ever.

Malek says there are similarities between his Mr Robot character and Freddie Mercury.

“Given the time that he lived in where a guy named Farrokh Bulsara was questioning his sexual identity and going on stage as flamboyantly as he was I think is a testament to how revolutionary he was,” Malek says.

“I think he shattered every convention and stereotype of what it meant to be a performer and what it meant to exist as a human being and not be labelled in any way. I think he speaks so highly for inclusivity, something that we are all dire for in today’s world. He was a rule-breaker, an outsider, a dreamer and he never allowed himself to be slotted into traditional expectations. And that’s a message that should be resounding, if not now, then when?”

Bohemian Rhapsody opens on November 1.