Freddie Mercury, Rami Malek insists, is very much a hero to him. "I learned so much from him," he says. "So much of his stage persona was shaped by a struggle to find his own identity. Harnessing that and then coming out and sharing it with an audience of thousands is quite heroic to me, because it sends the message that it's okay to be exactly who you are." For the actor, the appeal of the role was never the spectacle but the man beneath it: a young person of humble beginnings who felt out of place from an early age, self-conscious about his teeth, searching for his sexual identity and living a complex life. "It would be enough to destroy someone. But the fact that he overcame all of that to be exactly what he wanted to be, it's a story that I get emotional just thinking about."
The hardest day, he says, came first. The production shot the entire Live Aid concert at the very start, and Malek piled enormous pressure onto the performance. "I had to put so much emphasis on that. I was worried that if I didn't get that right, then I wouldn't get anything else right. Emulating Freddie Mercury in one of the greatest rock performances in history – it was a little daunting. It was one of those moments, sink or swim." By the sixth day of staging the concert, he realised it was adrenalin carrying him through, the same fuel he could now see spiking and ebbing when he watched the real footage.
Determined never to look insecure on camera, Malek paid out of his own pocket to fly to London before the film had even been green-lit, taking singing, dancing and piano lessons so he would not be caught on the back foot. "I had to sing at the top of my lungs, which was tough because I am not a singer," he admits. Much of his own voice was later replaced with Mercury's, "because I think that's what fans want to hear." He was equally wary of caricature, wanting instead to capture Mercury's playfulness, mischief and joy of living – a note reinforced by the singer's sister, who reminded him on set that her brother "was an extreme perfectionist, but he also knew how to have a good time."
Even the prosthetic teeth became a way into the character. They flew out more than once, including during a take of 'We Will Rock You' when he hit the microphone too hard, and again when he gasped while lifting a heavy suitcase. He never grew fully comfortable with them, and chose not to. "I wanted to relate to the sense of vulnerability he felt, having to cover them up throughout his life," he says, noting that even in his final interview Mercury still shielded his mouth with his hands. Working alongside Mike Myers and the actors playing the band bred a genuine camaraderie and room for improvisation; it was Myers who ad-libbed the "funny angry lizard" line as Malek strode out in a white leather jacket. Asked what he would say if he could travel back to meet Mercury, the actor demurs. "I would be a fool to waste that time with the sound of my own voice. I'd just listen to what he has to say and be a fly on the wall."
