But a lot of his movements come from Bob Fosse. 'And then from then on we would just slowly but surely study people who inspired him - Liza Minnelli, Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie.

'Polly Bennett was the person that allowed me to discover how he sat, how he walked into a room, and how he articulated himself while he was being a little more aggressive, when he was shy - how he would hold a cigarette,' Malek said. To master this, he trained extensively with a movement coach. But emulating Mercury's wonderfully unique physical charisma provided a steep learning curve. To make every frame feel viscerally real, Malek had to put some of himself into the role. 'You want to understand him, you want to get as close as you can, but don't lose yourself entirely, As actors we're trying to get so far away from who we are, but I needed to hold onto so many things that I understood about him, that tethered us together.' 'I said Rami, this is not someone that you need to fully embody,' Malek said. In this case, empathy became more important than transformation. It was important for Malek to try and demystify Mercury's superhero nature and instead access his humanity. He's the closest thing we get to one of these Marvel characters.' 'What I realized is, here's a human being who appears to be superhuman at times. Everyone has a very particular relationship to him,' Malek said. 'I would say singing and that are the two biggest obstacles for me. The switch presented a challenge for Malek, who had to grapple with setting aside other people's expectations of what they thought a Freddie Mercury portrayal should look like. While he's still the credited director, he was fired for failing to show up on set with only a couple of weeks of production left.ĭexter Fletcher ended up filling his spot.

Freddie mercury teeth