Since Sacha Baron Cohen has a busy 2012 starring in (and promoting) The Dictator and Les Miserables, this week on the Howard Stern Show he said his commitments to those two projects have forced him to drop out of Quentin Tarantino‘s Django Unchained. But when questioned about whether he still planned to play Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury in a biopic, Cohen said that it was still in his future though very little progress has been made on the project.
It seems that the biopic is getting closer to production though, with Variety reporting that Stephen Frears (High Fidelity, The Queen) is the frontrunner to direct Baron Cohen in the rock star’s life story from a script by Stephen J. Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson (Nixon, Ali). Reportedly the film will not cover Mercury’s 1991 death as a result of AIDS and will conclude around the band’s climatic performance at Live Aid in 1985 (though I imagine it would end with text explaining his death on the screen, like most biopics). Sorry if that ruins it for you!
It still isn’t clear if Baron Cohen will sing — he obviously can, but Mercury isn’t the easiest singer to imitate (trust me, try going to a karaoke bar and chances are someone will botch a Queen song). Still, Baron Cohen’s ability to immerse himself in a role definitely makes this film interesting.
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