Film + TV

Sacha Baron Cohen explains why he quit role as Queen's Freddie Mercury

by Dan MacRae

Oh, Sacha Baron Cohen, you incorrigible so-so. The lanky gent responsible for Ali G, Borat and Brüno is currently making the media rounds to promote the hooligan spy comedy The Brothers Grimsby. (a.k.a. The movie that gave Donald Trump HIV.) Included in his North American pre-release chat visits was an interview with Howard Stern and some interesting details were pulled out of the 44-year-old Brit.

Remember that Freddie Mercury biopic that Baron Cohen was attached to forever before exiting the project? There’s a bit more to the story than advertised. Queen guitarist Brian May has previously claimed that Baron Cohen would be a distraction and drummer Roger Taylor said the band “didn’t want [the film] to be a joke.” Baron Cohen says things were a bit different from his perspective.

Speaking with the shock jock king, Baron Cohen says he wanted to do the film as a “warts ‘n’ all” type look at the legendary frontman with details of his wild life included in living colour. He says he clashed with the band on how the movie would go and was stunned to learn what the band had planned after Mercury passed on. Here’s how the comedian explained the scenario to Stern:

“A member of the band—I won’t say who—said, ‘You know, this is such a great movie because it’s got such an amazing thing that happens in the middle of the movie.’ And I go, ‘What happens in the middle of the movie?’ He goes, ‘You know, Freddie dies.’ … I go, ‘What happens in the second half of the movie?’ He goes, ‘We see how the band carries on from strength to strength.’ I said, ‘Listen, not one person is going to a movie where the lead character dies from AIDS and then you carry on to see how the band carries on.'”

Who wouldn’t buy a ticket to a Freddie Mercury movie to see Brian May triumphantly become a Liverpool chancellor?

Baron Cohen shared that he also had some impressive talent lined up to help craft the film, but those plans were nixed.

“They asked me to write the movie, but I said, ‘I don’t know how to write a biopic.’ So I got in Peter Morgan, [but] they didn’t like that. I brought in David Fincher who wanted to direct it, then Tom Hooper — they were very specific about how they wanted to do it. Listen, at the end of the day, it really was an artistic difference.”

What a movie that could have been. Instead, the Freddie Mercury biopic remains in development hell.

By the way, Sacha Baron Cohen’s The Brothers Grimsby will be hitting theatres on March 11.

[h/t The Guardian]