“I don’t sing. I never touched a piano,” Rami Malek told filmmakers at his audition for Bohemian Rhapsody. That did not stop him from incarnating Freddie Mercury, Queen’s frontman until he died of AIDS, in a role that just earned Malek a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Drama and may be a prelude to an Oscar nod.
At a luncheon at the Russian Tea Room this week celebrating his achievement in Bohemian Rhapsody members of the academy praised his performance as he explained how he managed to electrify the screen. To get the right moves and music, he got Eddie Redmayne’s movement coach, and then he watched Mercury and danced around at home for a year. “When Brian May of Queen was on set, I did my best version of Freddie. I was working on him so long, I fell in love with him,” Malek gushed. “I keep blowing him kisses.”
Sure, this is 18th century Britain, marked by mention of that scabrous journalist Jonathan Swift, but Yorgos Lanthimos’ secret weapon is the humor that infuses this period drama that also features rabbits galore and a duck. Among other award recognitions, as they keep coming, will be some for Sandy Powell’s costumes. The three-time Oscar winner stepped up to the stage at a New York Film Festival post-screening Q&A to say that much had to be scrimped as a result of a low budget—as many have already seen, the court does not look it—and Emma Stone’s costume as a kitchen maid was fashioned out of old denim jeans.
Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura
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